The Travels of the Agnew Family

Today my mom and brother came for an overnight stay. Dinner was Ed's amazing ribs cooked on the smoker. Another thing I should have taken a picture of as they look as amazing as they taste. After dinner, mom, Ed and myself went to Music in the Park. Walkerton presents an entertainer once a month in the park and this month it was Kung Fu Lawyers. They are a local group and played music that the three of us enjoyed, like CCR, Gordon Lightfoot, Stan Rogers plus a couple of their own songs to name a few.

Monday Mom, David, Zaph and I headed to Kincardine and the beach. Zaph, of course had a blast playing in the water, fetching his stick. He actually got tired enough to lay on the beach beside his stick to rest.

My cousins Boudy and Laurie came for a visit today riding their Harley Davidson motorcycles. Yup, Laurie rides a Harley ... it's the smallest bike they make but it's still a Harley. They stayed for lunch and we enjoyed something we saw on a sign in Sauble Beach --- a back bacon, pineapple, mozzarella cheese burger. Might sound a little strange but it was very good. Also not sure if we did it the way the Beach Burger does it but Ed put it together nicely. Should have taken a picture but was too busy chatting. Another nice visit with family we haven't seen for a few years.

Today my cousins Bob and Wendy from the Peterborough area came for their first visit to our home. They stayed overnight and left late Friday afternoon after a very nice visit. Hopefully they will come again now that they know where we live.


Dinner was "beer can chicken" done on the smoker. Poor thing looks a little drunk but it tasted good.

Ellen and I decided to go to the big farmers market in St. Jacobs. Good thing we went early as it was quite crowded by noon and it was a Tuesday. As usual I bought far too much food but I'm sure we'll eat it all. I also broke down and bought apple fritters made right in front of you. The apples are peeled, cored, slice, dipped in batter, deep fried, dipped in sugar and cinnamon and placed into your box piping out. Made it outside to the picnic table before I started eating them.

In one of the buildings at the market is a furniture store where I found a bedroom set I liked. I took some photos hoping to inspire Ed as it's been almost four years since we moved into the house and there's no sign of bedroom furniture. Ok, I know that he's been busy but a little inspiration never hurt anyone.



Next stop was the outlet mall where Ellen successfully bought a shower present and I bought a couple of dresses, one for the wedding in October ---- I sure hope it's a warm October this year.

Third stop was the antique market. Found a number of interesting items including this cupboard. I asked Ellen to stand beside it for sizing. Didn't buy anything but took a few pictures to show Ed some of the possibilities for a piece of furniture in the theater room.



Fourth stop was is Kitchener at the radio station where Ellen's son Ryan works to drop off a couple of items and pick up a couple of things. Ryan also us the 25 cent tour of the radio station --- haven't been in a radio station for about 25 years and yes they have changed a bit.

Last stop was Costco as it is across the road from where Ryan works. With the car fully loaded we drove home to end a very full day.

Ed needed to get away from the house for some much deserved R&R; so we took our neighbor up on their offer of joining them at the their cottage for the weekend. Sauble Beach is only fifty minutes from the house on the shores of Lake Huron. Rob and Ellen's cottage is a couple of blocks from the lake which is actually quite nice. It's a short walk to the beach but they are sheltered from the cold lake winds and aren't bothered by the weekend crowds that descend on the beach.


Why is it that men never have the correct tools and the women get stuck holding things while the men fetch the correct tools? Ellen and I waiting for Rob.


Considering how crowded Sauble Beach can get, dogs are not allowed on the beach during the day. However a few short miles up the road in Oliphant the dogs are allowed on the beach and a lot of them took advantage of that fact. The beach at Oliphant is at a very shallow bay --- we walked across the bay and it didn't come over our knees. We also saw several trucks parked in the bay while people sat around them enjoying their time in the water. Plus we saw a truck drive across the bay to the island.


We introduced Rob and Ellen to geocaching --- Rob really enjoyed it, especially when he found the cache. Geocaching gave a purpose to walking plus there was the thrill of the find.


Downtown Sauble Beach.


Zaph also enjoyed the satisfaction of the find. He found a rubber ball outside of a dog park and claimed "finders keepers" and took the ball home..

Well almost done. I still have a couple of pieces of trim to paint, but they're not in the theater proper so they don't count. Right?

This project was a lot more work than Ed or I had anticipated. He ended up rebuilding a couple of stud walls, installing a couple of ceiling heat registers, closing the existing heat register that was hidden above the ceiling tiles, adding a cold air return as one didn't exist, adding a couple of electrical outlets, fixing some of the other wiring, closing in a doorway that wasn't needed, installing new light fixtures including a removing one of those old industrial florescent fixtures as well as insulating the outside walls and drywalling the entire room. Most people won't see most of the changes but we notice the difference and I guess that's what counts.


