Sunday, August 24, 2014 (Peter Hope Lake Recreation Site, Quilchena, BC)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVE! 

Yes, today is my wonderful husband's birthday! I won't say how old but he is one year away from a significant milestone :-)

He spent most of the day out on the lake fishing....coming in briefly when nature called or his stomach growled. It was finally a good fishing day for him, he caught a couple of 14" trout, lost a couple and had lots of hits (what a nice birthday present!)

I spent the day cooking and cleaning. Ray and Deb were joining us for a birthday dinner celebration. It was going on 4:00 when they came over for happy hour...

...and presented Steve with a cute birthday card complete with a new fly for fishing...

Just before happy hour started, we noticed numerous planes flying overhead. Well, it turned out that there was a forest fire burning just over the ridge on the other side of the lake. We were told by the camp host to be prepared to evacuate if the order came down from the forest service...yikes! At one point, the smoke got quite thick and you could really smell it!

The water bombers hit the fire hard then let a helicopter and ground crews take over before dark. It was around 5:30 when a big tanker truck came into the boat launch area to fill up...and we found out from the camp host that the fire was under control and was just in the mopping up stages....whew! Good news!

We had lasagna, Caesar salad and garlic toast for dinner (thanks for the picture, Deb)....

...and then went back outside for dessert around the campfire...

I made brownies as Steve's birthday cake but didn't have any candles...so a tealight had to do as we sang Happy Birthday to him...

Yukon Jack less the toe (the famous Sour Toe Cocktail he had in Dawson City) brownies and ice cream!

Ahh...the end to another great day at Peter Hope Lake!