Month: July 2023

This morning Jane and I worked on a birthday video for Royce. We decided to record how we put together his first year birthday present which is a picture frame that holds photos taken at monthly intervals for his first year.

The video of this activity will be saved on a flash drive and placed in the time capsule which he will open ten years from now.

Early this afternoon Sara called us and invited us to their place for a BBQ. So we quickly changed, hopped in the car and drove down there. Traffic was heavier than usual, but we eventually got to their place.

Everyone was out in the back yard splashing in the kiddie pool and having a great time when we arrived.

Steve fired up the BBQ and we had hamburgers, corn on the cob and guacamole. Delicious. And Roxana learned to eat corn on the cob right off the cob.

And little Royce was a bundle of energy. He was on the go the whole time.

We left shortly after six and had a quick drive home

We had nothing scheduled today which was a welcome break from the usual busy days we have recently had.

So, while Jane was working on her genealogy project, I took the opportunity to have some fun with Microsoft Flight Simulator.

I also spent some time on the time capsule for Royce and downloaded some videos to a flash drive which will be included.

And tonight it’s fish and chips for supper from Danny’s – our favourite here in Barrie.

This morning I spent some time looking through our camping gear and picking out stuff that we will take on our East Coast adventure. One of the things is our portable fridge that can be plugged into the car cigarette lighter while we are underway.

The rest of the stuff I put into a bin so all we need to do is load everything when we are ready.

In less than two weeks, Jane and I will begin our 36 day down East adventure.

Tour books have been read, maps have been studied, lists have been made,ferry reservations booked and the car has been serviced.

This adventure has been in the works for months and finally, it’s just around the corner. Excitement builds!

Today we headed down to Glen Williams near Georgetown to visit with our good friends, Annemarie and Jim.

Annemarie provided a scrumptious lunch as usual and we had a lot of conversation to catch up on. The peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies were a big hit as were the molasses cookies. She is such a good baker!

We got back home about 5 pm . This friendship seems to get better and better all the time.

I continue to put together YouTube videos for my new channel, Life Unfolding with Gary & Jane. I am able to schedule publication dates so that my idea of having one a week won’t be an issue when we are on our down East Adventure.

I already have seven episodes in the can so I am good until August 11th. I plan to get the end of that month before we begin our trip.

This morning after breakfast, we headed off to Toronto meet up with Chris and Max to have a picnic with Max at a nearby park.

I set up our kitchen tent when we got there and in no time Max was saying he was hungry, so we had an early lunch.

I had brought a T Ball set so Max could show us his batting skills and we had a lot of fun doing that.

Then we tried flying a kite with some success although the breeze was not very cooperative at times.

He played in the nearby playground on the slides and we played hide and seek.

Then he swung in the hammock which, I think, was his favourite thing of the day.

It was a wonderful day. We got the tent packed up just as the rain started.

We are doing another picnic tomorrow. This one is with Max and his Dad happening tomorrow. Jane is preparing stuff that Max likes and Chris will be choosing a nearby park that we can go to.

I have been gathering up stuff likes chairs, camping table and some activity toys that we can use in the park like T Ball and a kite.

We’ll take our kitchen tent as well just in case there’s some rain but it will be fun to get Max help put it in place.

It will be a blast

This morning at 7am episode 4 of my new YouTube channel, Life Unfolding with Gary and Jane, published the latest video.

Just yesterday YouTube changed the monetization criteria from requiring 1000 subscribers to 500.

I already have two more episodes in the van and will continue with my plan of publishing a new one every Friday.

This morning Jane returned from Toronto having gone down to Steve’s yesterday to be on hand while he installed some back yard patio lights.

He is satisfied with the result and told me these lights can be controlled from his IPhone and can be programmed to sync with music, change colours and light up in different patterns.

He’s a happy camper.

Jane went down to Steve’s this morning to visit with Sara and Royce. She will also be there to keep Roxana occupied while Steve works on his back yard lighting project.

This past weekend he got started by stringing some support cable from one side of the yard to the other.

I worked on my videography project and now have 3 episodes in the can which are scheduled to be published every Friday, one at a time.

Today I took the car in to Nissan for a regular oil change and to do an overall check including brakes in preparation for our Down East road trip which will be happening in about three weeks.

This morning, after our daily Yahtzee games, Jane and I went outside to do several videos about our flower gardens. I will use this footage to make another YouTube video for our Life Unfolding series.

This morning I got a call from my longtime Temiscaming friend, Jim Burd who happened to be in Barrie for a medical appointment.

We had coffee out on the deck and lots of great conversation.

After he left, and while Jane was out, I decided to try to clean up the awning. It was filthy. I spent some time scrubbing it with a bristle brush and it did improve. I had to stop though, because the seams were starting to let go.

Yesterday the kitchen tent got a little bit wet in the rain, but I rolled it up anyway because we had to head home. It’s not good to leave a damp tent rolled up, so this morning I laid it out in the garage and then raised the middle up to let it dry.

It didn’t take long and soon after I was able to roll it up again , this time when it was dry.

So we are all ready for the next time and no mould or mildew will be on it.

This morning Jane and I headed off to Steve’s place to have a picnic with Roxana in the park behind their house. I took our kitchen tent just in case of rain.

Sure enough,it did rain a bit, though very lightly, but we were okay inside.

We had lots of food and Roxana played in the nearby schoolyard playground as well.

When we were ready to leave, Roxana asked if we could come back tomorrow.

A great day!

Tomorrow morning we are going down to Steve’s place to take Roxana for a picnic in the park behind their house.

There is a chance of rain, so I am taking our kitchen tent with us in case. We are also taking lawn chairs and a camping table.

