El Caminito Del Rey

El Caminito del Rey (The King's pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain. The name is often shortened to El Camino del Rey. Although the path is in Spain, it is rumoured that people from Asia built the path way for the King. In 1901 it was obvious that the workers of the Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls needed a walkway to cross between the falls, to provide transport of materials, vigilance and maintenance of the channel. Construction of the walkway took four years; it was finished in 1905.

In 1921 the king Alfonso XIII crossed the walkway for the inauguration of the dam Conde del Guadalhorce and it became known by its present name.The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 feet and 3 inches) in width, and is over 200 meters (700 feet) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the concrete walkway have completely collapsed and all that is remaining is the steel beam originally in place to hold it up and the wire that follows most the path. One can latch onto the wire to keep from falling. Several people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years; after four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way onto the walkway to explore it.

The regional government of Andalusia budgeted in 2006 for a restoration plan estimated at € 7 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Caminito_del_Rey

(sorry about all the little links and bolding, I couldn't delete them from the copy paste I did from Wikipedia)

lazy blog post

too tired. it's late. but I feel I must post something. it's been a while.

The cat is spayed. yay! She got in today by pure luck, instead of Sept 2nd that my new regular vet had open.

The dog has her shots. yay! From said new regular vet. rabies and .. uh.. parvo and other stuff.

Jake is spayed and has had his shots. Yay! no just kidding. that was a JOKE.

I love Bob Saget. he had a special on TV from last year. you can youtube it. hillarious. raunchy. rude. crude. hillarious! go to www.youtube.com and search for Bob Saget That Ain't Right. there's a bunch of parts.. watch them. FUNNY STUFF.

my pumpkin plant has huge pumpkin coloured flowers. my watermellon plant has no flowers and 2 of them died. one is left, looking very small, but still growing. my peas popped up and have been staked. steaked? better late than never, right? My tomato plant is robust and flowery.

I made a great banana blueberry raspberry bread yesterday. so good. if you come over (soon) you can have some. raspberry drizzle icing. yes, I said icing. SO GOOD. and a little bit not-very-unhealthy for you, too!

Hayden went to McDonald's Playland today with daycare on the public bus. Kids under 5 ride free. his very first field trip!! awwwwww! The teachers just made them hold hands and no one got run over or ran away or anything. He was telling me about it when he was supposed to be going to sleep. I was singing songs. I encouraged him to talk about his day, because normally he doesn't really talk about his day too much. Even though it meant his bed time was pushed back and the almost-asleep Sage ended up waking up because of it. oh well.

and now I go to bed. maybe after one more piece of banana blueberry raspberry bread with raspberry drizzle icing.... there isn't a LOT of icing... just a small drizzling amount....

Bouncy Slide Haiku

Clogs of children sweat

Climbing their Mount Everest

Sliding down with glee.

Fantastic Family Fun Fair Fotos

Today was CBS's Family Fun Fair put on by the social committee. There were dark storm clouds present, heavy, black, and pendulous, but the rain held off until after WE were home.

Bouncy Castle. Check.

Sage mostly sat in the middle waiting for his "sea legs" to show up.
Hayden took to it naturally, almost like he'd been practicing on his bed for months and months....

I love the "in mid-air" shots.

A brief stop for a piece of COTTON candy, which was handed out free. COTTON candy. COTTON candy. emphasis on the COTTON.
There was also a bouncy slide. It took Hayden between 10-20 minutes to get to the top. He went down twice.

One.
Clogs of children impeded by each others' struggles to get to the top.
The second time Hayden reached the top, he sat in the corner for a while before he went down the slide. I think he was tired. Sage just stood at the bottom, watching all the children exhaust themselves.
And this is the second slide. Lots of effort for 1.5 seconds of fun.
WHEE!! But WHAT fun!

There was also a dunk-tank. This is another Team Leader, Annan, and that's his little boy and fiance. Seems like Annan is begging not to be dunked!
The woman in the white shirt is another TL and also Afternoon Shift Supervisor Christine, and she's enjoying the dunk spectacle from her post over at the putt-putt.
The money shot! In he went. I'm going to make this my desktop background at work.
And the woman in the red shirt is the one who dunked him. That's Linda, the assistant to the Director. She's normally such a quiet and soft-spoken lady who would never whip a hard-ball into a target.

Good Bye Eddie.. good bye... Hello Chair!

I finally got a new home for Eddie, the last kitten with the spots. I gave him away free because I wanted to stop Kitty from nursing so we could get her spayed. Unfortunately a screw up with our income taxes means we can't get her spayed until next month. CRAP. I hope that she doesn't go into heat and get repregnantized before then. (I really doubt she WON'T go into heat before then.) And considering that a few minutes ago I saw the orange tabby who was this batch of kittens' daddy peeking his face in our door (whom I shooed away WITHOUT the hose this time) I think that another pregnancy is probably not far away. I believe they can still spay her without too much complication as long as it's within the first three weeks of pregnancy. So all we gotta do is make sure she doesn't get pregnant within the next week and we'll be good.

