WHERE THERE'S SMOKE...

The whole of Glenrosa and now across the highway down to the lake has been evacuated. That means that The Cherry Pit is closed for business so Shonah won't be able to take Ashleigh and Rob for breakfast there as she had planned. Overnight, the fire has grown to 250 hectares and is showing no signs of being contained. They are still reporting that only 3 houses have burned down but I can't imagine that is still the case. I see on FaceBook that some friends who had just arrived at the camp on the mountain I went to as a teen were evacuated right away and now the week of Family Camp is canceled.

note: above pic taken from site of the '03 fire burned trees in foreground

Ashleigh calls me at about noon to tell me that they are on their way home. They have to drive the long way around as the highway out of town goes right through the fire so is closed. She is feeling much better today. I am thinking that she must have had food poisoning. Even if she ate what everyone else ate, some of the food was take-out and hers could have been from an old rotation.

We watch the news throughout the day and learn that there are now two new fires. One is an enormous one burning down the valley on Terrace Mountain. It is burning unchecked as there is nothing up there but a ranch or two whereas the Glenrosa fire and now the Rose Valley fire threaten whole subdivisions and even the town of Westbank. All firefighters are needed at those two fires. The Rose Valley fire is heading over a ridge where a friend of mine has a house. She writes on FaceBook that it is snowing ashes at her house.

Shonah comes over at about 3 and we drive out to the far Mission to see the fires from across the lake. All we see is a lot of smoke, no flames, and there are 3 helicopters scooping water from the lake and then dumping it on the mountain. I can see that the Rose Valley fire has crested the ridge and is now heading towards my friends home. We take some pictures and Shonah decides to come back later when it's dark to get some shots of fire.

We drive to White Spot to get some yam fries and as we are driving back into town, we now have a full view of the smoke rising from the Terrace Mountain fire. It's immense. There is a massive cloud that extends from the mountain all the way down the valley to over Winfield. It goes from one side of the valley right over to the other. As the sun goes down, the play of shadows and sunlight on the ground is surreal in color and looks almost painted on. If this keeps up, there will be no sunlight at all tomorrow.

If you click on the third picture to enlarge it, you will see a helicopter fighting the blaze with a bucket of fire retardant on a rope dangling below it.

GARAGE SALES, A SICK GIRL, A FOREST FIRE OR TWO OR THREE

Friday is here and I am excited about Rob and Ashleigh arriving today.

Shonah and Moriah, the daughter of my friend who I am staying with, are having a jewelry and purse party tonight at the house here. Moriah makes jewelry, and Shonah has my sewing machine and serger and has made a lot of purses and laptop bags. So Rob and Ashleigh are going to come over with her and the three of us will use the pool and I will order pizza for dinner while Shonah is inside selling her wares. I am really looking forward to it.

I spend most of the day reading the manuscript for a book my friend Loralee wrote. She wants my feedback on the story and her writing. She told me the plot of the story a week ago. She has had problems finding an agent to represent her as they just aren't interested in new authors while there is a recession. Publishers are sticking with established writers. I told her that I thought she might have a better chance if it was a screenplay; that I knew of several producers who were always looking for scripts that feature young people and her story is about a teenage girl. So we have decided to work together to turn it into a script. I get about a quarter of the way through before I have to stop because my head is starting to ache.

Shonah arrives with Ashleigh and Rob just after five. Ashleigh hasn't seen Donna and her kids for years and so she is shocked when she sees the girls and how grown up they are. They spend a bit of time getting caught up but people are arriving for the sale so the three of us head outside to the backyard and spend the next hour floating around the pool, having fun and talking. I am blissfully happy.

We order pizza and when it arrives, Shonah joins us as she hasn't had any dinner. The sun is going down behind the trees and the shade and breeze finally starts to give us some relief from the heat. It has been so hot the past few days that the pool is now a comfortable 78 degrees. Ashleigh comments on how much she loves the Okanagan and the weather here. I tell Rob, "One of my favourite experiences here is when you go to see a movie and when you come out of the theater, it's twilight and your skin is cool from the air conditioning inside but the air is warm and you can feel the heat of the day rising from the pavement. I love that feeling."