The end wall is painted "photo paper" gray which works wonderfully as the screen for the projector. The resident director Cecile DeBear approves of the changes.

The brides parents hosted a brunch for out of town friends and some local ones as well. Zaph was invited as well and managed to get all of the guests --- even Lil to pet him. Lil is allergic so it took some convincing before she pet him (she washed her hands after petting Zaph so no bad reactions). I got to practice my baking skills as I volunteered to bring a few things --- muffins and quiche. I haven't made a quiche in years but found a recipe for a Spinach and Feta Quiche on the Internet that was quite good. I ended up making three quiches, one as a test that Ed and I enjoyed and two to take. Got to love the Internet for finding recipes --- everything you can image is out there. One of my favorite spots is http://www.tastespotting.com/. This site links you to hundreds of other sites when it searches.


Becky made this wonderful desert -- Strawberry Chocolate Nachos --- yum

It seems like only yesterday that we met Sue as a new born and here she is all grown up and getting married. Not that I'm an expert on wedding ceremonies but I thought this was one of the nicest ceremonies I have sat through. The brides family decided to have a small reception in the church after the ceremony which worked out very well. Given the temperatures outside (happily the church was air conditioned) I think everyone appreciated the punch and goodies. The reception was also a lot of fun. Ed and I sat with other friends of the brides family whom Ed and I also knew, so we enjoyed a lot of laughs. I believe our table was the only one where everyone got up and rolled the dice.


Walking down the isle with dad.


Sue's brother John and his fiancée Alyssa.


The happy couple.


The wedding party.


The beautiful bride.


The DJ came with a special dice ---- there were numbers on a couple of sides and lips on the rest. A roll of the dice resulting with lips showing required the couple to kiss. Sue and Greg really enjoyed this part of the reception.


Dancing the night away. Sue and Greg did a very good job with a fox trot for their first dance.

Received very sad news today, Arlen Ongie died during the night. It was a quite a shock. I've only know Arlen for a couple of years but I will miss his smile and quick wit.





The photos are from his lovely wife Cheryl.

Zaph celebrated his eleventh birthday today. If I'd asked how he wanted to celebrate his answer probably would have been "a day at the beach followed by a nice big steak and a whole box of cookies" but his mother had other plans. We invited seven of Zaph's friends, six humans and one dog, over for dinner. The smoker got a work out cooking a rump roast and a beer can chicken ..... yum.


Yah!!! A new ball.


Zaph and Maggie


Getting the birthday burger bit by bit.


Cupcakes .... these dog cookies available at our local pet store.


Balloons are scary but I'll sit still for a short minute. For once mom didn't dress me up.

Our neighbors had a lot of people in their backyard and I think it made Zaph feel a little insecure. He put two balls in his mouth and sat near where I was working. I went in the house to get the camera and found him and his balls standing by the back door.

We went geocaching today and successfully found ten .... yup ten caches. One of the caches was a hard one and today's visit was the second try at finding it. Boy was Ed happy when he found it..... it definitely required "out of the box" thinking. The other nine were reasonably easy especially as several of them were hidden by the same person.

Several of the caches were in Chesley a town about 25 minutes north east of Walkerton.


The picturesque spot was spotted as we walked through town.


A park by the river in Chesley.


The facade of an old church has been repaired and set up as a monument commemorating the first Catholic church built in this area.

Ed has been itching to buy a smoker after all the good ribs we tasted in Texas. Well he finally did and he smoked ribs as his first meal prepared on the smoker. Very tasty. Can't wait to try more smoker recipes.

Mudding and sanding have been completed and the painting has begun. A couple of more days of painting and I'll pass the basement work back to Ed.

Decided to take a day off from working in the basement or least most of the day. Guess what Ed wanted to do .... yup go geocaching. He download 1000 geocaches with a difficulty level of 3 or less (medium or easier) and they are all with 87 kilometer of our house. Pretty scary ..... we would have to geocache everyday for almost a year to find them all. Well we've started as we found five today.

As it was a beautiful day we decided to drive to Lucknow and search for geocaches in that direction. Good ice-cream in Lucknow and good strawberries from a farm just outside of Lucknow.


Zaph waiting patiently for Ed to find a cache.



All you Bob's out there stop whatever it is you are doing.


Though this was an interesting combination of street signs.


Someone is very artistic --- their yard had all kinds of interesting sculptures.


The tractor had been busily bailing hay while the horses were pulling a windrow (we think) --- the bailer had a problem but the horses kept on going.


We ended the day watching the fireworks show put on by Walkerton. Short especially by south Texas standards, only 15 minutes but we enjoyed them.