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Potluck held to celebrate visit from newlyweds

Valerie Gerber hosted a potluck supper to celebrate the visit of cousin Kerry Moilliet
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(l-r) Gilles Luger

On, Aug. 7, Valerie Gerber hosted a potluck supper to celebrate the visit of cousin Kerry Moilliet and her newly wed husband Craig. The dinner was held on the Gerbers' new deck. Approximately 24 guests attended, bringing a wide variety of delicious food.

Kerry used to live in Vavenby and worked with the challengers in Clearwater. She moved to Port Alberni to get her training to be a licenced practical nurse. That is where she met Craig and they were married on Easter Sunday of 2016.

After the dinner some people left but the rest - about 17 people - moved to the new upper deck for a sing along. Wilf Rothwell on the banjo, Kerry Moilliet on the violin and guitar, and Gilles Leger on the harmonica, provided the music and started everyone off with the old songs, such as You Are My Sunshine. It was a great party and the weather was wonderful, with no bugs.

Traveling guests

The Aveley Ranch's bed and breakfast, Solitude, had two sets of guests arrive on Aug. 6, all from Israel. Hanni and San Shmuel Gal were visiting Western Canada. Hadar Namia was travelling alone. That evening the Shmuel Gals and the Moilliets stayed up late listening to the stories about Hanni's and San's fathers who had survived the holocaust. Karen Moilliet said, " It was incredibly fascinating and horrifying at the same time."

Namia has travelled to Vancouver, the Yukon, and parts of the Northwest Territories. She has been travelling since the end of 2014. In the fall she plans to go to South America.

Namia participated in the music as well. She sang a solo in her native language and then taught everyone a song called Hallelujah.

Another couple who came to the dinner were Hadat Lishai Peel, originally from Israel, husband Dmka Drewczynski, and baby son Kasper. They live on Birch Island Road. Peel teaches poetry, mostly in Toronto. She won the 2012 Canadian Festival of the Spoken Word. Her husband is a writer and they left Toronto on holiday to get the peace and quiet so they could write.

Waterline break

On Aug. 7, new Vavenby resident Todd Cardinal found that he had hardly any water pressure. When he went down into his basement he discovered that it was flooded.

Todd was a renovator and knew that it had to be a break in the service line. His wife, Jenn, was visiting at the time. Their insurance company sent a restoration company to clean the basement.

On Monday night Aug. 8, Rolf Schuchardt came over to dig to try to find the break. He came back on Wednesday afternoon. The basement had flooded again overnight so the restoration company was sent for again. At that point Schuchardt told the Cardinals that it was a job for the TNRD and to phone them. They contacted the TNRD on Wednesday afternoon and the local water main was isolated on Wednesday night. Highways had paved over the main line operating valve and that hindered the TNRD's location of the required valve. The one other house on that mainline was also notified that they would be without water until the line was repaired the next day.

The TNRD arrived on site early the next morning and started to dig with their contracted excavator. The broken service line was found around 10:00 a.m. after digging six feet down. The TNRD told the Cardinals that a new replacement service line would be installed from the main to the curb stop and that the curb stop would also be checked to see if it needed to be replaced. The water main was turned back on before 2 p.m. in the afternoon.

This has not been a very happy beginning to the Cardinals' life in Vavenby. They moved from Penticton to the house on Lightbrown Road. on June 28. Jenn says that the friendliness of the residents is awesome. She is happy that they had met their neighbours or the problem would not have been fixed so quickly.