Wasn't that a party!

Conditions at 5:15 am: a large full moon and a few clouds and 4'
Expected later: 7' and maybe sun and cloud, with a chance of showers


Well, yesterday morning, I did sleep in but did manage to start my blog post. I intended to finish it when I got to work, but due to technicalities which I won't go into here, that didn't happen. So when you get to the end of today's report, you can continue on and read about our weekend!
Monday was a decent day but windy, making it seem colder than it was and limiting what you could do outside. Lloyd and Tristen managed to keep themselves occupied for the day. When I got home we went over to the Van Gaals for a delicious roast beef supper. It turned out to be a  later evening than usual and we were all very tired by the time we left. Lloyd was trying to perform some kind of surgery on Bernie's printer or something and it's not done yet, but they are going to give it another go. Brenda is still fighting her cold and she looked very tired and weary by the end of the night and I can sympathize with how she feels.
There are smelts running in the streams and rivers here so rumour has it that Lloyd and Tristen are going smelt fishing this morning. I'm not sure why they call it fishing when you dip a net into the water and simply scoop out the fish, but apparently that's how it's done. So with any luck, fish for supper tonight.
Brenda reports that the benefit on Sunday night raised $29,000 - not bad for a small hall full of people (very generous ones at that)

Now, back to Monday's post:

Well, it was an ECMA kind of weekend. Lloyd and Tristen arrived on Friday afternoon and I picked them up and gave them my car. They went into town and had lunch at the Olde Dublin Pub, then did a few errands until time to pick me up at 5:30. We dropped Lloyd off at the Van Gaal's on the way home so he and Bernie could go into town. It seems Bernie had been in the night before, while Brenda was driving folks around and he had a wonderful time. So the two of them went in again on Friday night and had a grand time. It was the wee small hours of the morning when they arrived home.

A very serious competitor

Saturday got off to a bit of a slow start, but all was well. After breakfast, I gave Lloyd "The List" and he seemed okay with it. He spent the morning first by boosting the truck, then cleaning out the shed. There was a lot of stuff in there that made it's way into the back of the truck to be taken to the garbage. After lunch he finished and then worked on installing the stand on the log splitter. All the while his trusty helper, Tristen, worked diligently at bringing in wood. Sorry mom and dad, but we've decided we're going to keep him. He spent a very long time filling the cart with logs, then actually hauled it to the house, which I found amazing, then he brought them inside one by one. Once the pile on the rack got too high, I helped by taking them from him and putting them up on top. He was an amazing little worker. He said he was in a competition and he was in the lead. I asked who else was in the competition and he said James was, but his logs had fallen over so he was disqualified, but Meghan was still in.  At the end he was the big winner. The funniest part of the whole day was later when I went to get a log to put on the fire. He had this look of total disbelief on his face as he told me "Grandma, don't take them from THERE!" All his hard work, about to go up in smoke!
We spent a quiet evening just having supper then watching some TV.

The Delta burger

Sunday we were up early as I had baked some cakes to take to the benefit on Sunday evening. I bake three and one still needed to be iced. I made breakfast and then proceeded to finish my cake, while Lloyd went off  to the store for coffee with the guys. Tristen watched some TV but mostly played with his DSI. We had tickets for the Song Writers Circle concert at the Delta and Caitlin was going to look after Tristen. At 11:00 we were all ready and headed over to the Van Gaals. Tristen was okay with staying there while the four of us went to town. We enjoyed a great concert and then a burger at the Delta restaurant. It was good but not as good as the Olde Dublin's.

While we were there, we ran into Richard and Daralen. It was decided that the 3 guys would come back into town after the benefit for the 'after party'.

The benefit for Pam and Jimmy was a huge success. I took along my cakes for the auction and what an event. Cakes were selling for hundreds of dollars. In fact my orange and chocolate cake sold for $210.00 - of course it was Lloyd and Bernie trying to outbid each other. Richard bought the Bacardi rum cake but I don't know how much that one went for and Daralen bought the Pina Colada cake and I think it was around $110.00 she paid for that one. It's good to have good friends - but especially good for Pam and Jimmy. There was one item on the silent auction table that Tristen had his heart set on winning. It was a stuffed red bull complete with horns and a very scary face. It was combined with a bunny hat and two pairs of woolen mitts. There was a bid of $5 on it so I bid $10.  Then someone came along and bid $15 so I increased it to $20 and that's where it stayed, or so we thought. Lloyd checked it just a couple of minutes before the end and we were still the winners. Then when it was over, we went down later to see if we could pay and we were truly disappointed to learn that someone had bid $30 at the last second. Poor Tristen was so sure he had won and was sad but he took it very well. He had a very sad face but he didn't cry or complain at all. I was very proud of him for that. Then much later in the evening we went back downstairs to wait for Brenda, who was paying her bill, and the lady who had outbid us was there talking to Brenda. Brenda mentioned to her that her friend was bidding against her for her grandson, who really wanted to red bull. Well, it turned out all she really wanted was the bunny hat for her granddaughter and she had no idea what she was going to do with a red bull. So along came Tristen and she was ever so pleased to give him the bull. Let me tell you, that was one happy little boy. He was sure lucky that Brenda just happened to be there when she came to collect her winnings. By this time it was quite late, the guys had left for town and it was time for us to go home and get some sleep. Lloyd wandered in at 3:00 after the three of them took a taxi out from town and apparently a good time was had by all. Fortunately Lloyd didn't have too good a time because he was up at 7:00 before I left for work.