Geocaching with Grandma, Grandpa and Buddy

Well, we couldn't decide what to do last night. The lantern festival sounded interesting but the thought of the crowds kept us away. We thought of taking Calum to a movie but decided to wait for a matinee. We decided to call Grandpa, Grandma and Buddy for a geocaching adventure. We went out to Mud Bay, and ended up on the wrong side of the highway for one cache. Then we were on the wrong side of the ditch.....oh well. Don found our first micro and first night find. We had a lot of fun though!

Not much new

Calum's got a new fish. He was inspired by Nicola. She recently got an aquarium so Calum wanted a fish too. He picked out the name and knew what he wanted before we even got to the pet store. This little guy likes bloodworms though, which I think is kinda gross. They are frozen and you have to put little bits in when he's hungry. You usually end up with a few on your hands and they are kinda smelly.

Today is Dakota's last day of summer school. Desiree still has to go till early August. Last night they both went to the fireworks. Don and I watched Calum play his Spiderman game for about an hour. He loves shooting webs and falling in the water. Earlier he was playing a skateboarding game with Dakota and was laughing every time someone fell down. Don and I think he'll love British humor so may introduce him to Mr. Bean soon.

Calum is almost finished at daycare for the summer - not soon enough for him as he's been telling me all week that it's closed and he can't go. They close in August. Don's taking two weeks off and I'm going to take a break too. We don't know what we'll do yet but expect time to go by fast. Hope you are all enjoying the sun today.

Calum's new fish - "Baby Beluga"

Calum Playing Spiderman on X-Box

A quick update

We had a great trip to Merritt. Calum got the family interested in geocaching. Mom's pretty good! By the time we left we had found one easy one and a hard one that required climbing up a hillside and fighting off mosquitoes. Mom and dad bought a GPS and were planning their next adventure. Mom's planning on leaving some interesting items at the caches so look out Merritt geocachers.

We had nice visits with my parents, Bonnie, Clint, Nicola, Jen and Pam. Calum spent some time exploring Merritt with them while I did a bit of work. He loved riding bikes with Nicola and Jen, playing with the dogs and running around outside. He even went swimming a few times in their big pool.

He told everyone at the Old DC about his trip. We also got to go pick up dad at the ferry terminal so he was a happy boy on Friday. Now everyone is back home, with no travel planned for a few weeks at least.

Calum and I went out yesterday morning to get the Harry Potter book. Calum was excited, carrying it around for me and trying to read it himself. He didn't like that I spent all day reading it but I'm finished now - a good book with more character development, not a lot of surprises.

Today, will be a quiet day. Calum is busy playing already but we've had a late start so far so I'm going to go get him breakfast. Hope you are all having a good weekend.

Nicola, Calum talks about your fish all of the time and we may be getting him a new one today. Mom and Dad - tell Diane and Gunnar we said hi, sorry to have missed them.

More Merritt Pics

Geocaching in Merritt with the Family

A second find for Jen, Nicola, Bonnie, Mom and Dad. A first for Pam, Aaron, Brandon and Wyatt!

Dakota's Birthday Cake - or Calum's?

As you can see, Dakota is waiting for her birthday cake but you can see that Calum is waiting as well!

Happy Birthday

Cake? Do we get cake? Happy birthday to Dakota! Love Calum, Desiree, Dad and Angie. Hope you have a great day and an injury free year.

Off again

Don has been on the road all week. He's back at Lytton today (3rd day). Did anyone see him on the news last night? Calum was pretty excited about looking for Dad on t.v. No news for the rest of us - school, work, Old DC. Next week Calum and I are planning on going up to Merritt for a few days. Calum is looking forward to doing some fishing with Nanny and Papa. I've got a little work to do up there but am looking forward to just enjoying a bit of a break. The girls both have school so can't come with us this trip. We'll likely be back up at the end of August anyway, if not sooner.

Hope you are all staying cool. Calum's been walking around in nothing but his diaper (and his Spidey boots if we go outside). Yeah, I'll have to get a picture of that to show him when he's older.

Returning from Hat Creek

Calum looking for bugs

Angie taking photos between Lillooet and Whistler.

Desiree just south of Whistler

Dakota south of Whistler

I think this is the way - hey look at that mountain.

Can you find Grandpa and Grandma Bain at the AFN National Day of Protest in Vancouver?

Back home

We had a busy weekend already. Friday night we went to Merritt and stayed at Mom and Dad's. Calum was so happy. As soon as I mentioned Nana and Papa he was packing his diapers in his Spidey bag (only two, though) and ready to go. We had a quick but nice visit. Calum liked playing with Oreo and Daisy, running around the yard, exploring all the cupboards and drawers in the house and spending time with Nanny and Papa. He didn't want to leave but we had to go early yesterday.

We then went to Hat Creek via Spences Bridge. I haven't been that way for years. It was a nice drive. We went to a funeral. It was a beautiful service and the stories people told made you both laugh and cry. On the way back, we drove through Pavilion, Lillooet and back through Whistler. Both Don and I have never been that way ( I took the train up once) but it was nice. We saw some black bears, deer, a coyote and a lot of birds on the way.

Now we are home and tired. Calum was too excited to go to sleep last night so he didn't go down till 11pm. I hope he'll sleep in but both Don and I are up so who knows if he'll stay in bed much longer.

The pictures aren't from this trip but I thought some Superman pics would help brighten the day.