Shonah bops in and out of the house, keeping an eye on the sale of her bags, but wanting to be with us and visit. Eventually it grows darker and we head inside. The sale is pretty much over. Shonah sold 3 bags and Moriah has sold a lot of her jewelry. Shonah made $75 but Moriah made almost $400. Shonah is happy though. When she started out making bags, she didn't intend to sell them. She just made them because she liked bags but then realized that there was no way she could use them all. She said she has recouped her costs for fabric. Later she will have friends who heard about her bags and will contact her to buy more.

They leave at about 9 and Ashleigh reminds me to transfer season 5 of Lost from my external hard drive onto my laptop so I can put it on their external hard drive tomorrow. She can't wait to watch it.

Saturday I am up at 7 because they are coming to pick me up at 8 so we can hit the garage sales early.

At 8 there is no sign of them so I call Shonah and she tells me that they are on their way. The arrive shortly after and when I open the door to the knock, Shonah is there. She tells me that Ashleigh isn't feeling very well but not to make a big deal of it. Rob comes up behind her and he has a bag of DVD's for me - all the seasons of Magnum P.I. that I had left with them and had asked for them to bring. He also has his hard drive so we go to my room and plug it into my computer and start the transfer. As I am setting it up I ask Rob what is wrong with Ashleigh and he tells me she was restless all night, feeling sick and finally threw up. She is feeling achy all over and still feels nauseated.

When I get out to the car, I can see Ashleigh is not well at all. Even through her tan she looks pale and her perpetual smile and sunny disposition are replaced with a strained look and few words. But she really wants to try to keep up with the days plans and has an ice cream pail on her lap just in case. I tell her it takes me back to when she was little, she always got car sick on road trips so the ice cream pail was a permanent fixture in our mini van. She gives me a wan smile.














We get going and Shonah has a list of garage sales she found in the classifieds. We hit the first one and I buy a small cooler for the beach; a Coleman for $2. The one I have used for the past 25 years is in storage. I tell Rob that when I get it again, they can have this one. Shonah buys a small backpack that has all the dishes and utensils for a picnic secured in special pockets, and a stool that has a cooler bag underneath that also contains picnic dishes and utensils for one - all for $5. This is a great start to our day. We hit sale after sale and it seems everyone has the attitude of " eh - we just want it gone. Give me a dollar." and so we score bargain after bargain. Ashleigh and Rob get; a small red folding table for their deck for $2, BLOND shampoo and serum for $1.75, 8 LP albums for $15, a small electric fan for .50c, some kids books for Ashleigh's preschool for .25c each, electric beaters (I don't know what she paid), and other stuff I don't recall. Shonah, besides her picnic stuff, got an underwater Minolta camera for $5, lip gloss and mascara for $1 (all brand new in the box), a brand new wallet for $1. and some lovely cushion covers for $2. Besides the cooler, I got an electric fan for .50c, a set of silver plated, very ornate petite four tongs for .25c, and a pair of Robeez for $2. (Ashleigh wanted to buy them but didn't want to freak Rob out so asked me to get them and keep them for her) - they sell for $30 so a great steal, they look like they are brand new. Ashleigh can only walk around for about 15 minutes at a time, then she has to go back to the car to wait for us.

Around 10 o'clock we decide to stop going to garage sales, the small trunk of Shonah's car is almost as full as we can get it, and go to the grocery store to get some things for our picnic. Shonah has brought some cooked chicken, iced tea, and veggies. I brought some crackers and cookies. We buy some cheese, more drinks, some bread and some dip. Rob tries to pay for it all but I won't hear of it and force a $20 into his hand. We cram all of the groceries into the back of the car. We got some ginger ale for Ashleigh who still feels very ill. She takes some more Pepto Bismal and sips on the ginger ale and tries to eat a bit of bread. We drive over the bridge to the west side where Green Bay Bible Camp is.

It's a gorgeous day. The sun is turning the waters of Okanagan lake into a carpet of dazzling diamonds. There isn't a cloud in the sky and there isn't much traffic on the roads. We get to the camp in record time and the girls wax very nostalgic as we pull into the road that leads into the grounds. The properties on either side of the camp used to be campgrounds for tenters and motor homes. Both have been sold since the girls worked at the camp and now there is a subdivision of multi million dollar homes on the left and a condominium complex on the right. The horses that grazed in the field for as long as I can remember are gone. The buildings on either side of the camp can be seen over the fence to the left and through the trees to the right and,as far as we are concerned, the ambiance of the camp has been destroyed. I comment on how the camp that I used to attend as a teen, just behind us up the mountain, has since been surrounded by a subdivision and thus you don't feel like you are away from it all anymore. The area is now called Glenrosa and all it is is houses the entire way up the mountain. I haven't gone back in years, and don't want to.

