Camping at Premier Lake

This past weekend Daryl and I went camping with his family at Premier Lake which is about 45 minutes from our home. This was the first time I (Karen) have been fishing since childhood, so I was very excited to be out in the boat. we used a gang troll (Long shiny, flickery thing to attract the fish) and worms for bait. I caught a Rainbow trout which the family referred to as a "monster minnow" and Daryl caught 5 much larger, nicer looking fish, but had to put one back as it was spawning. (Reddish pink stripes up the sides of the fish) The day we were fishing was 24 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Lovely! Here are some action shots, none of them picturing my little fish as it's too embarrassing to take a picture of. The lake was named "premier" in honor of William Smithe who was the seventh premier of B.C. We actually couldn't find out WHY he had this honour, however, we readily admit we didn't look very hard. This lake is the main resource for rainbow trout fish eggs and the local hatchery (seen in previous blog entry) stocks about 40% of the rainbow trout population in all of the B.C lakes.

Camping May Long Weekend

May long weekend we went out to Kukanusa lake (which is actually more like a very low river due to the Libby Dam in America). We set up the week before and stayed a couple of nights before everyone came out for the big party. Our friend Sandy turned 40 this year and her husband decided to throw her a "birthday in the bush" complete with lots of guests and a live band with generators to run their equipment. Yep..... that's how we do it in "the 'brook."

The Basement

slightly better colours...... and eventually we will have new window coverings and maybe some furniture. sigh..... all in good time.

The old basement...... the previous owners even wallpapered the lightswitch covers in this disaster! Note the cat's entrance way into the other part of the basement. Through this door is where I found a huge pile of dried cat poop!

So we have basically finished with the upstairs of the house, with the exceptions of touch ups and some trim work/fiddley things and have thus moved onto the basement. Here is a before shot of the basement with the beautiful "Navajo Red" colour and hideous wallpaper from circa 1984. We patched seventeen milllion holes in these walls and it took special tinted primer to cover the red. Eventually we will drywall the celing and change the carpet but for now we are just happy to get rid of the 80's theme.

March Break

Getting wood....... one of Shayla's favorite past times.

Here Gavin is feeding the fish chunks of stale bread.

This is the tank where the "teenager" fish hang out and grow bigger. There is a special name for all different ages of fish which Shayla knew as she was studying the fish life cycle in school, however, I simply called them "teenager" fish as I have no idea about the stages of fish development

After several gutterballs, shayla tried the "two-handed-between-the-legs-lob" and was quite successfull!

Now that we (a.k.a the "Staples geek squad") have recovered some of our pictures since the crash, we will try to catch everyone up on what has been going on in our lives. Gavin and Shayla (a.k.a shifty) came out for a visit during spring break. some of our activities included a tour of the fish hatchery (were they grow the fish that they restock the lakes with every year) and bowling. We even picked up some firewood along the way (much to Shayla's disapointment) which Daryl had cut and left in the bush in October. We were actually out looking for game to show the kids, when he remembered he had left it to dry. Sadly, all we saw that day were deer, nothing more interesting, as the bears were sleeping that time of year and the elk were all bedded down that time of day. We also had a chance to go up into the bush with Rylan (cousin) and we rode their families quad, roasted smokies and shot the pellet guns.