Cooper & Spicy's Kingdom : The tradition continues....

For the longest time, Russell and I have had this tradition to smoke baby back ribs on our Big Green Egg smoker every long weekend of the Summer, starting with the May 24 weekend. This year, even with a doggie, we continued the tradition. I must say it was actually quite fun to watch Cooper take in all the smells of the smoking ribs for about 3 hours. He did quite well, sitting on the back porch, pretending to sleep, but smelling the ribs cooking. Cooper tried to get close to the smoker a few times but decided that it was too hot to lick...At the end of it all, the ribs were delicious and Cooper didn't get to taste them!

As we were having dinner last night, we were reflecting on a lot of things. One of them is the fact that, even if we are retired, it is important for us to try to separate weekends from weekdays just to make those weekends even more special. This is not to say that we are rigid about not doing weekend things during weekdays ...being retired does give us the flexibility to do things when we want! We could have done our ribs any day of the week but we chose to do them last night just to make the weekend a little more special.

This past week was busy as usual. The main even was our little Cooper's first birthday on Thursday. We had a great day. I bought a balloon and a birthday hat, and even a birthday cookie. It was a challenge to keep the hat on but we managed to take a few pictures. Cooper will do anything for a treat! We went to a park for a nice walk then sat on the front porch for a while and watched the world go by. Later that day, we watched Cooper chase little ants. Although he managed to catch a few, more often than not, the ants got away before he got to them. It is really funny to watch as Cooper tries really hard to chase and catch them but his hair gets in the way and he looses sight of them! One day, I will try to catch this on video. Although Cooper is now one year old, he is still considered a puppy, probably for another 6 months or so. This means that he can still get away with a few puppy antics .....I quite like being able to say that he is still a puppy, it's like an excuse for him to do silly little things that only puppies can do....

Russell went to Huntsville solo on Friday. He was able to get the key to our mailbox, which will be situated about 2 km away from our house. Russell met with Matt for an update then met with Johnny K. who will give us a quote for doing the landscaping work. We received one quote already and we should be able to make a decision later this week as to who will do the work. The tubing for the radiant floor has been installed. It looks very impressive as you can see from the picture. The hole for the recessed hot tub is ready. The cedar shingles will be installed starting this coming week. It will take about two weeks for the roof to be completed. Ali started staining the windows. The plumbing and electrical are all roughed in. So, all and all, things are moving along. While in Huntsville, Russell noticed that there were very few black flies on our property. The main reason being that we are 500 feet about street level and the breeze helps keep the flies away. The view of the lakes is spectacular any time of the year, but even more so now. I include a picture taken on Friday.

While all this work is happening in Huntsville, we keep purging here in Mississauga. This year, I am not planting flowers since we are moving in July. The pansies that I planted in the Spring are still nice and add a bit of colour to the backyard.

This week will be rather quiet. A friend is coming over for dinner on Thursday. It will be nice to see her again. The weather promises to be nice so we will spend a lot of time outdoors.