We spend only half an hour walking around the camp and down to the beach as the girls point out places to Rob that mean something to them. They both worked here, at different times. They were trained as counselors, first as LITES then SLUGS (both acronyms - Leaders In Training, and Student Leader Under God). Then Ashleigh worked for pay for two years as a counselor and life guard. Shonah worked her way up over 5 years from counselor to Program Director for pay. She loves this place and had given serious thought in the spring to taking the summer off work this year to come back as a director again.


We drive up the hill to Mission Hill Vineyards and through the huge wooden gates onto the lush green property. "It feels like we are driving into Jurassic Park." I say and start to hum the theme tune and we all laugh. We find parking and walk up to the buildings. The place is huge and it feels like we are far away from the Okanagan and in Tuscany. The walls are a soft peach stucco and roofs are red tile. There is a huge archway leading into the main compound and the view of the lake is framed with an outdoor restaurant on the left and a trellised walkway on the right. In front of us is a large grassy area that leads to an amphitheater that has been sculpted out of the hill and grassed in. In the summer they have presentations of music and Shakespeare plays. I would love to attend one sometime. It must be fabulous to be here in the cooling heat of the day as the sun lowers and turns the lake and sky into shades of lavender and pink.

Ashleigh is needing to find shade and sit. We walk over to an area that has some tables and chairs and a small fountain. We sit there as Shonah goes to find out if we can move our tour ahead an hour from 3:30 as we are way ahead in our schedule. We have just found out that we aren't allowed to picnic on the grounds. Shonah is disappointed. She tells us that the vineyards in Vernon welcome picnics and she thought it would be the same here. She comes back and tells us that we can't move the tour earlier as they are all booked up. We decide to drive down to the lake and have our picnic there.

We find a table in the shade at a small picnic area right on the sand and set up the food we brought. Ashleigh just lays her head down on the table and doesn't want to eat. We are subdued as the three of us eat our lunch. It is unfortunate that Ashleigh is so sick and it takes the fun out of the day as we are all concerned for her. We try to have some conversation but mostly just eat in silence. As we are almost finished, Ashleigh is feeling much worse and says she is going to throw up. Shonah runs to the car for the ice cream pail and Ashleigh sits down under a tree. Rob sits with her and Shonah returns with the pail in the nick of time. I take a towel down to the water and wet one end of it. I bring it back and dab at Ashleigh's forehead. When she was a little girl and was sick to her stomach I would hold a cold wet face cloth to her forehead and I remember her telling me years later how much she loved that. She is done with the pail so I take it down to the lake to wash it out and when I come back, she has the towel wrapped around her neck to cool down. Shonah and I pack the picnic back up and get everything into the car.

Ashleigh asks if there is time to take her back home and then make it back for the tour. We all say to forget the tour, we will just call it a day and get her into bed. She feels really bad and wants us to keep on with the day but we won't hear of it. I offer to have her come back to my place and sleep in my bed because the house is air conditioned, and then Rob and Shonah can use the pool - and so can Ashleigh if she thinks it will help her cool off. But she decides that she just wants to go back to Shonah's and try to sleep before the bar-b-que and that she doesn't want to have to move again once she is settled. So it is decided that they will drop me off at home and then continue to Shonah's.

I am disappointed that my short amount of time with them has been cut even shorter now, but it can't be helped and I don't say a word about how I am feeling. We get to my place and I give Ashleigh a hug and kiss and tell her that I hope she is feeling better soon and that I am sorry her time was spoiled. She lets me stroke her hair and kiss the top of her head without pulling away. It seems lately that I have to be careful how much affection I show her as she is trying to redefine our relationship now she is a married woman. But being ill has broken that down and I have been a little taken aback at how she has let me mother her - spooning Pepto into her mouth after she threw up, dabbing her head and face with the towel, and now this. It warms my heart.

Rob comes into the house with me to get his hard drive and I walk him back outside. We hug and he tells me that they will come back some time this summer and spend more time with me. I tell him I would love that. I go back to the car and Ashleigh opens her door so I walk to her. "Mom, I keep forgetting to tell you this but you are looking so good." she says. "Awe, thank you." I say back. "Have you lost more weight?" "I don't know, I hope so." I say. "I can tell you have," she says, "You look great." I kiss her again and she closes the door and they drive off, waving goodbye.

