Leaving the Great "Not-so-White" North

Well, we did not get out of painting the basement floor. We found a half full can of paint with no label but marked “basement floor” on the lid and a full can of floor paint. We were smart enough to check the color of each before painting and found that they were slightly different so we mixed them together. We started with the smaller portion of the basement that has the wood stove, one side of the bottom landing to the stairs and doorways to a spare bedroom, Dad’s bedroom, a bathroom and the laundry room. We finished moving everything, washing and painting about 11 am one morning. The can with the label said “dry to the touch” in 4 to 6 hours. We were wondering where Dad would sleep when it was still sticky at 7 pm and were panicking a bit when it was still sticky at 8:30. Luckily it did finally “dry to the touch” by 9 so all was well. The next day we painted the other part of the basement which included all the coats, boots, hats and gloves along with the door to outside. So we had to put necessary clothing in the other section of the basement and then go upstairs, outside to the deck, put on chore clothes and go down the deck stairs to do chores!
On Sunday the 19th we picked up the 17 boxes of butchered lambs. We had to allow for rain in Vancouver and be able to keep the boxes dry and also keep them frozen until delivery on Monday afternoon. We had a huge plastic bag used to keep hay bales dry and the plan was to put the boxes inside, add blankets for insulation and tie it all up. The plan almost went awry when there was a high wind when we were loading the boxes and the plastic bag nearly took Terry right out of the back of the truck. By the time we got everything tied up we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. On Monday we drove to Vancouver (5 hour trip), picked up Marg at the hospital, went shopping (yes, this was Marg’s idea to go shopping on her new knees), had lunch and then delivered the meat. The buyers all come to one lady’s house between 4:30 & 5 - we were out of there by 4:45 to join the rush hour traffic out of Vancouver.
Marg is doing pretty well but has a long way to go. She can walk very well using crutches just for balance (and insurance!) but she has limited bending at the knees with quite a bit of pain. She can navigate the stairs easily with the newly installed hand rail.
On Tuesday we invited some friends over for a “welcome home party” for Marg and I cooked a turkey dinner. This had the advantage of leftovers for Marg & Dad for a few days! And somewhere in this time frame, the snow melted again!
We left 100 Mile House early on Wednesday. Marg had some help lined up (including cousin Pat & Rick arriving on Sunday) and we wanted to get back to Spokane to spend Thanksgiving day with Terry’s parents. Long day driving back but only lots of rain to make it less enjoyable.
And wouldn’t you know it - Snoqualmie pass was a miserable, snowy mess and we were heading west on Friday. We decided to play it safe and go to Pasco and then along the Columbia gorge, It was a lot longer trip but we did not have any bad roads, We arrived at the Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester about 6:15 and snagged one of their RV sites on the edge of the parking lot For $14 a night you get a narrow spot (but we found one where we could get the slides out) with water and 50 amp electricity. We had the seafood buffet dinner with our son & family (Dean, Jennifer, Victoria and Cameron). On Saturday we put things back together in the truck & fifth wheel and then went to dinner at Dean’s. Cameron asked if we wanted to watch Cars - we did and really enjoyed it. Today has been some shopping and the kids are coming here for dinner in the rig. Of course there have been visits to the casino between all these activities - I am writing this because I lost my “mental” limit, Dean & Terry are still at the casino.
Sorry for the long gaps between entries and then posting a small book. Oh well, you get the idea of what has been happening.