I am booked for my first dose of vaccine!! I am so happy to get it!

He said

The big this week for me was I had the week off work. It started the Thursday before and originally the plan was to spend it at the trailer, but with the stay at home order still in place, that went out the window. So, instead my week was focused on solving the problem of how we store and contain the beer fridge we inherited from Mom & Dad. The idea we came up with, was a countertop/shelf/cupboard kind of thingy that would be able to house the fridge and be locked away, and then a counter/shelf that we could use our BBQ and Blackstone on top of and then stow away on a shelf below when we’re not using. This could be the main part of our outdoor kitchen—a job that has been done by a fold-up table we’ve had.

With the price of lumber going through the roof because of COVID, we had to come up with a creative solution for the wood we needed. Our friends Stephanie and Justin managed to find a motorcycle dealership with a pile of pallets used to ship the new motorcycles in, out back that they had no problem someone come removing them solving them of their problem too. Well, we managed to scoop up some of them, as well as some pallets from Danielle’s work. I spent the better part of a couple of back-challenging, long days dismantling to salvage the wood for our trailer deck project.

By Wednesday morning, I had all the wood loaded in the truck, and because I already had a date to meet a coworker for a ride on the G2G Rail Trail, I delivered the wood to the trailer to be ready for the project this weekend. And I got in a ride on the trail much to my delight! The shed was filled to the roof almost with the lumber and we were ready to start the project even after I managed to forget to pack the 8 or so 8 foot or longer 2×4’s that were on the porch.

So after a couple days back at work, Sunday morning we’re ready to head back to the trailer! The big project for the trip was to get a start on the outdoor kitchen and get some gardening done—but the other side project was to get in some rips on the bike too. As soon as we got there Sunday morning, Emelia and I were out on the G2G Trail and Danielle was knee deep in the garden getting it ready for the season. It was so nice to have more Daddy & Daughter time on the trail and to have some really good conversation. Emelia wasn’t feeling the best, but she was a trooper and pushed through!

As soon as the ride was out of the way, we began immediate work on building up the outdoor kitchen. And as much as the dismantling the pallets sucked, and I may have bitched to Danielle about using used wood, I was pleasantly surprised at how the well the wood worked and how level I was actually able to make the unit. By the time dinner rolled around, we had the skeleton of it built and without my pneumatic nailer, at the place where we could stop the project as the nailer was back in London. It was a good spot to stop as we had a significant part of it together.

This morning I got up and got in a solo run on the G2G Rail Trail before we started to pack up to head back to London. The nice thing is when we got home Danielle was itching to get a ride in, so I went for a second ride of the day with her on the Thames Valley Parkway. She pushed herself to go a little further than she normally does, so to add to the 20 km this morning, I tacked on another 14 km with Danielle!! What I am most proud of is that this week I crossed another threshold—I have officially lost 50 lbs before I turned 50. It was something I highly doubted possible a year ago when I was proud of the 25 lbs I was done, but here we are!

She said

This was a big week, not only are we seeing some great changes in the COVID numbers but there was great milestones in the vaccine front! Earlier in the month it was announced that kids 12-17 could get their vaccine and the hope was that with the vaccine doses coming in that we would be able to try booking at the end of the month. Well we got more vaccines than we thought and the government was about to move the date up a week earlier. So this means that when I woke early on Sunday that I was able to get Emelia booked in for a date in just over 2 weeks. She is so relieved and so are we.

The COVID numbers are starting to move in the right direction, the vaccine levels are moving well finally which means we might get some sort of real life soon.

This week there was an announcement by the Ontario government about what the reopening plan would look like. It is exciting to have some sort of plan in place but it is beyond confusing as to what is open and strangely what isn’t open yet. We had hoped we would be able to use our trailer more but we have a bit of waiting to do. The first phase of reopening will allow us to go to the trailer so we are finally getting closer. The levels this time are directly tied into vaccine levels along with ICU rates but we are hoping this will push the vaccine levels in the right direction.

Speaking of camping, with the restrictions this long weekend we could only go to the trailer for 24 hours for the purpose of maintenance. Thankfully we had lots to do and got a lot done. The first was wrapping up the garden clean-up and set up. The second was putting a decent dent in the outdoor kitchen/bar area we started talking about last year. We have a lot more to do on the build but we have a decent plan in place and hope that we can get most of the build done next weekend on our next 24 hours trip up.

There was a few updates for Emelia this week as well. First was cheer, there seems that they can return to some sort of training soon and that the gym is working hard to assure that they are following all the regulations and move training outside. The other big announcement for cheer is that contact training will be allowed in the future which means that they can do regular stunting routines. Emelia is so excited that things will be more normal soon enough. Second update was the school, we still do not know what will happen for any kind of grad but they are working behind the scenes to create something special for the kids. As well there is a few moms of the group of kids Emelia has been close to for years to have a modified celebration late in June once we know what is allowed. The kids are so happy to have something in play, hopefully we get some sort of real update from the school so the kids know what is going on.

So all in all it was a busy and productive week. Lots of time outside, with family and even got to see some friends. Pretty amazing week!