Robin & Karen Living the Dream: Summer & Fall 2021

It’s been a year since I have written a blog post, so again I have to play catch up!

We returned “home” to our campground at Elk Island Retreat in the spring of 2021 & shortly thereafter received our first Covid 19 vaccine!

We resumed helping out around the campground – wrapping bundles of firewood, painting picnic tables, garbage pick-up & some outhouse cleaning. We like to keep busy & it helps pay our rent.

Of course we got back into selling at Farmers Markets but due to Covid things were different – more spacing, fewer vendors, facemasks required, more cleaning. We tried out the Sherwood Park market for a while but were not able to sell any jewelry due to their strange rules, so we decided to only do the weekly Farmers Market in Ft Saskatchewan. We sold at a few larger events as well; Ardrossan parade Day, Vegreville Fair, Ponoka bull riding event, Ft McMurray Fall Tradeshow & Lloydminster Christmas Craft Fair. We still enjoy crafting so we have to keep selling!

Ft McMurray Tradeshow - we used to fit on one table, not now!

Lloydminster Christmas Craft fair

Sherwood Park Farmers Market

Ft Saskatchewan Farmers Market

Vegreville Fair

I got into gardening in pots & in the ground in a bigger way this year, lots of color & good eating.

unexpected snow on all my pots

Our Honda CVR had served us well but we couldn’t fit all of our market stuff inside & had to utilize the roof racks – so we decided to upgrade to a Honda Pilot. Much more space especially with all the back seats folded down. Problem then was that the Pilot is not flat towable behind the motorhome so a shopping we must go. We found a used 22 ft enclosed car hauler trailer which is now also a nicer “man cave” than the white 10x10 tent.

We got out camping with Adam, Jen, Emma & Ty only once this year as we had a couple issues with the motorhome that took forever to finally fix.

we don't often see caribou, quite a treat!

Ty & Emma, out hiking

Grandpa's birthday

hanging out at the fire - Adam, Emma & Ty

Ty, Jen, Emma

Birthday #11!

We spent as much time with the kids & grandkids as we could manage, always a highlight for us! Visits at their houses & at the campground, as well as a fun trip to Ft Edmonton Park.

Bowling with Rosemary, Shane & Sarah

Campground visit - Adam, Jen, Scott

rain barrels & kids

Ryan, Teanna, Lesia & Colin (my brother)

Karen's birthday, with Scott

hiking in the Rockies

Shane's birthday

hiking on the campground trail

daredevils

our campground, Elk Island Retreat

early spring picnic, note the pile of snow

Rosemary's soccer

Scott's cats

Ft Edmonton Park

horse back riding at Ft Edmonton

We made it out canoeing to Black Nugget Lake, not as many birds to see as in previous years. We love watching birds & always have our feeders up.

Robin's waterfall & fairy gardens

canoeing

Our health has thankfully been good - I got put on a diuretic for newly diagnosed hypertension, plus needing an iron infusion for a persistent low iron, Robin required sutures after a skill saw mishap while building his birdhouses and otherwise we keep chugging along, hiking regularly & trying to live well!

Robin's hippy hairdo & finger bandages

We had hoped to travel south to Arizona this year but the Canada-US border remained closed until the end of October – there was no indication of when it would open & it was getting pretty chilly in October in the RV so we made the decision in early October to stick around in Alberta vs another rainy winter on Vancouver Island. We rented a fully furnished apartment (right down to silverware & linens) in Edmonton with the promise to each other that we would travel to sunny destinations to break up the cold. We kept up our crafting & hiking in our tiny apartment.