Jane has been busy making up goodies to eat and we’ll be on our way early in the AM because Roxana has lunch around 11:30.

This is a chance for us to connect with Roxana when there’s just the three of us.

We’re looking forward to it.

This morning,as I was looking at the news on my IPad, I heard a dripping noise coming from the dining room. I investigated and, at first, thought there was a mouse or something trapped inside the wall. Turns out it was a leak coming through the ceiling.

We had new shingles put on eight years ago, so I wasn’t impressed with this situation at all. I retrieved all the documentation from that job, but Chris Hanton Roofing was no longer in business.

So I called another company, Ainger Roofing,and they sent a guy out to inspect the roof. He found that there were several exposed nailheads which he caulked but the clear cause of the leak was a hole in a vent cap, obviously chewed by a squirrel or raccoon trying to het in.

He caulked all the exposed nail heads and replaced the vent and was satisfied that the roof was now waterproof.

This morning Jane headed off to Steve’s place to visit with Royce and stay overnight.

Steve had asked if she could stay because he had some garden chores to do like mowing the lawns and weeding. When he’s at home, Roxana monopolizes his time and he can’t get things done that he wants to do. Soon brother and sister were happily playing together and Daddy was hard at work on his chores.

Jane will be coming home tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I am keeping busy getting this new Vlog project off the ground.

I have another Vlog in the can and ready for release on YouTube this Friday. This one is about the planning being done for our upcoming Down East trip which will be happening in early August.

In the meantime I am in the process of arranging for out of province medical insurance with Johnson Insurance. Better to be safe than sorry while we are away.

We decided to do a rotisserie chicken on the BBQ. I have done this dozens of times without a hitch. Not today, though. When I turned the rotisserie motor, on the spit got stuck. Really stuck!

I had to turn the rotisserie motor off while I tried to loosen the spit. It was hot, so I turned the gas off to the BBQ. Makes sense, right?

I ended up having to get a hammer and channel locks to get it free. Aha. Okay, start that rotisserie turning now. Back in business.

Came back 10 minutes later to check that it’s still turning. Yup. All in order.

Wait a minute, there, Bub. Back the truck up! THE BBQ ISN’T LIT!

Geez. What a kerfuffle (Jane’s word….I have others, but I want to keep it clean)

And for inquiring minds, yes, it was tasty as always!

This morning I spent some time reviewing videos that I planned on including in my vlog. I found that those videos where there was no mic used were substandard.

I have a pair of new mic’s coming today because I broke the ones that I recently purchased on Amazon.

They are scheduled to be delivered today.

In early August we will be starting our 36 day road trip to the East coast, so today we resumed planning for the trip. We already have booked the ferry between North Sydney and Argentia. We have a deluxe cabin for the return but a four berth cabin going. We are on a wait list for an upgrade to Deluxe for the going leg.

We will be taking our tent equipment as a backup accommodation in the event we cannot find a motel or B & B. But for the most part, the tent will be a last resort.

We’ll be doing PEI, NB, NS and NF, although we’ll only do the East side of NF because everyone has said they didn’t have enough time, and the eastern side has a lot more towns, villages and highlights. We will be there for two weeks.

I will be check on out of province medical insurance on Monday.

This morning Jane and I went up to Brandy’s Marina to check on Shenanigans and take a spin over to Tonch Point East, the beautiful spot at which we got married.

We spent some time scrubbing down the dinghy and trying to get mildew marks off the tubes.

It was a lot of work but we cooled off by having a swim in the lake. The water was quite warm.

We got back home about six o’clock and picked up some burgers at A & W.

A great day!

The microphone that I ordered a few days ago arrived today and I spent some time testing it out. During my tests, I discovered that my I phone connection port was impeded from a proper connection because of a small amount of lint inside it.

I managed to clean the lint out by carefully inserting a toothpick into the port and gently working the lint out.

I think the new lapel microphones will help minimize wind noise and enhance sound quality, especially when standing some distance away from the camera.

This morning I did some video editing to put together my first video blog under the umbrella channel called Life Unfolding. The subject matter of this one is about camping up in Killbear Park.

It took a couple of hours to put it together and I ended up with an episode about 18 minutes long. It turned out okay for a first effort, but I’ll get better at it.

I have a remote microphone coming today from Amazon which will help the outside audio.

I will publish these blogs one a week on YouTube and I have linked my Tik Tok page to my YouTube channel.

I have decided to begin a new project in the form of a video blog or Vlog for short. It will be called Life Unfolding With Gary & Jane and will available on YouTube weekly.

The videos and photos will reflect some of the daily activities we undertake from time to time. It will give me an opportunity to hone my videography efforts and be fun at the same time.

I already have some interesting footage from our week at Killbear which I will edit in the next few days.

People will be able to subscribe and get notified of new content. Publishing date will likely be every Friday.

This morning, right after breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup, Jane and I began breaking camp. We simply did things in reverse order of our set up and had everything packed into the car in no time.

It was a wonderful 7 days and we had a great site at Harold Point; it was actually our favourite spot so far and would easily book it again.

On the way back we stopped in at Brandy’s Marina to check on Shenanigans and any water levels accumulating; we had to turn on the bilge pump to empty her of all the rainwater which fell last week.

There was quite a bit of traffic when we got closer to Barrie, but eventually we got home and got busy unpacking.

Last night we went to nearby Snug Harbour and had dinner at Gillys. It’s a long time favourite spot for boaters, famous for its fish entrees.

Jane had the whitefish and I had the pan fried pickerel, both of which were delicious. And we shared some garlic bread. We topped it off with a slice of key lime pie for dessert.

A great evening out.