Saturday

 

I load in the order I want and Blogger does what it wants.

Eric sent a few pictures tonight.  They were on the Ruicon trail today.

Jeep goals.

Looks like he's having fun.

I'm jealous.  The area looks stunning.

Oscar the Rubicon on the Rubicon trail.  Doing what he was built for.

I did a scary thing today.  I went to an FSR and Offroad meet-up with a new group.  I took Onyx and the boys. They were happy to come because we got A&W after fir dinner.  Haha. Bribery.

Turned out I knew a few people there so it wasn't awkward ;)

Kai declared after 20 minutes thay he can't stand that long.  Which in Kai speak meant he was bored.  Luk got him a chair from Onyx and he played a sorting game, ignoring everyone but happy in his own world.

I'm easy to find.  Lol.  The hair.

Onyx...swoon.  I adore her.  She got some attention today.  Even though she is clearly a pavement princess.

And we were ducked.

Onyx handed out a few dragons :)

Shannon and Ken came to go to the raptor center.  They fixed the gate for me before they left.  Yay.  Thanks guys.  It's back on the hinges and swings again.

Walmart still hasn't called.

They did an encounter.  Getting up close and even flying one.  I wandered and enjoyed the peace on my own.  We were there at opening, the birds were all front and center.  Every visit there is different.

This Golden Eagle was posing for sure.

He ruffed up for me.  So cool.

We got to see this eagle do a flying demonstration.  Very impressive. This is Shannon's picture.  

Loon Lake, their second night. Near Tahoe.

This picture makes me happy.

I'm so glad Eric is getting to do this trip.

The boys and I are doing great.

Managing to stay fed and keep up with chores.

Sheesh

 

Eric left at 3am.  The gate was wiped out by the Walmart delivery person at 9:33.  We made it a whopping six and half hours without needing Eric.  Sheesh.

The fellow left his back door open on his sedan.  The gate is now lodged into the driveway.  Can't swing it.  Too heavy to lift.  I'm decently sure it's been twisted.  I did send Eric photos.  Then I went to Walmart to report it.  The driver did NOT confess.  Shouldn't he have made an effort to let me know it happened?!  I'm guessing there had to have been significant damage to his car.  I did show the pictures and video of him to a Walmart employee in customer service. Waiting now for a manager from Walmart to call me.

So much for closing the gate at night.

Eric and Ben are making good time.  They just stopped in Salem at a Walmart to stock up on groceries.

Rogers

I have no faith.  It's been an ordeal. I decided on Sunday to get Starlink.  Eric and I are out of cell range regularly.  Clearly this will continue.

It's $75 a month no hardware fees for the mini.  However, the bill was $3985 so I very quickly got out.  

Garmin has options but they're pricey.  I asked Google for advice.  It suggested Rogers Satellite.  

So, I started.  Got shut down after doing all the verification and financial approval part.  Monday was a holiday.  Tuesday we hit the store.  Nope.  Go online.  Can't get online, added security.  Call this number.  I spent HOURS on the phone only to be told that I was all set, just need to scan the qr codes on our phones.  Except I'm locked out and don't have access to the codes.

On the phone again today.  Just told busy, call back.  Arg.

Eric leaves tomorrow.  He is with Ben who has Starlink but wouldn't it be nice if he could message out himself.  

Back to the store.  No help.  I may have been quite sharp with him.  Demanded he attempt to help me.  Then accused him of lying when he said he didn't have access to support. Left in a huff.

Back on the phone and on hold for three hours!!!!!  I'm not a fan of jazz.  This was scratchy, horrible jazz on repeat with a constant message to go to the store or go online to the app.  Except I'm locked out!

Apparently old Shaw customer accounts don't mesh with new Rogers mobile accounts.  Great loyalty huh?!

I'm happy and exhausted to report Rogers 10th employee that I dealt with was able to link the accounts.  The e-sims are loaded and it appears that both of our phones have active second phone numbers with access to Satellite.

The only way to test this is to get out of range.

