Those Rascally Raccoons – Another one down

Linda spent a lot of the weekend making our backyard look really nice and plating new dirt and grass and tendering to the new grass planted over the past few weeks. The yard looked great when I got home from camping. I knew this would be too tempting to those nasty raccoons so I planted the trap with delicious old fish and chicken. A little one took the bait and was caught in the cage. The rest of the family was not amused though and just shredded our yard from one end to the other. There was not a sign of new grass or seeds. Linda was so frustrated to see her work ruined like that. At 7AM I took the little guy way up the hill to another development 4.6km away.

That’s 3 down – 4 to go

Another one bites the dust
2AM – I’m out in the yard chasing away raccoons and making a bunch of noise. Caught another in our cage and drove him way off into the mountains. Bed at 3:30AM.

4 down

Damn Bandits !!
Both Linda and I spent hours shooing away raccoons. We thought there were only a couple left but nooooo. We saw the 2 regulars – mom and delinquent kid and look over to the other part of the yard and there was 4 more !!!! We had 6 of these bold furry rabies infected nocturnal critters running around making tons of noise and destroying the yard.

Caught another and brought it way across town about 6Km away. I pulled into this park area – very dark and 2 seconds later a security car pulls up behind me. I felt weird and drove away and went to a school yard and dumped him there by some trees.

Looked into an electric fence but they wanted $175 for 100ft. Seems like too much right now. The cage is working. Just hope the same guys aren’t finding their way back. Maybe they are smarter than I think.

I’m exhausted - sigh

5 Down
Me relocating one of the critters

Camping with Carter
Carter and I went off together to go camping for the Saturday night. We left the house at 8:00AM Saturday and made our way to TransCanada Waterslides (Just East of Chilliwack) for 10AM. We spent 2 hours going up and down all the slides and loved every minute of it. There was almost no crowd until then so we had the place to ourselves and as quick as we could run up to the top, we could get down. The slides weren’t huge slides with big drops but they were fast enough for me to have fun. It was getting quite hot so we left for a bit to go for lunch and a walk. We hiked up to Bridal Veil falls which was just behind the campground. Beautiful scenery and walk through the forest. Had some hot dogs and ice cream and went to see our campsite.

Was I ever disappointed with our site. We go the overflow site which is the worst site there. Right next to the washrooms (I guess some people don’t mind) Not much privacy – oh well – I didn’t want to move to another complete campground and drive all over as
most on short notice Saturday would be filled. It was 200 feet from the water slide park so location was good. We went back from 3:30-7PM to the water slides and had a bunch more fun. The lineups were a lot longer this time but we waited them out and were the lst ones to leave.

For this one night I didn’t bring any cooking gear. For dinner we drove to Subway and Carter loved that he could pick all his own toppings. Ate and drank at our picnic table and then slept in the van. He was out like a light by 9:30 and didn’t wake up for 12 hours. I watched the movie Paparazzi and enjoyed it.

We had the big breakfast special – way easier than coking and was delicious and then hung around the pool at the campground until the sun got too hot and we headed home.

PNE
The annual PNE Fair is on and we headed out Friday for the afternoon and evening. We met up with some friends and their 2 kids and had a great time. We ate burgers with greasy fried onions, hot fudge sundaes, mini doughnuts, pizza and popcorn. The kids went on a bunch of rides and Carter even went on the corkscrew and loved it. I didn’t know if he would like sitting in the front seat but he and his buddy had a blast. We saw the extreme motocross show and the finale which consisted of country music and girls in skirts and cowboy boots. Got home at midnight and started packing for camping the next day.

Sierra turns 13
How the time flies. My little niece is not so little anymore. She’s a teenager and dying her hair and wearing black fingernail polish and into music like Korn and Iron Maiden now. I guess she inherited her taste in fine music from her Uncle Stew.

KOA Camping
Never been to a KOA(Kampgrounds of America) before but we saw the pics on the web and thought we would give it a try. We decided on Burlington, Washington. It was central to where we wanted to go.

Well it wasn’t really for me. I like a little bit of space and the feeling of being in the outdoors. We were in a tent site not more than 10 fee from the next site with a hedge separating us. I could hear the guy snoring throughout the night in his tent. Aside from that point, we had a great couple of nights there. Not cheap but they did have a lot for the kids which is important. They had an indoors heated pool which we spent hours in and they rented these 3 wheel bikes things and they had a good playground and field and store and arcade area. What kids would love this.

For a day trip we went to La Conner. A quaint little town mostly with shops that didn’t appeal to the kids and I. Antiques and crap like that. We had a good snack by the river though and the weather was hot. Carter complained though that we were torturing him making him walk in the desert. We got ice cream and that fixed that.

