"Happy" Halloween?

Does anyone else think that the expression "Happy Halloween" is a little odd? How can a holiday that includes skeletons, witches, bats, devils, and spiders be "HAPPY"?? Take this house in my neighbourhood, as an example.

There are 12 life size skeletons on their front yard. 12! Not clean white skeletons, but skeletons that are a mottled browny colour. Two are sitting on a park bench with their arms around each other. One is in the ground, with just its limbs sticking up above the grass. 3 look like they're being hanged. I can't remember what the others are doing.

What on earth do you say to your kids when they ask "Mommy, why are those bones coming out of the ground?" or "How come that lady had a knife in her head?".

I don't remember the gross parts of Halloween from when I was a kid. This is what I remember:
Step 1: pick out an elaborate costume that my mom would gladly make
Step 2: go trick or treating 3 weeks early with Angela to see if any neighbours have their candy yet, and return home disappointed
Step 3: plan out a route entitiled "How to grab the most candy in the least amount of time" with my sisters and Angela
Step 4: come home halfway through trick-or-treating and drop off the gross candy (like those black candies in the orange wrappers) so mom and dad could give that out and save the good stuff for us
Step 5: the candy trade when the night it over (including giving mom all the tootsie rolls as her "Halloween Payment")
Step 6: take an actual inventory of how many of each candy I had, and count it multiple times a day to ensure that my sister hadn't been snitching any (my stash was in my underwear drawer, that's gross)

That being said, I hope everyone has a good day doing the fun and happy things that Halloween does offer: dressing up either you or your kiddies (I hope to see some adorable Plava photos soon), eating sugar, and spending time with friends or family! And for those of us who get to see kids, lets try to show them the brighter side of Halloween, without the blood, guts and gore!

Drive safe!

God's Painting

On our Saturday morning geocache excursion, our GPS took us to the boardwalk by the Mary Hill Bypass along the Fraser. We got out of the car, took one look at the scenery, and drove back home to grab the camera.
It was beautiful! The fog was thick, and the many spider webs were covered in dew.
It's ironic that God can make a structure made by a such a creepy and frightening arachnid so beautiful! The dew droplets on the webs were perfect tiny spheres, and if you got close enough, you could see the sun's reflection on each and every one of them!
The thing we like most about geocaching is being led to parts of our city that we've never been, or like to be. Without following the coordinates, we never would have seen the beautiful picture that God painted that morning!

Jumping on the Bandwagon

I have obviously jumped on the "Cluster Map" bandwagon. Or you could say I'm just copying Andrew and Laura.

Laura has proved herself to be quite html friendly by changing background colour on her blog, changing profile photos...she really seems to understand the language. And Andrew (with no surprise to me) has changed lots of stuff on his too. He comes up with all the neat things I never knew existed, and then want for myself.

Then there's me. I still don't have a profile photo (although I think I'll try to put the gun one in now)! I tried and tried to put the cluster map in by myself, but I just couldn't.

So I must say a "Thanks for putting it in for me, Andrew, and don't MAKE me change my password"! Tee hee.

This cluster map is letting me spy on people! One interesting thing to note: there's a red dot in or around the city of...oh, I don't know. Maybe Golden, BC? And no comments from anyone from there ;-)

The Chainsaw Massacre

Fall is here. The crispness is in the air, and it's starting to rain. Change of season is ok. It means that we can stop working on outdoor projects and start working on indoor projects!

Since last Saturday was still nice, we, pardon me, Colin, decided to do one last outdoor project.

We have many trees in our backyard. 3 of them are MASSIVE, 2 of them are huge, and then there's an assortment of smaller ones, like the ones that continue to grow spontaniously in the middle of the lawn.

The 2 huge trees in our backyard are ponderosa pines. We don't like them. They don't look that good, and they deposit their large needles ALL OVER the grass, killing it in the process. They need to come down.

Since Colin's motto is "try everything once and fun things twice", he decided that he'd take down one of the trees on Saturday. It's about 50 feet tall, and is touching the neighbours fence.

Colin goes outside with our backpack full of rock climbing gear, a extendable aluminum ladder, and a chainsaw. I follow him with a rake. Why a rake? I was cleaning up the mountain of leaves that falls from one of the massive trees. Plus: I was nervous and needed to have something to keep me busy.

Colin hooks up a pulley system to safely get the chainsaw up to the first branch. He puts on the harness and works his way up the tree.

He decided to start with the closest branch to the ground. I use the word "branch" lightly, because it was 10 inches in diameter and about 20 feet long, with many many other branches stemming from it. Hardly a BRANCH! More like a secondary tree!

Anyways. We "discussed" (or argued) a bit over how it was to come down. All of a sudden, the branch looks bigger that it did in the past! There's only a narrow 4 foot wide walkway between the house and the fence, and this "branch" and all of its parts have to land in that space.

After losing the argument, and pleading that we get a professional to do it, Colin starts up the chainsaw and I back WAY up. Instead of chainsawing it a bit at a time, he decides to sever it all at once. I back up more.

He got about halfway through the trunk and.........

I don't even know how to describe the sound! It was horrible! The loudest wood-ripping sound I've ever heard, followed by a series of deafening CRACKS as the tree hit and broke on:
-the retaining wall
-the porch railing
-the porch cover
-the roof of the house

The house actually SHOOK! I saw it! It was like an earthquake hit!

The "branch" looked a LOT bigger laying on my poor house than it did when it was still attached to the tree!!