I really have zero faith that this will work.  Bell is releasing the same option in the spring.  Right this second I'd like to switch the home cable and internet and jump ship when Bell catches up.

Sheer determination here. I told Eric today that filing a missing person report in the USA from here might be easier than getting the damn Satellite access working.

I'd like to get back to normal life.  Several days was just nuts.  Hands down Rogers has the worst customer service I've ever come across.

Why do things feel more and more frustrating?  Why is customer service just gone? I've become the classic old person moaning that things used to be better.

Boys in Grade 10

 

1st day of grade 10.

Luk had a good day, only got lost once. He left campus with friends at lunch.  I'm working on my feelings about that.

Kai's skills for life classroom has 19 students.  Only 2 are in grade 10.  The rest are in 11, 12 and 13. It was only 10's in school today so it was very quiet for him.

He was the first one there today.

After school we put the top back in Onyx, blasted the music, had icecream and watched a hovercraft doing maneuvers in Cow Bay.  

The photo try was a total bomb but funny.  Lol.

Solo

My first solo trip in Squirrel.  It went ok overall.  Kissinger lake on a long weekend.  Not quite the peaceful experience I was hoping for.  Music too loud.  Lots of hooting and hollering.  Spectrum kid beside me.  Everyone has led lights outside now, so it never got dark.  Kids cutting through my site past my windows. Damn smoke from fires.  I much prefer propane.  I won't be rushing to get back there for a while ;)  On the plus side, my set up worked great.

Bounty.  They're huge this year.

Mom made the trek out for an afternoon at Kissinger.  Her 1st time there.  She didn't completely love the  bumpy fsr road.  The lake is worth it though.

Brenda's Birthday.

It's the night before school. Sigh.  The boys have clothing picked out, new shoes, Kai has his hair cut and lunch is planned.  Back to early mornings.  Yuck.  

Lili, Fei and Jia are all back to school too.  Different schedules and starts.

Countdown to Eric's trip.  He's ready.  I'm not.  I'm already excited about him coming back.  

Kai's 15th Birthday

We started our day out right with whole grain, low fat, high protein and fibre pancakes with bananas and sugar free syrup :)  Yum.

It's crazy that he's 15!

Goats! Is it a clutch when they huddle?

Kai and I love hanging with the goats at Beacon Hill.

Luk made it up in leg braces but needed a bit of help with the down part.

Lol.

Hey boys, let's get your pictures on this iconic tree.

With great effort and a great Dad, we made it to this moment.  Kai was proud that he was 'up'.  Luckily Eric didn't hurt himself.

We did laugh about all the adaptions.

Kai and his new phone.

It took a lot for me to get this dang thing happening.  I bought it from Amazon.  My young people were no help.  I muddled.  A lot.  He has all of his games plus a few more.  The screen is set with dinosaurs.  All apps cleaned up so his page is simple.  Luk did a bit more set up with Netflix and loaded him with a couple movies.  He was pretty excited.  He knew it was happening but didn't get it until his bday.  There were tears.

He was overwhelmed so we held back the bag of little treats to dole out slowly at home.  

Spaghetti Factory.  He wasn't impressed with the sparkler.  He wanted to eat and he had to wait for it to finish.

The Happy Birthday in cinnamon sugar wasn't his thing either...too hard to eat :)  

He tried to eat the writing anyways.

We were supposed to stay another night but someone borrowed medical supplies from the trailer and didn't replace it or bring any out.  So we skedaddled home and ate Kai's bday cake at 10pm.  Eric baked a cake as well, so yes, Kai had three pieces of cake.  So, all in all, it was a great Birthday.

Two handed.

Normally Kai likes to make an effort to pet all of them.  He wants to know their names and check the board to see if we met them all.  He likes to croon "awe, look at the babies".  This time his strategy was to sit and let them come to him.

Big yawn.

Luk doesn't usually pet but he did this time and this little lady settled down and layed with her head on his lap and Luk later said it was the best part of the day.  Awe.

At one point a worker introduced us to great gramma, gramma, mom and baby.