Sunny Times
Stayed in town for the long weekend and the weather couldn’t have been better. The kids sure have a good little life keeping them busy having fun everyday. With Linda away I thought it would be best to stay close to home and enjoy the local parks, beaches and pools. Playing the role of Mr. Mom for 10 days was fun and the kids were great. The house was in perfect order. The kids diet wasn’t up to par though. Lots of corn on the cob and dogs and burgers.

Rob Zombie Review
Finally I’m going to a show with someone else for a change. My older Bro decided to partake in Rob Zombie with me. I dropped the kids off at my folks and just like old times, had Dad drive us to the show at the Coliseum. We didn’t have tickets so we had to find some from a scalper. I tried www.craigslist.com beforehand but no luck getting tickets in time. The first guy wanted $15 over cost each and then another guy budded in and offered $5 each below cost for floor tickets. Score !!!

John and I had some beers beforehand and watched a bit of Anthrax but opted for more beer instead. This is the third time in 8 months I’ve seen Anthrax. All the years and I’ve never seen them and now 3 times. I think they’re fun to see live but I have never listened to their music before and don’t have any of their CDs so I just can’t relate. We enjoyed watching their mosh pit though from above. There was this group of about 25 people in the middle before the stage that were just smacking each other up. There was one massive looking guy in a wife beater shirt just straight arming everyone. He would just push people about 10 feet when got near anyone. Then we got a laugh when 3 guys jumped on him and took him down.

I brought John down towards the front for when Rob started. He came out and kicked butt. It was exactly what we wanted in a rock show from Rob. The sounds was great, the lights were great and the stage setup was cool with a big screen overhead. The screen played a lot of clips from Robs 2 movies (House of a 1000 corpses and The Devils Rejects) Rob Zombie is really in the old B scary movies – he’s doing a remake of the original Halloween next year.

Rob rocked his way through all his best tunes as well as some white zombie tracks. He teased us with some Van Halen and covered the Eurythmics Sweet Dreams a la Marilyn Manson. Some of my favorites are Living Dead Girl, More Human than Human, Dragula and his finale I Feel So Numb.
















I took lots of pics, couldn’t get to the front, big guys in front of me had the fence – I could touch it but couldn’t hold on. It was pretty squished up front. The surfers above me cruised by without my help. When I see security reaching or pointing to a surfer I duck. I protect my head and face and wait for them to pass by. I’ve learned my lesson and have had too many running shoes kick my head. It sure was gross and sweaty up front though. John would come and go from the front. Pretty intense for him I think. You can’t be claustrophobic of crowds or mind squishing up against people.

Really good show and would see him again in a flash. We got a cab home no problem. I didn’t go back and wait for a picture and autograph with Rob like I would normally do. John wanted to head out and I was cool with that. I was soaked.

Mr. Mom:
Linda is off to London for 10 days and it’s just me and the 2 kids. What to do what to do ?? I know, let’s take them camping !! Dropped Linda off at the airport Friday night and drove for 5 hours to Lytton area to find my buddy Dave. Well being dark, it sure was tough finding my way around and I drove right by the site on a gravel road and kept going for 15km. Asked some locals where the sites were and then backtracked to the site. Still couldn’t find Dave after searching for a bit. About to leave as Dave is no where to be found and found another site and yahoo, Dave was there.

Dave also brought his 2 girls. 2 dads and 4 kids camping in the bush. Are we crazy ??

Dave has a brand new tent trailer and it’s awesome. We stayed up til 3AM and all slept in the trailer. It was great.

We had a great weekend, spent 3 nights there and the kids had a blast as well as Dave and I. Eating, kids biking, drinking, eating, boating, fishing, drinking, eating. That’s about it.

I’m still sore though from hurting myself. The kids were about a hundred yards from us and one of them started screaming hysterically and it was a blood curdling scream. I started to think the worst and ran down the gravel road in my flip flops as fast as I could. Not a good idea. Don’t try this at home. I tripped and came tumbling down on my hand on the gravel and then that gave way to my elbow on the gravel and then my left shoulder hit and I just tucked and did a somersault. It was quite brilliant looking. Looked like I knew what I was doing. A witness commented that I sure knew how to take a fall well. I bounced back on my feet after my somersault in one fluid motion and kept running towards them.

When I got there, the kids were safe and sound. It turns out the screaming was due to a grasshopper. Relieved that the kids were fine, I could focus on me. Hands all cuts up and bloody and bad road rash and blood on my elbow. My shoulder is still in pain today. Sigh.

Got home and unpacked everything into the living room and proceeded to mess the house up in an out of control fashion. No Linda for an hour and the house is a wreck. I’m such a guy. Washed up everyone and did 2 loads of laundry. Never done a load of laundry before. How sad is that ? I’m so spoiled.

Dropped the kids off at daycare Tuesday morning. Haley would have none of that. She was so sad and clung to me non stop. Everytime a helper would come over she would cry. It was so sad, I wanted to just bring her home and not go to work. Finally I had to let her go and walk away and a few minutes later, she was fine and ended up having a great time. Carter was easy as usual and just wanted to play.