Kids 50 Things #49

As you may recall there was an article in the Globe & Mail earlier this week that listed the 50 things your child should do before 12. Wanting to get a head start on the list we did something easy today and headed down to the river for a bike ride and to hopefully grab a couple Geocaches. I needed to take it easy today as yesterday I partook in some manual labour as part of my volunteer work for Rotary that included shoveling and moving gravel, soil, etc. as we helped build and fill garden plots for the local community garden; problem is I am not used to manual labor and somewhere in the process I hurt my wrist.

When we head down to the river the kids usually last for about an hour but today we spent almost two and half hours at the river just playing around and exploring a lot of the side trails. We ended up finding 3 caches on the day, we are up to 131 now; pictures of today and a few other randoms below...

Easter Weekend Fun

Mum and Dad were over for the weekend and we have our Rotary exchange student too so we did our best to keep busy this weekend. On Saturday morning we took Aro (not his real name just what we call him), our exchange student, and Robin, another exchange student from France, fishing on the river. As per usual our fishing trip just turned into a nice walk along the river.

Saturday afternoon we spent lots of time playing outside, gardening and then started prepping for our Easter dinner which we had on Saturday night. On Sunday morning we got up early and the kids did their Easter egg hunt and then Chelsey and Aro went dragon boating. The plan in the afternoon was to show Aro the Othello Tunnels and then do some geocaching at Emery Creek. When we got to the Othello Tunnels the tunnels were still closed due to the rock fall hazard so we just played along the river for awhile. We had the same problem when we got to Emery Creek as the park/campground was not yet open for the season. To ensure the trip was not wasted I took a detour on the way home up the old BC Nickel Mine road to grab a couple of geocaches. Enough of my gabbing here are the pictures...

Walking along the Fraser River

The weather was nice today so we took the kids for a walk along the Fraser River to grab a couple geocaches. Not much to report on the walk so I will just show you the pictures. There is also a picture of my indoor greenhouse; I have some things started early that I will transport outside in the Spring.

Geocaching at Dog Poo Lake

Today the kids and I went geocaching at Albert Dyck Lake in Abbotsford. There were a bunch of caches on the trail that went around the lake so it was a good chance for a nice walk and a haul of caches. As you can tell by the title of this post there was dog crap everywhere. I managed to step in only one big pile which was quite the feat; even the people that did pick up their dogs shit were pigs as there were full poo bags everywhere - on the side of the trail, hanging from trees, in the fence, etc. Other than the dog crap it was a nice place for a walk and we ended up getting 6 caches on the day so our total is now 122!

There are pictures of our day below as well as some of the kids "mini-golf." The kids made up this game on Saturday where they place empty plastic plant pots around the front lawn and then hit their golf balls into them; they call it mini golf, aren't they clever! Enjoy the pics...

New Year Geocaching!

The kids wanted to go Geocaching again today so we scooted out to Cultus Lake Park as it is nice and close. All the caches we found were around the Maple Bay campground at the far end of the lake and we ended up snagging 5 for the day. Since everything is shut down for the winter it was pretty cool wondering around as all the trails were covered in leaves and there were lots of trees down across the trails. I was super stoked at how good the kids were as we wondered around for close to 2 hours and they whined very little. They must have had a good nights sleep because the have been chasing their Zhu Zhu Pets around the living room for the past hour and they are by no means taking it easy; hopefully that means they will go to bed good tonight.

Pictures of our adventure as well as the beginnings of my "Chilli-Con-Cupboard" below; I made a wicked ham and bean soup yesterday so thought I would give Chilli a whirl tonight...

Year End Geocaching

It was a super nice day today so the kids and I decided to finish the year with some fresh air. Cohen has been asking for awhile to go "treasure hunting" and golfing again but the driving range in Chilliwack went belly up which is why we have not been out in while. Knowing there was a driving range in Abbotsford with heated stalls we looked for an area with geocaches out there to hit up also. We decided on Aldergrove Lake Regional Park as it has about 25 geocaches in a "small" area. I figured it would be a good spot as it would allow us to get a bunch of caches in a short period of time.

