CELEBRATION OF LIFE PREPARATIONS

     

 We saw this eagle on Denman Island which you drive across to get to Hornby

Georgia on Hornby Island with Vancouver Island mountains behind

Aileen and Mitzy with Georgia and her Auntie Nan

I found a horse for Georgia and I to ride

 I have been designing a template to make a brochure to hand out to celebration of life attendees at my Dad’s service which is on April 9^th.  My brother Charlie’s father in law (Sheila’s Dad) passed away last Friday and his celebration of life is being held this coming Sunday, April 2^nd.  I switched gears and inserted his information into the template and spent quite some time getting everything looking as good as possible.  A really neat feature Sheila’s family came up with was to have all seven grandchildren contribute one memory each of their grandfather which I then put on the two inside pages.  I think all the memories were exceptional and will make interesting reading for those attending.  Sheila and I took the brochure to a print shop yesterday and in a few minutes they ran off 300 copies for us.  We had considered printing them all here but that was much easier and probably no more expensive.  I had earlier assisted with writing the obituary.

We have been looking at property here on Vancouver Island with a view to purchasing a lot on which we could build a garage  for storage and be able to park the motor home when we are in the area.  The idea would be to eventually build a little house for our later retirement years when we would do less travelling.  So far all we have found in our price range has been junk or too restrictive such as no RV parking or house must be built within one year or house must be larger than we plan on building.

We have been bartering for our parking space here at Charlie’s and Sheila’s lately by having fires to burn brush and debris both close to the buildings and out in the bush.  Aileen really enjoys tending a fire.  I have been able to play around on the backhoe/loader as some of my contribution.  The only part of my former working life I miss is running equipment.  I may get fired though as I ran the tractor out of fuel this morning.  I dug my ATV out of where I had it hidden all winter and it started and ran just fine.  Mitzy enjoyed a ride out to the bush this morning on it.

Aileen and I went with my sister Janet and John for supper at Fish Tales Restaurant last night, their treat.  Not sure what the occasion was but a free meal is a bonus in my book.  Thanks guys!!  We sat and chatted quite awhile in the restaurant then went to their house and played some SkipBo, their first time. 

We enjoyed our trip to Hornby Island last Thursday to Saturday.  Our granddaughter’s aunt and uncle had Georgia there for the weekend at the B&B they own in partnership with two other couples and they had invited us to join them for a couple nights.  The house is right on the ocean and very peaceful. 

The view from our bedroom

 The downside is that we paid $71 for the two ferry rides which were only about 9 and 7 minutes in duration and the same on the return.  A total of 30-32 minutes on the water so I thought it was rather pricey for two of us in a little car. We did some exploring each day and lots of walking.  One of the highlights was visiting the free store at the recycling depot.   You just find what you like and away you go, no payment required.  There was some pretty good quality stuff in there but of course, we already have lots of “stuff” so all I took were a few music CDs hoping to find some music suitable for slide shows.  I don’t think anything I took will work though.  I guess I’m going to have to figure out how to get suitable music off the internet.

Inside the free store

Georgia outside the free store

One of the local artists had a rather unique driveway sign

Think deer might be a problem?

The herring are just finishing spawning so lots of seagulls in the area 

A view along the cliffs of Hornby Island in Helliwell Park; Denman Island then Vancouver Island showing up in the distance