Goodbye Bazooka Joe

We had him since January 2006 - almost a year and a half - but today we found Bazooka Joe belly up at the bottom of his tank. Poor Bazooka. He hadn't been looking good for over a week now and had no appetite for the past few days. Calum kept telling him to wake up. It's very strange trying to explain death to a two year old. I didn't flush him until Calum was at daycare. Goodbye Bazooka.

Dad's Home!

Calum was pretty excited that Dad came home last night. Calum and I went out for a quick visit with Uncle Larry before we went home to wait for Don. It was Calum's first visit to their new place and he loves the back yard. Look out Larry and Tabitha, I expect we will be visiting a bit more this summer.

We had a quiet night tonight. We met Don and went out for ice cream. Calum shared mine, ate Dad's fries and then went for his ice cream too. He saw a picture of a Superman cake and really wanted one. When I said no he was ready to settle for one with balloons. I had to explain that we had to wait for Desiree and Dakota to get home before we get a cake. I expect he will be ready to head out the door and get the cake as soon as we even mention that they are coming back.

It sounds like the girls are having fun. I think Desiree is visiting in Merritt tonight and Dakota is visiting with her cousins in Kamloops. They are planning on coming back on Monday. I hope that they get some good weather there this weekend because they have a lot planned.

We're not planning much this weekend. Don's going to need some time to decompress after a busy week. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Some excitement

Calum and I have been keeping ourselves occupied. Yesterday we spent an extra hour at the Old DC playing outside with the kids. None of them wanted to leave and all of the parents were pulling them away when it was time to go home. After we left, we had to look for ladybugs and it was a good day - we found 2. We then went home and played in the backyard for awhile before going to the mall and the "park". The park is only the playground at a nearby elementary school but Calum likes it there. On our way across the field, a little girl came running over straight to Calum and gave him a big (picture a headlock) hug. Calum was surprised and a bit shy but as she walked away he kept looking back. Then another girl went running by saying hello and goodbye. Calum had to say goodbye to her too. I teased him about it later and he smiled - guess he can't help it if the girls already like him.

When we got home we found a raccoon on the back deck. It was happily napping on a chair so we rushed inside then tried to scare it away by yelling out the window. That didn't work so we resorted to spraying it with water. We had a good close up view of it though so Calum got to learn about why we leave them alone (big teeth) and why we don't want them in the yard (fight with the cat).

We had a restless night - much tossing and turning by Calum so we got up at 5am. By 6 he was hungry but only wanted pudding (I know, most important meal of the day, etc. but I was just happy he was going to eat something) and we had the wrong kind. We got dressed and made our way to the grocery store where Calum happily carried the basket (almost tripping on it the whole way) and got his pudding. He also stopped for a donut which he insisted on paying for with the change we had put in his pocket (he likes having some money on hand already).

Now he's at the Old DC and I'm back at work. It seems like we've already put a full day in but it's only just beginning. Luckily, Don will be home tonight so maybe Calum will sleep better.

Too quiet

Don and the girls are away for awhile. The girls went to Kamloops to visit their mom and Don is in Westbank for a few days. Calum and I talked to them a couple of times while they were on the road. They stopped in to visit mom and dad and then Don continued on to Westbank while dad took the girls over the Merritt. Calum and I kept busy last night at a pizza party at the Old DC. Calum didn't want to leave and was one of the last out the door. He even helped pick up the toys. It was nice to talk with the other parents a bit - we usually only see each other when it's time to pick up or drop off the kids.

This morning it was pretty quiet. Calum was a little more subdued but I told him he had to check on the cat and Bazooka because he had to take care of everything when the girls and Dad are away. He liked that, and also liked walking around the house locking things up last night (something Dad usually does). Now the house is probably as quiet as it will be all summer so I better get to finishing my work.

Geocaching Adventure

We went out to Golden Ears Park yesterday to do some geocaching. We had the GPS, the map and a car load of kids. We stopped at the Maple Ridge Park on our way for a warm up find - one called Bugs in the Park. We found it after a bit of searching - a first find for Desiree and Dakota. Calum wanted to take all of the bugs from this one but we convinced him to take only one.

Happy with our first find of the day we went back to the car and set off again. We made a big mistake with the cache at Golden Ears Park. The clues weren't entirely clear on where to park, and we couldn't go the most direct route (through the campsite area - you had to pay $22 to camp and we were directed to day parking). We parked in the day parking area, got our gear together and started walking. We found a great path, followed the creek and when we got to the end found that we were on the wrong side! We could see the spot where the cache was probably hidden but had no way to get to it. We had just walked 1km, had a 1km walk back to the road and it would have taken another 2km+ just to get to the cache site from the other side. After pushing the stroller up and down the path we had enough and decided to leave it for the next time we were in the area. We had fun though and it was a beautiful walk.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

Hope you are out enjoying your camping trip!

Belated Happy Father's Day

Hope all of you fathers had a good day. We had a bar-b-que with Grandpa, Grandma, Rob and Buddy. The girls watched Calum while Don and I got to go out to see a movie.

We had a good weekend. We went to the New Westminster Quay - Calum wanted to go to the casino but decided to play on the boat instead. He and Dad had a good laugh on the way home. We did some reconnaissance work for Don on Saturday. We drove around downtown and got to see a lot of sights. We also went geocaching this weekend. We found 2 caches, Calum spotted one by himself. We couldn't find one.....think it's missing.

We've got a busy couple of weeks ahead so we may not be posting much. If I forget, happy anniversary Mom and Dad (June 23). I hear they may go camping. We will wish for good weather.