The park was awesome as the trails were all gravel and not too hilly so the kids were able to walk around for about an hour and a half with out whining. We found 5 geocaches today which brings our total for the year to 109. We also checked out a Glacial Erratic which is a piece of rock carried by glacial ice from its original rock outcrop; to us it is just a big rock but it is cool to see remnants of the ice age.

Anyways pictures of our day and a few from Christmas are below. Enjoy...

Foley Lake "Fishing"

Today the kids and I took Grandpa Darcy to Foley Lake in the Chilliwack River Valley in the hopes of finding a few geocaches and hopefully catching a fish. I knew there were fish in the lake but not sure what you have to do different to catch lake fish in the winter...Anyways, as is usually the case we did not cash any fish but we did find a geocache.

It was my first time to this lake and I must say it was quite a nice area. I always like heading into the mountains in the fall because the mountains usually have snow and any of the garbage left behind by the summer pigs is usually covered up by leaves. It was a pretty chilly day with most of the ground frozen but over all I think it went well. Enjoy the pictures

Rainy Day Geocaching

I love walking around the forest when it is raining so I figured the kids do too! With that in mind we scooted out to find a couple Geocaches today. I got an e-mail stating a new one had been hidden by Cultus Lake so we decided to try and be the first to find it; and we were!! It took 101 tries but we were finally the first to find a new geocache! There are only a couple of pictures as our batteries started dying on the GPS so we were only able to find 2 caches. I could not find the camera so I had to use my phone, but the pictures look pretty decent anyways. Enjoy!

The things you find in the woods; this car was from the 50's or 60's  but the kids found it cool.

At the site of our first find of the day and our first FTF!

We all thought this was pretty cool. In the background to your right you can see the roots of a big tree that got blow down.  Obviously, it was a big tree as the roots were pretty big.

Cache 102 for us. October was a slow month for geocaching but we have been very busy with other things. Hopefully we can do better in November.

Geocaching Chilliwack Lake

After Chelsey pulled a fast one and gave me the shaft today the kids and I decided to do some geocaching. When the weather stinks I like to find caches that are grouped together or close to the car so we don't get too wet. Todays location of choice was Chilliwack Lake as it offered some of both. Not much to describe on the day so I will let the pictures do the talking. But, in general we all had a good day and we found our 100th cache; yay us. 

There is also a couple of pictures of a fish I caught in the river last week. The picture kind of sucks as I knew I had to release it and I was by myself so I did not want to have the fish flopping on the rocks while I took a picture so I just kept it on the line and tried to snap one. 

I also have a video of Cohen ice skating that I have been meaning to upload to the blog but just have not found the time recently; will try and get it up soon. Enjoy the pictures...

Sunday Funday

My Mum has been in town for a few days and for the most part we have been pretty busy with the kids activities, soccer, skating, etc. With nothing going on today we decided to head out to Hope as my Mum has yet to see the Othello Tunnels and it also gave us a chance to do some more geocaching. On the drive out we were able to pick up two geocaches before reaching Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park which is home to the tunnels.

We walked through the tunnels and then on the way back Mum became a leaf monster and started scaring the twins. Personally I thought she look more like a moose, but what do I know; pictures are below so you can decide for yourself. After hitting up the tunnels we went and looked for a geocache at the Nicolum River Provincial Park which is now permanently closed. It is still on our list of provincial parks that we have to visit for #43 on our list of 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die so we made the trip even though it was closed.

There was one other geocache I wanted to find before we went home and it was along a forest service road just across the street from the Nicolum River Provincial Park. The GPS said it was only 1KM away but I forgot that was as the crow flied. We made it to the geocache which was closer to 5km up the road which was a little dodgy at parts; then I thought that it is almost a tradition to take Mum up dodgy roads when she visits and that made me feel better.

Kyah fell asleep on the way back down so Mum and I had a good laugh at her head bouncing around as we made our way back to civilization. We started filming her to share it with you, which I do below, but then she smacked her head and cried so that made me feel bad. Mum being Mum just started laughing even harder, can you believe it?!? I need to start bringing her a pillow when we go on these drives.

Enjoy the pictures and short video clip...