I walk to the house but I have to stop at the door. My eyes are full of tears and there are people in there buying more jewelry from Moriah. I am not sure why I am crying, I think because I am not going to see them again for a long time, but then again I seem to cry easily these days. I don't want to look like an idiot. I pull myself together and go inside. Donna is in the kitchen with Barb, a woman I knew when I lived here back in the 90's and haven't seen since. We hug and get reacquainted. Soon they leave and I go up to my room. I just want to sit down and have a good cry but I don't. I change into a bathing suit and cover-up and take a book and go out to the pool. I sit and read a while and then take a quick dip to cool off. As I sit back down and read, I start to smell something burning in the air. I look up and I can see that the clouds are tinged with brown. Something is on fire.

An hour or so later, I go in the house and Donna tells me that Glenrosa is on fire. That is the subdivision that surrounds my old camp. We watch the news and learn that the whole mountain has been evacuated and that the fire is now 50 hectares big. As the night progresses, the fire jumps the highway and now the evacuations have started right down to the lake. Then we hear of another fire on this side of the lake just west of the airport. Later we hear of yet another one farther down the lake. It reminds us of the huge fires of 2003 where almost 300 homes were lost and thousands of hectares burned. I was here when that happened and it was like being in Dante's 7th circle of hell. I remember at night how the whole sky was red. The fire was so fierce that it started it's own weather system. I remember walking out to my car and it was covered in ash and branches of grey pine needles that, when I touched them, dissolved into a pile of ash. We are all hoping this fire doesn't grow that large.

LIFE IN THE SUNNY OK

The trip up to Kelowna is fun and uneventful. Shonah drives all the way, despite my offer to relieve her at any time. When we get to my friend Donna's house, we unload my stuff and the girls keep going.

Donna shows me to my room. It's empty of any furniture except for a small table. Apparently, her daughter just moved out of the room today to take up her newly married brother's recently vacated room downstairs. Donna's husband appears, hauling a mattress to put on a wooden pallet on the floor. Voila! I have a bed.

I dump my bags in the room and then go back downstairs to have a cup of tea and get caught up with Donna. She is tells me that they are happy I am back in B.C. and really glad to have me stay with them until the end of the summer. She is excited about my interview on Tuesday with Disney Online Studios (as Club Penguin is now called) and tells me that they receive hundreds of resumes for every job posting so it's amazing that I have made it to the interview stage.

I head off to bed tired and with a huge headache, it seems I am not over the concussion yet, but happy to be with good friends again. Malcolm has made up my bed for me while I was downstairs and I sink into it gratefully. It doesn't take long for me to drop off.

The next morning, Donna gives me a handful of coat hangers so I can start to put away my clothes but it isn't going to be anywhere near enough so she suggests that I drop her at work and take the van for anything I need to do. Once I drop her off, I drive to WalMart and buy a package of 30 regular, as well as four skirt, hangers. I am sick of spending my precious dollars on hangers!! Especially when I have a big box full of them in storage but I need them and so there isn't much I can do about it. I also stop at Home Sense for a pillow as the one I had last night is too thin and I woke up with a headache and a sore neck. When I get home I discover that I am about 20 coat-hangars short. I should have bought two 30 packs. Later in the week I go back and get another.

When Donna comes home she tells me that their family has plans to go to Birch Bay for the weekend. They are using a condo on the water that a friend of theirs owns. One of their daughters can't go because her passport hasn't arrived in time so she asks me if I want to join them. I say that I don't want to intrude on family time away together but she insists that she wants me to come. So I agree to go. It seems funny to finally be back in Canada and now I am gong back to the states in a few days.

Donna's dad is in his 80's and lives in a suite attached to the house. A cleaning woman comes once a week to clean his place, and it is paid for by the government. Donna pays her extra and she cleans the rest of the house as well. Apparently the woman just quit to pursue other work and Donna wants to know if I would want to take the job over while I am here to make some money. If not , she is going to hire someone else but wanted to see if I was interested first. I say, sure, I will do it. I plan to do it on Thursday but when the day arrives, my head is still killing me and I can barely get off the couch all day.

Tuesday I go for my interview with Disney. I am interviewed by the head of HR and the head of Research and Development and they have a lot of questions for me. I am there for two hours and it goes very well. The next day, the head of HR tells my daughter (who works there) that she 'loved' me and would hire me tomorrow if it was up to her. That gives me a lot of hope. I won't hear for a while though, as this is a new position for a new team and the start date has not been finalized yet.

