AHH...The racoons won't go away!

So, I have no picture (the picture would be too embarrassing) but I thought I would share anyway. Last night I am laying on the couch watching TV. The kids are in bed and Joe is upstairs getting his things ready for school. I hear a noise...as paranoid as I am I think someone is outside. Of course not, it's our raccoon friends. They are eating and drinking what's left in our cats bowl-which is not much. I hurry to get the sling shot that Joe had bought for our raccoon stake out a few weeks ago. I am thinking to myself, "I don't need my husbands help. I can get rid of these raccoons." I try and fail many times. Let me also say that the raccoons are about 5 feet in front of me. Seriously, how pathetic am I. I guess that goes to show that some things are just meant for our husbands to take care of........

Saturday Night Fun

What else is there to do on a Saturday night other than have a raccoon stake out. We have a major raccoon problem here on our court. The raccoons and yes I said raccoons. We are not sure on exactly how many there are. When we first moved in over a year ago we had 2 raccoons of which one was blind. It would hang out in the neighborhood during the day while the kids were out playing. We tried to have them caught but with no success and then we found one dead in the street. Problem solved! Not really because now we have a family of raccoons living behind my house. They dig holes in the backyard, come out during the day to play :-) or come out at night to eat my cats food. If we open our garage chances are one will find its way inside.

So yesterday Joe decided to buy a sling shot to scare it. It was so funny. The raccoons including 1 little baby one-so cute. I wanted to pick it up, it was so cute. But of course, there are wild animals-getting back to our stake out. When it came to the porch to eat Joe would get the sling shot ready and fire. It would run but come back just seconds later. We both would run outside with a flashlight to find it again and fire one last time. We probably spent 1 hour doing this off and on. We even took the screen out of the window to make it easier.

So, we did not fix the problem. They are not scared of us which is a bad thing but time will tell. We will continue our stake out tonight.......

Summer Fun

It was such a beautiful day yesterday, that I decided to get out the kids slip and slide of which I got on clearance at Walmart for $3.00. Definitely worth every penny! The kids loved it. I had to set it up in my front yard because there was sun. My back yard doesn't really get sun because of the tall trees. In our neighborhood there are about 10 kids including my two so we had every child down slipping and sliding. We were outside for 5 straight hours. No sunburns but the kids slept 12 straight hours last night. That was great :-)

Alexandria got the hang of slipping and sliding pretty quick.
Brady wasn't sure what to do. It was more of a sprinkler for him until about 3 hours into it. He then figured out how to actually slip and slide.
Alexandria trying to act like a diva. She loved showing off to her friends!
The puddle at the end of the slide was where the kids hung out and slashed each other. It was the perfect day.

Labor Day Fun

Since moving to Monterey our kids have always wanted to do the paddle boats down on Del Monte Blvd next to the Dennis the Menace Park. So we decided to give it a try. The kids were excited until they realized that they had to wear a life vest. Alex did pretty good but Brady was another story. Finally he decided to wear it but only because mom promised him a treat after we had finsihed. A treat usually means stopping by 7-11 and getting some mm's. I know this is wrong but you do what you have to do, RIGHT!



The boats are tough because you can only paddle from the front. So, of course Joe and I sat in the front but I didn't feel good putting the kids in the back without me sitting right there. So, we just did our best and put them in our laps-WHAT A WORKOUT. Most of you know that I am anti-workout :) I think I may a lost a few pounds in that 1/2 hour!
So, later on during the day about 6:00 pm we went to the pier down by the US Coast Guard Station. The sea lions are all over. They like to hang out on the rocks right off the pier. We were standing about 2 feet from them. It was really neat.
The kids of course want to swim with them.
This picture is hard to see because of the shadows, sun and the black gate between myself and the sea lion. I thought it's face was so cute!