Camp Kindawoods

Before I dive into our "camping" adventure I need to explain that I am very superstitious. I will never walk under a ladder, avoid the number 13, etc and I am a big believer that everything happens for a reason and that you should follow your gut. The other day when I was walking into the office I saw a crap load of crows flying around, I have never seen crows flocking like that so I was kind of creeped out. The first thing that I thought was something was going to happen, like "The Big One" or something. I have heard people say animals know when something is going to happen so I assume that is why I thought of that. Anyways, a few hours later that big earth quake hit off of Vancouver Island; weird eh.

So...The kids have been bugging me for weeks to take them camping. I kept promising I would but either the weather sucked or something else came up. Not wanting to be the Dad that promises but never delivers I figured we should head up this weekend. Last night the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow was rain so I figured if we could get the tent set-up when it was not raining we would be safe. So I loaded all the camping gear up last night with the intent to scoot off after Cohen's skating lesson if the weather was ok; as a side note, Cohen rocked at his skating lessons today!

So last night while I was sound asleep fighting my sleep apnea I had a dream that we were out camping. In this dream we went for a walk and Cohen got attacked by a bear. It was a pretty vivid dream as I remember crying in the hospital hoping he was ok; so with my superstitious attitude and the experience with the crows the other day I was a little freaked to go camping when I woke up. When I was making the kids breakfast I told them that if it was raining we couldn't go camping and it was raining pretty good this morning. Trying to be the trooper I packed up all the food, pillows, etc before we left for skating with the intent of still going camping but secretly wishing it would snow or something...

Fossils, Fires and Frogs

Today I gave the twins a few choices to find out what they wanted to do and the decision was to look for fossils and treasure hunt (i.e. geocache); I first had to explain what fossils were. Kyah just wanted to go to a park so she was easy to please.

There was an Earthcache, which is a type of geocache, up the Chilliwack River Valley by Slesse Creek which was at an area where we could look for fossils, we decided that would be our destination. After a quick stop at Timmys we headed up and into the bush. There were some people camping on the forest service road where we had to park to hunt for fossils, but other then that it was all quiet. We spent a good hour or so looking at rocks on the side of the creek and the kids had a great time throwing twigs and leaves in the creek and watching them float down; Cohen's favorite part was "saving" the leaves.

After looking for the fossils, and I think we found one but you have to look below for a picture, we cruised back down to the Chilliwack River for some traditional geocaches. The first one we looked for was around a unofficial campsite and it was absolutely disgusting to see the amount of garbage that was left around. The worst part was the ass hats who stayed there must have just left because their fire was still burning. It never ceases to amaze me how disrespectful people in this world are becoming. The fact that I can go camping with two 4 year olds, both of whom know it is "noddy" to litter, and not leave a trace while grown adults can not even put out a fire or pick up their garbage is mind boggling.

After searching around for the cache we gave up, took a quick peak at the Slesse Creek Cave, and headed off for our next cache. We found another cache up another forest service road, once again it was littered with garbage and yard waste, then took the back roads home through Mount Slesse, up the Chilliwack Army Forest Service Road, onto Chilliwack Bench Forest Service Road which took us to Ryder Lake. We took a break at a park up on Ryder Lake where the kids got to play on the swings and slides before heading home.

We had friends over for dinner which included the salmon I caught in Campbell River as well as some fresh Chilliwack corn; how can you go wrong with that! Thats all for this weekend folks; time permitting we will be heading camping for a day or two next weekend! Enjoy the pictures...

Skating, Geocaching and...Sharting!

Busy and fun day with the kids today. Cohen had his ice skating lessons at 12:00 so we decided to leave the house early and grab a couple of Geocaches. For our morning session we grabbed four and then headed off to skating. As Cohen had not skated all summer we were a little concerned that he may have forgotten how to stand up and stuff, but he rocked it and did great. After skating we went to a park by the rink real quick for some playtime and to find another geocache...Yay! Then it was time to go home for lunch and some quiet time; aka I needed a nap - I blame it on the sleep apnea! When nap time was over we went and played a little mini golf and hit up the driving range, the kids love mini golf but I think it was a little too hot for them at the driving range; it has been in the low 30's the past few days.

