Weekend at the lake

Last week Gloria phoned us and said that her, Jerry, and the Camplins wanted to know if they could paint our cabin for us since our summer didn’t seem to go as smoothly as planned.  We were blown away by the offer and made plans to join them at the lake.

Jordon who spent the early part of the week helping out with the evacuations of Sandy Lake and Pelican Narrows had more than enough hours in to take some of Friday off work and we got up there in the early afternoon.  He was so tired that he barely made it out of Saskatoon before saying, “You drive, I need a nap”. 

By the time we got up to the lake, the Reimers and Camplins had started scraping the cabin down and were joined by the Loewen’s who are just down the road from us.   I took Oliver in who was fascinated by the noise of the scrapers and people on the roof of the cabin.  While they did that, I introduced Oliver to a steady stream of people from Arlington who came by to visit.  One thing that happened when I was struggling tremendously in the later days of my pregnancy is that Gloria had people at Lakeview pray for me and word spread to Arlington as well so a lot of people were thrilled to see Oliver doing so well.

We got the cabin scraped down on the outside by time to have a good spaghetti dinner at Camplin’s.  While Dennis, Jordon, and Jerry headed back to the cabin to finish up some things, trim a tree, and haul away some stuff to the dump, I had a more relaxing evening with Wilda and Gloria.

The next day they started painting and painting and more painting.  I think it took four and a half gallons of paint but in the end it looked spectacular and was a lot of work by everyone.  During this time, Reuben came over with a new aluminum screen door that was to be given away for free and after performing some carpentry miracle, made it fit perfectly.  Jordon and I had bought some paint for the inside door but realized that it was oil based and we didn’t bring up any turpentine so it will wait for our next trip to the cabin to paint.

I made some progress on the inside of the cabin as well.  I had purchased a used table at Value Village, refinished the top with white melamine paint.  Since our car is a little packed with kids, the Reimers brought up the table top for us in their car.  Once up there I got it all together and for kitchen storage, I bought some great rolling containers from Jysk.  The table holds the convection oven, buffet range top, and other kitchen gear while giving me some space to work.  I managed to rearrange the master bedroom which made me happy but confused Jordon and donated some stuff to the Looney Bin, which a dollar store at the lake.

Saturday night was spent watching the sunset over the lake, hanging out around the fire, setting up Mark’s tent in total darkness enjoying the quiet that the lake brings.  The other really interesting thing that the weekend brought was the we drove home in the worst rainstorm that I have ever seen.  Cars were hydroplaning and some actually hit the ditch.  We were fine but at one point Jordon felt us slide a bit as well and we we were not going that fast as well.  The thunderstorm didn’t last that long but it was the most intense one I have ever seen.

Thanks to the Camplins and the Reimers for a wonderful gift.   It may have been the coolest thing that anyone has ever given me.  It was also a lot of fun seeing a bunch of old friends up at the lake as well.  A combination of life settling down and me feeling better has me thinking already of heading back up there.

I have posted some more photos here.