It turns out that if the branch fell any more to the left, it would have taken out the neighbours fence, and if it fell more to the right, it would have taken out our porch cover and possibly put a hole in the house. But miraculously, everything is FINE! Could it be Colin's tree-chopping skills? Or divine intervention? I favour the latter!

It took about an hour to clean up the mess and chop up the main part of the branch (which provided us with enough firewood for 2 months). The rest of it will probably have to be taken to the dump in 2 or 3 truckloads.

So after it's cleaned up, Colin heads back up the tree. There are still LOTS more branches to chop down!

I think, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! I only have once more ounce of sanity left!!".

To my relief, and possibly to maintain my sanity, he climbed back down, suggesting we should get a professional to do the rest.

Try everything once, but only FUN things twice!

I love my husband!! His sense of adventure always keep life extremely interesting (or extreme and interesting).

I'm a Redneck Woman

So, for those of you who are wondering if I am still alive, as I have not posted in (gasp) two weeks...I am indeed alive! And thankfully, more rested!

Friday morning (of the long weekend), we woke up at 5:30 AM, and left the house by 6:00! Since we were leaving on a weekday, we had to beat the morning rush hour. We drove up to Pemberton on smooth, silky concrete roads, which I will never take for granted EVER AGAIN! From there, we turned the truck down a logging road and started the first "extreme adventure" of our holiday.

About 15 - 20 minutes after we got onto the washboard-of-a-road, I hear a funny sound. Kinda like what a tailpipe would sound like if it was dragging along the bumpy road behind your truck as you are driving. Funny... cuz that's EXACTLY what it was! It was rusted beyond repair, so Colin had to take it right off. As he was looking under the truck, he noticed that one shock was destroyed. Oh good. Aren't shocks neccessary for things like crazy logging roads?

The broken shock didn't seems to make much of a difference. Along the road, Colin looked for a good place to give me my first "redneck woman" lesson of the trip: "Shooting 101". We went up a steep road where there was nothing around for a few hundred km. He got out his .22 rifle. I have never held a gun, or never really wanted to shoot one. Part of me only did it because if I didn't, I'd be bored. Colin certainly was going to shoot at stuff for awhile whether I did it or not. The other part of me wanted to try it just to see if I could do it.

We started out with a gun safety lesson, then we sat up the pop and beer cans which Colin periodically made me jump out of the truck to retrieve along the logging road. EWE! At first, I took one shot per minute, because it actually is harder to aim than you'd think. By the end, I was shooting the whole clip in the same amount of time, making the cans dance! Poor things. Wish I took a picture of them when we were through with them.

Tyax was incredible! It's a huge log cabin resort, but has the feel of a bed and breakfast. Mostly because we had a buffet breakfast every morning, and also because the staff were so friendly that you felt like you were getting special treatment. You can go all-inclusive (quite a bit more pricey), or you can do what we did: gorge yourself with the no-charge breakfast, skip lunch because you're still full, then drive 15 minutes to eat at the Motel in Goldbridge (a town with the population of 43 people) for dinner. They've got delicious food, in large portions, for cheap! Groups of 6 or more can rent individual log cabins along the lakeside. That will be a future trip!

All guests at the resort have unlimited access to rowboats, canoes (which we used often), paddleboats (which are S-L-O-W), interpretive hiking/biking trails, hot tub and sauna. They even let you borrow a can of bear spray whenever you venture out into the wilderness, and only charge you for it if you use it! I felt much better when clutching onto the bottle.

For splurges, you can take a float plane sightseeing ride, or have the plane drop you off to explore the alpine meadows and come pick you up later. Then there's the ATV's!

To top off my "redneck experience" we HAD to rent an ATV! We took it out for 2 hours on a narrow trail that went around the lake. It gained a LOT of elevation (got really cold), and had incredible views! There was no one else on the trail, so we were tearing up and down hills (safely, of course). I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would! I was giggling with glee the whole time! Who needs a rollercoaster??

Included in our specific promo package was a trail ride on horseback through the hills around the resort. I had a large horse who liked to take his time. When he noticed how far back he was from Colin's horse, he'd start running, which I am not familiar with! It scared me at first, but then I found myself slowing my horse down so he'd have to catch up down the road. Colin's horse had a mind of it's own! He was hungry the whole time and was always looking for a tasty snack off the trail!

Another part of our trip was geocaching! There was one hidden in Goldbridge. No one had found that cache yet, so we were looking forward to being the first people to find it (Geocaching bragging rights, and possibly a good prize)! To make a LONG story short, someone found it 2 hours before we got there! ARGH! (our "cache"name is sillysalmon, so on the links, scroll down til you see our name).

There was also another geocache on a hiking trail at Tyax. Read details of our adventure here. We found a special item in that cache: a travel bug! Check out his story and photos of his journey from California.

From reading this, you're probably thinking that the Roth's don't know how to relax! But we do! We escaped the cold evenings by sitting in the outdoor hot tub every evening (usually alone), had naps and played darts & pool. One of my favorite relaxing moments was when we ordered a hot chocolate and played crib in front of the 30 foot high stone fireplace in the common area of the resort! Ahhhh....

We'd recommend Tyax to ANYONE at ANY season! But of course, you have to take us with you!

Done Like Dinner

It's over. My department has moved, and I write from my brand new office.

I survived (although barely). 60+ hours in one week sucks.

My advice to anyone who reads this:
"If your office is moving, plan a big personal event that will happen near moving day, so you will not be working on those days. A baby, wedding, vacation....ANYTHING!"

Luckily for me, I am on vacation as of Thursday evening, so at least I'll be able to recouperate!