After our fun golfing we had some dinner and grabbed a couple more geocaches on the way home. We found a total of seven today which is a new record for us; our grand total is up to 82. I told the kids that we got a new record after the seventh cache and then had to spend 15 minutes explaining to Cohen that we do not receive a tangible item and that "record" is just a word; obviously he wanted something for our achievement.

The last cache we found was at a park so the kids played around a bit. As Kyah was coming down the slide she ripped a big one and we just laughed it off even though she has had a funny tummy for most of the day. Two minutes later I hear Cohen screaming that Kyah poohed. I ask her what happened and she said when she farted pooh came out (the good ol' shart - to view the Urban Dictionary definition of the shart click here). When she showed me her panties she had dropped a wet load, I told her to take them off and put them in the garbage and that resulted in pooh down the leg. After throwing water on her we booked it home for bath time! Enjoy the pictures, I still need to screw with the settings on the camera as the picture color is looking dull...

Wud Up G' - Golfing, Geocaching and 'Gam'

As Chelsey skipped town for the day with her friend the kids and I decided to get outside and do some of the stuff that is not on top of Mum's fun list; golfing and geocaching. After a quick stop at Timmy's for some Timbits, as you can't have fun with out them, we headed on down to the driving range to work on our swings. As always the kids stole all the balls and had a pretty good time. Cohen can hit it pretty well but holds the club like a hockey stick, Kyah has pretty good form but it doesn't go as far as Cohen's.

After golfing we headed to a little park down by the Fraser River for some geocaching. I thought that the mosquitoes would be gone by now but I was dead wrong; I also under estimated how hot and muggy it was outside as it was a "scorcher." We found one Geocache pretty quick and since the kids were getting but by the bugs, I forgot the bug spray again, we decided to head back to the car. The park we were at had tonnes of blackberries so we emptied out water bottles and quickly filled them with berries. After stopping for Slurpees and some groceries we scooted home where it was much cooler.

We decided to make some jam with our blackberries and searched the internet for a recipe. All the recipes required Pectin, which we have zero of, but I found out that pectin is found naturally in many fruits such as green apples. With that in mind I boiled some green apples with the berries and took them out before we jarred the jam; now we just need to find a substitute for all the sugar! Hopefully it works out but we wont know until it cools. We finished the day off with a nice barbecued steak and ceaser salad. Pictures of our day below...

Tuk El Nuit Lake - Day Five

Another fun day at the lake today but this one started a little early, as in 2:07AM. There are signs around warning people to lock up their booze as I guess the local kids like to have a few. Last night I heard foot steps outside and then saw the light from someone opening our fridge. I got up and peeked over the door through the screen and saw some dude with his head in our fridge. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hey dude whats ups?

The Kid: Aww nothing much, just chillin'

Me: Havin' a few beers eh?

The Kid: Yeah, just one...

The dude then grabbed one of my beers and took off. The people in the Cabana next to ours had some of their booze taken too. When I looked outside to see where the shit ran off too they were already down by the beach and I wasnt too concerned about one beer anyways. That being said, I rigged up a wicked alarm system and if they come back tonight there will be golf balls bouncing everywhere.

Today we took off to the States to grab some Cherry Coke, some bubblegum, a $5 six pack of beer and our very first Geocache in the U.S. of A. We also went down to try and get a cache a Lake Osoyoos State Park but we learned it is no longer a State Park and is now a city park. After a few hours down there we scooted back to the camp site as Cohen was not being himself.

Poor Cohen was very whiny the whole morning and was not being super happy. He slept the whole drive back from the States and when we got home all he wanted to do was lie in bed. After seeing he had a fever and that his glands were a bit swollen Chelsey took him to the doctor; turns out the little dude has Strep Throat. It is all good though as he was his chipper old self by dinner time. Hopefully he is happy tomorrow!

After dinner we roasted some marshmallows at the camp fire then went  to check out the Wednesday night Karaoke here at the site. It was mainly kids singing but it was still a train wreck. Not too many pictures today as we were more concerned about Cohen then pictures...

