Monday, August 5th - Happy Civic Holiday to our Ontario friends (and some islanders as well)

Hope you're all having a lovely long weekend. It's work as usual for most of us out here today. Some companies have the day off but that's fairly rare. We'll get our long weekend in another couple of weeks.

It was a beautiful weekend weather wise, and it should continue into this week. RIght now, at 5:04 am it's 17' and our high today will be a comfortable 23'.

Friday night we had a wedding at the Rec Centre so that made for a fairly long day. The up side of it was that it left Saturday afternoon and evening free.  I met Lloyd and Brenda at the Trailside on Saturday after work and we enjoyed entertainment by Margie and Vince and a couple of beverages.  Later on Lloyd looked at Brenda's computer that's been having some issues, before we reconvened at our house for a bit of supper.  After eating, Brenda went home and Lloyd and I ventured out to a small community hall to listen to a couple of musicians who are transplanted Newfies. It was quite an enjoyable evening.

Sunday morning Lloyd and I met with a young woman and her family up in Savage Harbour to iron out some details for her wedding next Saturday. We're going to be doing some cooking for them and it should be interesting. Brenda's going to help us out with it and it should be good as she knows the parents involved. Ironically the groom is from Guelph and his parents are known to frequent the same pub Lloyd and his airport buddies hang out at so they have probably crossed paths before. Small world!

After our meeting, we met up with Brenda at the Community Hall in Tracadie for the pancake breakfast, the first one this summer for us.  We got there near the end but they were more than happy to accommodate our appetites.

After breakfast Brenda and I headed out to visit some beaches. I'm working on collecting pictures and samples of sand for next years conference. It's going to require a bit of traveling around the island, visiting various locations. It's tough, spending the day going from beach to beach but we're up to the task. We had planned to stop along the way at one of the beaches for a bit of sun, a swim and a beverage, and then perhaps somewhere else in our travels for some ice cream, but that never happened. We were just too busy but we did manage to visit three beaches and get what we went for.

When we got home, we all worked to put together some pasta sauce, some rigatoni and some bruchetta. In no time at all we were sitting down to a very tasty meal. Good job well done by a team that works well together!

Update on the garage project and the chickens. 
The garage is progressing slowly but steadily. I'm kind of thinking I won't be in my space by fall, but that's okay. We will get there eventually.  Im looking forward to stairs so I can at least use the little balcony before summer is over.

The chickens are growing by leaps and bounds. They no longer resemble the fuzzy little yellow chicks James brought home in a cardboard box back on Canada Day weekend.