Memorial Weekend

Weekend of 5/26-5/28, 2007

We brought up Nicky and Jean, who stayed in the guest cabin. Unfortunately the guest cabin still doesn't have hot water--I checked the power to the water heater, and that's fine. The power is also getting through the top thermostat to the top element. The bottom ones don't seem to be getting power, though. So I've pulled out the thermostats to replace them first. If that doesn't fix it, I'll be draining the water heater, pulling the elements, and running to the hardware store next weekend.

The weekend turned out to be a good weekend, although it did start out cold and got a bit wet. Once the rain dried up on Monday, though, it heated up to almost 80. Nicky and Graham got a lot of fishing in, and the two along with Jean went for a nice canoe ride with fishing all along the south shoreline.

Friday night we had a good time playing Euchre late into the night and eating cheese, crackers, and summer sausage.

Hometown delivered the new shed during the week, and it's great. It looks like there were a few complications with delivery, though. The leveling I did had him putting the door-side of the shed towards the side I had to dig down about 7". But the door only has about 5" of clearance between it and the ground, so the doors wouldn't open. It looks like he set it where I wanted it and found out that wouldn't work, so he picked it back up onto the truck moved ahead 6 inches and set it back down. This put the front of the shed outside of where I leveled the ground. So this weekend I jacked the shed up using the jack for the 4Runner, put bigger blocks under the back half and leveled it a bit better. To keep skunks and other critters from going under there, I put hardware cloth all along the bottom and then covered it with dirt. I think it will work great.

I mounted the winch on the lawn mower, so that will hopefully assist in pulling various things out of the lake such as boat lifts, dock sections, or even the lawn mower itself if necessary (though I hope not).

As part of mowing the lawn with the new mower, I decided to finally take care of that broken picnic table. Since we were probably going to need it for Kristin, Dave, their kids, Grandma, and Judy's visit for supper on Sunday, I decided to repair it. Without any cedar to use, I decided to just use pine boards. It won't last as long, but it worked for the weekend and will maybe last a year or two.

The Sunday evening supper party was fun. We grilled brats, hot dogs, hamburgers and asparagus. Grandma brought beef stew, and we had baked beans and a few salads. I think everyone had a good time. We ended it with a campfire down by the dock with smores for desert.

Liz mowed the remaining grass where the rider couldn't go, and I finished off the remaining long grass with the weed whip just in time to leave on Monday evening.

Favorite Things:

• Graham: Canoing with GJ and Auntie Nicky
• Ian: Watching Clifford Puppy Days with Auntie Nicky
• Shaun: BBQ with Judy, Grandma, Kristin, and all
• Liz: Making chicken shish kabobs on grill
• GJ:
• Nicky: