It feels like a long weekend!

When I ordered a new laptop on Amazon Prime Day last Tuesday, the shipment said it would arrive on Monday the 17th. But I got the arrival notification on Friday morning so I headed in to the post office to pick it up before the weekend.

I've been using my old laptop as the office computer here since May, and it was getting to be a pain bringing it between the house and the office every time I wanted to do something.

We're past the half way point...

We're now into the second half of our summer work season. Yesterday was the official half way point. The next month will go by fairly quickly because the park is busy, and then things will start to quiet down as summer harvest will start in mid August and a lot of our clientele will be hard at work.

September typically drags for me, but we've got a few projects on the go here to keep us occupied during the last month of the season.

Bought a new laptop!

Yesterday was Amazon Prime Day and like many of you I was in the market for a great deal. My current laptop is only about two and a half years old, but it was a cheap ($248 USD, $311 CAD) laptop when I bought it and the processing power isn't very good. It still works fine, but I was on the lookout for something that can keep up with today's technology a little better.

So when I saw that one was coming on sale for Prime Day up here in Canada, I made a point of getting up at 4:00am to buy it!

Ruth's brother's new trailer...

Pretty busy weekend here at the park. Not sold out, but busier than we expected it would be based on the reservations that came in May and June. Lots of last minute people calling to see if we have availability because the weather has been so good.

And, there are NO mosquitoes. Well, perhaps one or two. But compared to last year, there are none.

A project on the go...

A little project on the go here at the park. When things are busy, I can't go too far from the office area because I know it won't be long before my pager goes off telling me that there is someone waiting at the office. So Ruth had delegated me to do one of her landscaping projects nearby.

We had ordered a pallet of patio stones and they needed to be installed outside our main bathroom.

Surprise visitors!

We didn't have anybody scheduled to arrive here at the park yesterday, but of course we do get the occasionally unexpected arrival. And, of course they usually arrive right as we're sitting down to supper!

So yesterday as Ruth was putting supper on the table, I just happened to notice through the kitchen window that a trailer was driving up. So I headed out the door to meet them at the office.

Things are going pretty good so far...

Well, July 1st long weekend came and went and we're enjoying some beautiful hot summer weather here at the park this week... and into the foreseeable future!

Oh, I haven't mentioned our workcampers lately. Barry and Jeannie showed up here in mid June with their motorhome. They were readers of this blog, and applied to come and work with us when we advertised the opportunity last fall.

June Expenses

Well, we were pretty much on track with expenses until we bought three new pairs of eyeglass. But, it had to be done. And, our grocery expenses were still above what they should be but we continue to believe (hope?) that things will average out in that department over the next three months.

So, we spent a total of $1,033 CAD ($800 USD) for the month of June. Here's how it all broke down...

Barbados update...

We told you a couple of weeks ago that we booked a trip to Barbados. We leave Ottawa October 25th for 19 days of island life in the sun. It's been a long time since we've been to the Caribbean, and we're really looking forward to relaxing and exploring the island.

But Barbados is fairly expensive, so in true Kevin and Ruth fashion I started looking for a deal. Fortunately, one thing in our favor is that we'll be there before busy season actually starts.

Canada Day at the Park

The day didn't start off great. Our water pump went down at some point overnight, and I spent most of the morning trying to fix it to no avail. I ended up calling our local specialist, and he came out on Canada Day to fix up our problem. Turns out the impellers inside the pump had broken and nothing I could have done was going to fix it without having the right parts. But I tried really hard because I didn't want to have to call him on a holiday.

Meanwhile, Ruth was going around supplying water to the toilets to flush them manually because we still had a park full of people to look after!

Happy 150th Birthday Canada!

Ruth and I were only about 5 years old when Canada celebrated its 100th birthday on July 1, 1967. So we don't really remember the big event. And so we had better enjoy this one because it's highly unlikely we'll be around to see Canada's 200th birthday in 2067!

Even at 150 years old, Canada is a relatively young country. And it almost didn't make it this far. Most recently, the independence of the province of Quebec has been an issue, and in 1995 there was a referendum in that province where the people voted on whether or not to become an independent nation.

We have been *really* busy...

Our regular readers may have noticed that we've skipped a few of our daily posts this month, and at other times when we have posted they have not been at our normal posting time, which is usually mid morning.

We've just been super busy here at the park getting things ready for our six week camping season. The time seems to just fly, and now here we are at the end of June and our busy period starts today!

New Brunswick - Canada's only bilingual province

Canada is an officially bilingual country, but each province can choose whether or not to be provincially bilingual. Yes, it's all very complicated! There is only one province that has chosen to be officially bilingual, and that province is New Brunswick.

New Brunswick is a province that we haven't spent much time exploring. Much like Saskatchewan is a province that many people drive through while on their way west, New Brunswick is the province many people drive through to get to the east coast. And we are guilty of that as well!

Quebec - Canada's French speaking province

Continuing our series leading up to Canada's 150th birthday, we are now heading east to the province of Quebec.

Quebec has a population of 8.3 million, with most of the people living in and around the two major cities, Montreal, and Quebec City.

Rent out your RV...?

I saw a question posed on facebook the other day. It was asking people what they thought about the idea of renting out your own personal RV when you're not using it.

The responses were astoundingly negative. I mean, there must have been over 100 responses and they were all negative...

Except mine.