Things have been pretty busy around our house as usual. We’re trying to prepare for our camping trip, so last night, we went to look for an axe - we have a hatchet, but no axe. Anyway, we couldn’t decide on one, so we figured we’d do some searching on the internet for information. It’s a little bit amusing to me that you can find forums on the internet dedicated to Axes, Tomahawks and Hatchets.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Now the man that puts the ‘you’ in impr-you-vment!” - Ned Flanders

William was still a little warm last night, but he insisted that we wash the van. I trucked out the hose and the pressure washer, only to find out that the thing leaks like crazy. We took apart the handle, and I thought I’d identified the leak, but apparently not. End result is that the van is cleaner than it started, but still not exactly “sparkling” clean. Mainly owing to the fact that I was worried about being carried away by mosquitoes, so I didn’t spend as much time with the sponge as I should have.

Apparently William’s temperature is back to more normal levels today, though between the overcast sky and the general tiredness in our house, Erin and the kids slept in pretty late today. Don’t I wish.

I actually stayed up too late last night watching the hockey game. I didn’t realize how late it was until I went to bed and looked at my clock. I guess that’s the downside of a PVR. What a crazy third period though. After Edmonton’s second goal, it looked like Anaheim was going to pack up and quit - they seemed more than a little bit out of it for about 5 minutes there. Once they got over it though, they brought both the noise and the funk, but were unable to complete the comeback. Apparently the car horns in Edmonton are getting quite a workout. By the way Oilers fans, I’m taking money to convince me not to pick them as the eventual Stanley Cup champs. With my record in the playoff pool this year, my picking them would be the kiss of death. Consider this your first notice in my extortion um blackmail er insurance uh playoff success program.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “That doll is evil, I tells ya. EVIL! Eeeeeviiiilll!” - Grandpa Simpson

Things continue to be busy around our house. Thursday night, I went to the regular poker game, where there were only 3 of us. While that normally spells bad news for me, the deck was being particularly cooperative and I wound up nearly tripling my buyin. Friday we had a cookout in my parents’ backyard, and then the weekend was spent fairly lazily.

Saturday we went out looking for a kiddie pool with a cover. We came back empty handed on the pool front, but we did pick up a chinese checkers set and a set of dominoes. William also got a water pistol (a decent little piece of plastic for under a buck)

Sunday, William and I played a bunch of Sly Cooper 2 on the playstation, and we basically just hung out around the house all day. Yesterday, William and I got up early, and about an hour later he went back up to bed. When he got up, he threw up a couple of times and was running a fever. He spent most of yesterday obviously not feeling well, laying around the house sleeping. He seemed to be feeling better around bedtime, but Erin tells me that he’s still got a fever this morning. Hopefully he fights through it quickly, because the poor kid has no energy right now.

Last night we had a minor thunderstorm. William was quite worried about the garden getting wrecked by the thunder, so he wanted me to get his umbrella so he could go out and check on it. I assured him that the garden was ok, and after listening to the rain and thunder for a bit, we went to bed.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Good for you, son. If there’s one thing America needs, it’s more lawyers. Can you imagine a world without lawyers?” - Lionel Hutz

The current thought is that we’ll maybe check out camping at Cypress Hills for a week or so at the end of June. I’ve heard really good things about that park, and I’ve never camped anywhere near there. I guess I should try to book some time off for it before we make too many plans though.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Works for me when I get bubbly-gum in the old push-broom.” - Ned Flanders

It’s disturbing to me that we could wind up in a world with no bananas.

We had the stump removal guys come out and remove some bushes from the back and front yards last night, as well as planting a good portion of the garden. Erin spent some time outside while the bushes were being taken out, and I locked myself inside with William and Julia (because William was really curious about the machines they were using.) So far, we’ve got sunflowers, corn, peas, carrots, cucumbers and potatoes planted, as well as some basil - I’m not sure if Erin got the beans planted or not. I hope the summer is conducive to gardening this year.

Speaking of summer plans though, we’re planning on doing some camping - hopefully sometime in June, and we’re open for suggestions for nice places to set up shop for a week or so. I think we’d like to head West - somewhere that Erin’s family can come out and visit us if they so choose. We haven’t looked at Mom & Dad’s new camper to see if it will accommodate the car seats, but assume that we want a nice shaded tenting type of place rather than an RV park type of place.

Not much else new - there is a new picture of the kids up on the web somewhere too.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Kids, I have a crazy feeling your mother’s not going to prison.” - Lionel Hutz

The weekend was fairly quiet - we spent some time working in the backyard on Saturday, and just as we decided to head inside, I turned my head, and my neck was in instant pain. It has pretty much fixed itself, but it was pretty sore for the rest of the day and yesterday.

For Mother’s Day, we went out and picked up some gardening supplies - seeds, a tree trimmer, and a couple of Northline Saskatoon bushes for the backyard. We got one of the Saskatoon’s planted last night, and the other one is going to have to wait on a tree removal service to clear the spot that we want to put it. It was nice to get out in the fresh air and do some digging. We’ll see how the garden comes along, but I have high hopes for this year’s edition of the backyard vegetable patch, now that Julia is big enough to be outside, and William is an eager “helper.”

Unfortunately, when we went to water the Saskatoon bush after it had been planted, we discovered that a pipe that runs under our deck has some serious structural problems. Like two large holes. I guess I’m going to have to spend some time crawling around under there to get it replaced.

William decided to climb the tree in the backyard, but he’s like a cat, he can’t get back down again. He’ll get me to rescue him from the tree, then he’s right back up there again. I took some pictures of both kids in the tree, so I’ll have to see about getting some posted on the kids’ site.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Whatsamatta Homer? You’re not your usual effervescent self.” - Moe

Edmonton’s win last night was well deserved. There has to be at least one playoff OT game that I stay up way too late to watch every year - this was the one. I had Julia asleep on my lap for most of the overtime, then she woke up before the third OT started. Unfortunately, she didn’t want to settle, so neither Erin nor I got much sleep last night. William decided that since it was light out, he’d get up at 5AM as well. I think I got maybe 3 hours, and I don’t know if Erin got any sleep at all. Hopefully she’s snoozing as I type this.

In other news, I got the patch installed to Myth to properly scale 1080i channels. It worked, but the resulting playback was choppy at best :( Not to worry though, the problem isn’t as big as all that - I can transcode stuff down to a more acceptable resolution anyway, so it really only affects sports. Since TSN is 720p, it really only affects CBC sports at that. I think I can live with it.

Erin called and cancelled the ExpressVu service today, so in 30 days, we’ll be shut off the Bell world. They offered to cut our monthly rate if we’d stay with them, but I don’t think they came anywhere near the savings we’re getting by going to Shaw and dropping a bunch of channels that we don’t watch anyway. We’ll see what things look like when our “free programming” expires though, maybe we cut back more than we want to.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “I’m taking this thing to Mexico!” - Snake