I get a call from the insurance adjuster for the mall. They want to make me an offer. The guy says he wants to meet with me to take a statement as to what happened but when I tell him I am going to be in the Okanagan for the summer, he asks me to write it all down and email it. I go to my blog, cut and paste my account of it from there, edit it so it doesn't sound so much like a blog, and send it to my son to see what he thinks. He tells me that, other than it sounding more like a novel, it's fine. So I send it off wondering how much money they will offer me.

Just after I got up here, a friend sent me an invitation to a cocktail party being held by the Okanagan Film Commission for crew up here to meet some producers who plan to shoot a movie in the fall in and around Kelowna. I go to the meeting and it turns out that the producer is a woman I have worked for in the past and got along really well with. She tells me that she is thrilled that I am up here and would be able to work on the show as it is a first time director and he will need a strong script supervisor. The job is mine if I want it. I tell her i would love to do it if I am not working for Disney by then. She tells me to let her know as soon as I know either way. I promise that I will. I also spend a bit of time talking to the head of the Film Commission and find out that there is only one script supervisor in the Okanagan and that there is a lot of work headed this way come the next year. He tells me to send him my resume and that he will pass it along to the producers of a TV series starting up in the fall.

Friday morning we leave early to get down to Birch Bay. I have the back seat of the minivan all to myself and I brought my pillow so I lay down and sleep part of the way. My head is still not right and I find I am tired a lot during the day. The miles go by quickly and before I know it, we are in Abbotsford. I notice that we drive right past the exit to the Sumas crossing, the one Donna said they wanted to use and I assume that, while I slept, they decided to use a different crossing. We pass the exit for the Aldergrove crossing about fifteen minutes later and soon see a sign saying the next three exits are for Langley.

"Why are we in Langley?" Donna asks, "Did we miss our exit?" I tell her that, if they wanted Sumas, we passed it half an hour ago. She isn't happy but I tell her that if they take the first Langley exit, we can cross at the 176th Street crossing. So for the next 20 minutes I give them directions as to how to get there. I direct Malcolm all the way down to zero avenue so that we can bypass any lineup on 176th and when we get there, there is a huge line-up and we enter it very close to the border without a problem.

I haven't been to Birch Bay in over 20 years and when we get there, nothing much has changed. There are no stores except for a small corner grocery. This place has such potential but it seems the residents would rather it stay the way it's always been. Our condo is lovely and looks out over the water. There is a loft bedroom upstairs that Malcolm and Donna will use, and another bedroom on the main floor with two twin beds and a huge deck outside the sliding glass doors. This is where Bethany and I will stay.

We stop long enough to drop our bags off and put the bit of food we brought into the fridge and then Donna is chomping at the bit to go shopping. She has talked of nothing but Ross since we got going and she can't wait to get there. We pile back in the car and drive another half an hour down the freeway into Bellingham where there is a Ross across the street from Bellis Fair Mall. We spend the next two hours combing through all the racks and shelves and in the change rooms trying on armfuls of clothing. I buy two tops, a long black dress, and a black purse. Donna buys about a dozen tops, some pants, and 4 or 5 pairs of shoes for herself; a couple of dresses and matching shoes for her daughter -in-law and the daughter that couldn't come; and 4 or 5 shirts and 3 pairs of shoes for Malcolm. Her cart is piled high.

We then head over to the mall where, apparently, Macy's has an incredible sale on. She finds a pair of Calvin Klein Jeans marked down from $175 for $12. She also buys another pile of shirts and who knows what else. I find one sweater top I like but I don't buy it. I can't afford to be shopping like this. The next day, Donna goes back and gets some more bargains and gets the top for me. She won't let me pay her for it.

We grab dinner at the food court in the mall and then stop at a grocery store on the way back to pick up some food for the rest of the weekend. The store also has a clothing section and I find a rack full of lots of different styles of flip flops for $6.99. They are buy one get one free so I find two pair in my size and toss them into the cart. If I had more money to spare, I would get some for my daughters as well but I just don't. Besides, I don't know what they would like, their tastes have changed a lot since they lived at home.