So the tax screw up. I know I know, I mentioned the chair in the title. Suffice to say we got a new lay-z-boy from a lady I found on Kijiji. Back to the taxes. Taxes, you say? Weren't those due in April? Oh my! Yes they were! I DID do my taxes in April. I even (I thought) submitted them online! We weren't getting much of a refund, but I had originally thought we were going to have to pay, so a $19 refund instead of a $250 bill was WORTH the $33 it cost to do them online. Turns out that what I did was supposed to be printed and submitted to the government, OR attached as a .tax file to an email sent to the gov't address. This part of the instructions was not clear back in April when I did our taxes. Because the refund was so small, I figured it just got lost in the bank account when we had money. I never really went in and checked to see if/when we got it. But we also didn't get the blue assessment papers from the gov't. And then on GST day last Friday we didn't get any GST either. I called the tax data centre on Monday and they told me my taxes had not been submitted. I had checked online on Sunday to see if I could find the phone number for the Quicktax people and check on my return. I found out that you can only call them during tax season. Other times of the year you have to complain/question via email. The reply to my email questions was pretty much a form letter saying that I should've attached my .tax file to the whatever and done.. something.. but that I could still go to my online account and print my return and submit now. Great. Except that when I went to my online account, none of my information was there any more. Just a bunch of zeros and a button saying "start a new return". Which made me feel not so confident that my info was to be found. BUT THEY STILL CHARGED US!! So how can I fill out my taxes again without having to repay? WHY DON'T YOU GUYS HAVE A FRIGGIN PHONE NUMBER ?? I emailed again asking those questions, without the "friggin"s or caps, but have yet to receive an answer.

And that is why I can't get my nails done this Sunday.

What? Oh. I thought you were somebody else there for a minute. And now, a dance of frustration:

~~!~~!@@#$$#@@#$$#~~!~~!@@#$$#@@#$$#~~!~!

Yay it's summer!

I've been craving lakewater for some time now. Today I decided it wouldn't be hard to take the two boys to Moonlight Beach while Jake stayed home sick. At first I thought it wouldn't be hard to take the two boys and Tilly to the beach, but then I decided that might be too hard. And good thing, it was doable, but a dog too would've been too much for one set of eyes.

We walked around in the lake, which was VERY warm. The boys loved it. Next time I will bring my suit too and we will go real swimming in the lake. Sage had a hat too, but it kept blowing off and then it got soaked and he didn't want to wear it any more. I had good sunscreen lathered all over him, so I figured he was okay.

Hayden kept saying "I want to walk over THERE" pointing to the deeper water. Next time, buddy. I promise.

Sage fell face first into the water for a second or two but he didn't even cry! He sputtered a bit, but I wiped his face with my shirt and he was fine. Good boy!
They both loooooved the swings.
Hayden loved the playground. I unhooked the umbillical cord a notch or two and let him go off and play while I stayed with Sage on the swings. gulp. He's got a playground at daycare though, so I know he's experienced on them.
Here he's going down the short slide. I've put an arrow in so you can see how very far away from me he is. gulp.
Aww, nice and close to mommy. He is swinging but he looks like he's just dangling.

There he is, on the upswing.
He said "I want that" so I took him over to the playground. He went up and down this set of stairs about 10 times, blocking the older children and being in their way. Haha! Oh well.

Eventually he got the nerve to go down the slide a bunch of times. He only bonked his head once.

We all had a lot of fun! I had packed a picnic lunch but of course the kids weren't interested in eating. We ate our nectarines, yogurt and peanut butter sandwiches when we got home. They didn't even complain too hard when I said it was time to go! I enticed them with the promise of drinks when we got to the car. ooh I'm so tricky.

Canada Day and stuff

Canada Day Carol and BJ and family came to our house and got here around 11:45am. My dad came too and we had cold cuts and buns and hung out for a while. Then we all packed up and headed over to Granty Penny and Gruncle Ron's house for a pool party and snacks. We swam and we swam all over the dam. No just kidding. But we did have a great time in their pool and ate their yummy snacks. After everyone was dried off and full of snacks, we took the party over to Elizabeth's house for more visiting and eventually supper. Unfortunately Sage missed his nap and we had to leave the party early because he was so tired. But it was a good Canada Day.

Here Hayden brandishes the flag whilst aunties sing the national anthem.
Cousin Hannah in her angelic splendour.
Rocking chair man burning up his fuse up here alone. Cutest cat toy ever built - with a Dhara attachment.

Granty Penny and Sage explore all the possibilities of a wicker coaster.


Tilly gives Stephanie one last maul before she's taken away by her new family.

Goodbye Stephanie McMahon Huss, goodbye...

Little Zoe and her mom Kelly will give her a great home, I know.
Guitar Heroes. Found my guitar.
Hayden's facial expression says "I'm not sure if I'm in trouble or not, but I'll smile a little and see if you smile back."
Yogurt Covered Babies!

Please sir, can I have some more?

July 2nd

Welcome to the world Sarah Nichole Mills!!

Jake's oldest sister Cybil had her daughter by C-Section on July 2nd, at 6:01pm. She weighed 7.5 lbs and measured 18.5"

Honestly, she is the most beautiful newborn baby I have ever seen. Congratulations to the lucky family! Cybil is married to Ed, and they raise Ed's 15 year old son Quentin. Quentin was in Cybil's class when he was in grade three and that's how she and Ed met, at a parent-teacher meeting. Isn't that romantic? They had to keep their relationship on the down low until Quentin was out of her class. Hehe! Naughty naughty!

Congratulations again, Cybil, I can't wait to meet her.

July 3rd

Happy Birthday Sarah!! (not the one mentioned previously)

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday To You!
Happy BIRTHDAY DEAR SARAHHHHH!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOO YOUUUU!!