5 Geocaches and a Mountain Top

Today Chelsey and I got a baby sitter for the twins so we could go for a hike up Elk Mountain. I have wanted to do more hiking and get into the back country more but have been too cheap to pay for a baby sitter. Realizing everything can not wait until the kids are old enough to do it with me I figured we should just suck it up and it was well worth it; a few more years and the kids will be able to do most things with me anyways. 

The hike was 8km return with an elevation gain of 674 meters and the peak was at 1304 meters. I took the GPS with me to track our trek but I still need to figure out how to upload it to Google Earth. Lucky for us there were Geocaches the whole way up and we were able to pick up 5 on the way, including one right by the summit - our total is now 45 found!

One of the things on our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list is summit a mountain. While technically this hike would qualify I want to do something more challenging before I cross that one off our list. Chelsey on the other hand, would probably be happy to cross it off now. Lots of pictures below for you to all enjoy; they do not do the view justice...

Geocaching at the Wetlands

This morning while Chelsey was dragon boating I took the kids to the Cheam Lake Wetlands in hopes of finding a couple geocaches. It was our first trip to this park and we were quite happy with the scenery. Even better, for the kids, were the two rabbit sightings! The downside was we did not find any geocaches. I blame it on the fact that the brush was so thick that we couldn't see; we have decided to go back again in the winter when everything isn't so green. There was also lots of bugs, Cohen said "Daddy I didn't have too much fun because there was too many bugs, but I do want to go back when the bugs are gone." So that is the story; we had a good walk just no treasure. Enjoy the pictures...

BC Parks: Davis Lake Provincial Park - Geocaching

Wanting to knock another park of our list I decided we should go Geocaching today at Davis Lake Provincial Park which is just outside Mission. As has been the theme this spring the weather was horrible - cold and wet; are you supposed to see your breath a few days before summer? With the wet weather I knew it was going to be a challenge to keep everybody happy but for the most part things went well. Our first stop was by a creek, the name of which I forget, to find a cache, after looking around we realized we were on the wrong side of the creek and it was too big to cross; the plan was to try again on the way home. Before hitting the park we detoured to check out Cascade Falls, see pictures below, which was quite nice and a short hike up from the parking lot. There was a cache close to the falls we were hoping to find but did not have any luck, after some further research we found out the co-ordinates were off. Once back in the car, just a tad wet, we took off towards Davis Lake in hopes of finding some more caches.

After getting close to the lake we realized the road down was a 4x4 track. I put the ol' truck into 4x4 low and went on our way...Until Chelsey vetoed any further travel. After some discussion and me pulling the "Fathers Day" card we got out to walk down to the lake. Since we were already wet the walk did not last long as we started to get muddy; when it came voting time I lost 3-1. We decided to head back to the truck and hit up this lake on a not so muddy day. The bright side was we did find one cache on the way home so all was not lost! Enjoy the pictures...

Fishing & Geocaching at Hicks Lake

With Chelsey in Vancouver all weekend for a Dragon Boat regatta the kids and I had lots of time to do non "lady" stuff. With yesterday's weather being decent we decided to invite Nana & Papa Weaver to Hicks lake with us for a little fun. Hicks lake is located in Sasquatch Provincial Park just past Harrison and was our go to location last summer for many weekend days. A per usual I spent more time dickin' around with the tackle then actually fishing as I suck so bad. Obviously, I did not catch any fish but Papa Weaver did hook one that got away. We also snagged 4 geocaches on the day so our total is upto 30. Nana Weaver took all the pictures as Chelsey had our camera with her; I guess she thinks Kyah is photogenic because most of the pictures are of her...

BC Parks: Bridal Veil Falls

After visiting the Eagles and Dragons (see prior post) the kids and I trekked down the freeway a bit to Bridal Veil Falls . Even though we had been to Bridal Falls before we had to go again as I want to hit all the parks as part of our 50 Things Project. We could count Bridal Falls as number 48 on the list but that would be too easy so we are just using it to knock another park off the list for number 43. At the park we took in the sights and picked up another geocache. The video clip below is of both Bridal Falls and the Eagles and Dragons; I thought I had more footage but I seem to have "lost" it on the camcorder. Good thing I have pictures to make up for it.