We get back to the condo, watch a movie - Martian Child, it's very good, and then head to bed. The next morning, after breakfast, Donna and Malcolm go back to the mall and I stay back with Bethany. I am all shopped out and I want to enjoy the gorgeous sunshine. Once we are dressed, Bethany and I go for a walk on the beach. We are out there for about 10 minutes and we are both freezing cold. It's a sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky, but the wind off of the water is has a bite to it and it's too cold for what we are wearing. We go back to the condo for something warmer to wear but, once we are inside, neither of us feel like being in the cold wind. The deck off of our bedroom is sheltered from the wind so I decide to change into my bathing suit and read in the warm sunshine. Bethany goes up to the loft and watches TV all day.

Malcolm and Donna were only supposed to be gone for a couple of hours, but it is dinner time before they return. We make dinner together and then sit in the sunshine on the deck until it is too cold to sit out there once the sun goes down.

We were supposed to stay until Monday morning, but at breakfast on Sunday Donna tells me that we are going home today. Her brother has hip surgery tomorrow and they couldn't find anyone to drive him to the hospital so they will need to be back to do it. I spend the day on the deck in the sunshine again while everyone else is up in the loft watching TV. By 4 o'clock we are all packed up and in the car ready to drive back home. I enjoyed relaxing on the deck in the sunshine and reading my book. It was nice to be by the water even if it was too chilly to be on the beach. It felt great to be able to sit out in the warm sunshine without sweating and needing to jump in the pool every 5 minutes. Not that I minded the heat and the pool in Florida AT ALL.... I love the heat, but it's just a different heat here, less intense and a lot less humidity, and it's nice.

Monday I get stuck into cleaning the house and doing the laundry for her dad. It's a big house and it hasn't been cleaned in a while and so it takes me all day. I have a pounding headache and am exhausted by the time I am done.

There is a huge in-ground pool in the backyard and I am dying to go swimming in it, but it's in dire need of cleaning. Apparently, a young friend of the family offered to upkeep it in exchange for use of it to teach a diving class. He hasn't kept up his end of the deal. I offer to vacuum it but when I go outside to do it, the vacuum doesn't seem to be sucking anything up so I give up after half an hour. A few days later, Malcolm cleans it all up ready for a pool party for Bethany's birthday. It looks great but when I go dip my toe in, it's freezing cold. I check the thermometer and it's 70 deg. WAY too cold to swim in. It's hot out and the pool looks so inviting so it is torture. I eventually do go in, a few days later when it has crawled it's way up to 74 deg. It's really hot out and so use my pop-up floaty thing to float around the pool and stay cool.

Friday morning, two of Donna's friends come over. They meet regularly, just like my Mom's group in Langley, and they have been praying for me while I was gone. I know both of the women from when I lived in Kelowna for three years in the early 90's so it's good to see them again. They ask me lots of questions about my trip and about my interview with Disney. The company is a huge deal up here and everyone knows someone who is working there. The three guys who started it go to local churches, one of which is Donna's church so many of the kids who have worked in the CR department since it's inception as Club Penguin are youth from the church.

I beg to be excused before they are done as I am meeting a good friend from the film business for lunch. We worked together on jPod and have stayed in touch since the show ended. Her husband is in the film business as well but the two of them sold their home in Vancouver and bought property in Oliver and have built and recently opened their own bed and breakfast and named it High Chaparral. She is coming to Kelowna to stock up on provisions at Costco and called to see if we could get together. I am to wait for her at the Mac's store just around the corner from where I am staying. Unfortunately, I told her to make a right where she should have made a left and so it takes a while, and a phone call to me, to find me. When I climb into her SUV, it is great to see her again. She is looking happy and well rested. We head up the road to a Japanese restaurant and spend a very nice hour or so talking about film, my trip, her B&B, and having a few good laughs. She really wants me to come down to Oliver to see the cabin they built for the B&B and I will as soon as I have a vehicle to make the trip.

On the weekend, Bethany has her birthday party but no one uses the pool as the water is just way too cold. The girls spend most of the time downstairs in her room.

I spend a lot of time tidying up and keeping the kitchen cleaned up. Donna has a crazy schedule due to the pastor of her church taking a sabbatical and she has picked up a lot of the work load. The kitchen tends to accumulate a lot of clutter as soon as my back is turned.

The weather has turned cool here, with big heavy clouds covering up all the blue sky. If the sun pokes out, it's a warm sun, but mostly the sun is behind a canopy of thick grey clouds and it's breezy and cool. Where is the gorgeous Okanagan summer Kelowna is famous for? I hope it comes back.