Last Weekend of Deer Week

Well, deer season is officially over..all over but the cryin'! The boys got "skunked" this year (pardon the pun..ha ha!). The fact that it poured rain the whole week didn't help matters much, but they stuck it out and hunted all day, every day. Oh well..there's always next year!

Despite that, we all managed to have a great week/weekend regardless. Dean and Jade arrived on Tuesday, Aaron on Wednesday, Dan on Thursday, and Mitch, Kim and I on Friday. When Mitch and I got there on Friday the rain was coming down in buckets! I pulled the truck up close to the camp to unpack and left the keys in the ignition so Darcy could move it when we were finished. Bet you can guess what happened next...that's right, we got locked out of the truck! Darcy almost had another "hissy fit"...but then he totally redeemed himself by somehow breaking in to the passenger side door. We were SO relieved!

After a few hours, the rain actually stopped and we built a huge fire outside. A couple of guys from a camp down the road (Kevin and John) came up for a visit and Darcy and Aaron broke out the guitars. I took some random pictures of the evening..







We all had a great night..we were so lucky that the weather cooperated! Saturday was a beautiful day..it was wonderful to see the sun again! The boys all spent the day hunting, Kim and Jade stayed at Dean's camp and vegged out. Mitch and I hung out at our camp and read most of the day. Kevin and John headed out for home, and by dark the boys were all back. We again built a big fire, and waited for the meteor shower that was supposed to happen. Unfortunately, we didn't see much, a few shooting stars. I have no clue why we missed it..but I was disappointed! We still managed to have a fun night, it was much mellower than Friday night, but we were all pretty tired.

We had a visit from the flying squirrel and I managed to walk right up to the feeder and get some pictures of him. He is really getting fat!


After I snapped about 5 pictures, he flew off of the feeder and onto a tree. I took some pictures of him sitting on the branch, this is my favorite one..look at his little paw raised up..too cute!


Well, that's all for now! No crazy stories like last weekend! We won't be heading up to the camp for quite awhile (maybe sometime around the Christmas holidays).

Till then,

Liss :)

First Weekend of Deer Week - Saturday

Hey! So here goes my attempt at trying to explain Saturday's events. I should note that if you haven't read Friday yet just scroll down since I'm posting backwards again.

So Saturday was a beautiful day! Everyone was up bright and early (except for me of course...I like to sleep in!). Darcy took off to go deer hunting, and then his brother Mike and Mike's son Ryan arrived about 10:00am. Mike had only visited the camp once before and Ryan had never been up. Mitch was really excited to see his cousin, and even more excited that Ryan brought along his electric guitar. The two of them had a great time playing AC/DC tunes, and they played really well together. Our camp sounded SO loud!

Around lunch time Darcy had come back, and then Adam, and Chrissie arrived with their two kids Luke and Magnus (aka Moose). They were staying at their camp (which is beside ours), so we visited over there for a bit and eventually we ended up back in our yard. Later in the afternoon, Dean's father Winston, brother Jimmy, his wife Katie, and their two sons Tommy and Clarke (aka Clarkey), and their dog Zera all arrived. It was decided that Jim and family would take up residence over at Adam's camp (since they had way more room).

Once everyone got unpacked we were all gathered in our camp yard. What a sight! There were little kids running in every direction..it was really quite funny. Mitch and Ryan entertained them with the guitars, soccer, and their attempt at building a fort/teepee. Here's a picture of them posing with it..Mitch and Ryan to the sides and the little guy inside is Jim's 3 year old Clarkey.

Winston stayed over for a little while and then decided to head back to Dean's camp. Before he left, we had a surprise visit from Gammy. He and Coll were in Miramichi visiting Coll's Mom with the baby. He decided to come up for a quick visit (he only stayed a little while), but he'll be heading back up mid-week. Here's a group shot of everyone while Winston and Gammy were still there. From left to right is Dean, Mike, Winston, Jody, Jimmy in the background, Gammy, Melanie and Katie.

It seemed as though the minute Winston left, the straggling between camps began. Everyone was everywhere, total chaos! The kids were going from camp to camp, so were the adults, and we were doing our best to keep the dogs inside the camps. Anyway, for some reason Jake was let loose and he was hanging out over at Dean's camp. Kim and I took a walk over there so she could mix a drink and ended up staying for a chat with Winston and Adam. Jake was in that camp (hogging the couch as usual), and Adam's son Luke had fallen asleep in the chair. So, I told Kim to put Jake outside so we could move Luke to the couch. About a minute later, all we could smell was skunk! UGH! If any of you read my last posts, you'd remember me mentioning the skunk (I even had some pictures of it). Well, apparently he does spray (Dean and Darcy)!

So, Kim, Adam and I grabbed our flashlights and started back to our camp where all hell was breaking loose. People were flying in every direction! Darcy was screeching and trying to hold onto Jake, meanwhile somebody had dumped ketchup all over him. Poor dog! The smell was really overwhelming. We know a great remedy for getting rid of skunk spray, we had the same thing happen to our cat earlier this year. We actually helped out Matt and Karine with it one time too..remember Matt? :) Anyway, the recipe is a bottle of peroxide, a quarter cup of baking soda and a couple of teaspoons of dish soap. We knew it was the only thing that would work, but we weren't sure if we'd ever get all the ingredients (especially baking soda). I have to say, everyone really pulled together! Dean took off on the four-wheeler going to different camps and collecting peroxide and baking soda (thanks Kevin!) Chrissie was off to get a bucket to mix everything, Jade went to her camp to get some incense to burn (the inside of the camp reeked). Jimmy, Mike and Jody were grabbing water jugs from the shed, Katie took all the kids and the other dogs to Adam's camp. It was complete craziness! Anyway, we eventually got everything, I mixed it up and Darcy washed Jake with it twice. The third mixture was used for Darcy, he really stunk. He took the biggest "hissy fit" I've ever seen, and he kept yelling "I stink"..like we didn't know that! He can laugh about it now anyway!

So, here's a picture of Jake getting scrubbed down..

And another of him afterward. I found an old blanket and wrapped him up. He laid right down in front of the fire, he was so cold and traumatized. We all felt so bad for him. Imagine having four huge water jugs of ice cold water poured over you in November? The poor thing..


All I can say is Thank God everyone chipped in to help out, and that the stink eventually went away. Talk about killing the "party atmosphere" pretty quickly. It didn't take long to get things revved up again though. The boys brought out their guitars, and a whole bunch of guys from camps down the road showed up. I thought that was so funny, especially since they all knew about the skunk incident! So here are some random shots from the rest of the evening....

That's Chrissie, Dean, Darcy, Mike, Ryan and Mitch...

A nice picture of Mike and Jimmy..(I should note that these two guys hung around together when they were younger, and haven't seen each other in a very long time).
A "Jade Sandwich"...ha ha!
And finally Melanie, Kim, Kevin and Adam...


I have SO many pictures, so it was hard to choose which ones to put on. I wish I could have added all of them! Anyway, a great time was had by all. The party rocked on till about 4:00...and by then it was raining. We've decided that this will become an annual event, hopefully that plan sticks! It was great to see everyone again and I hope you all had as much fun as I did!

So, a new crew of people are heading up there this week with Darcy. Kim just left today (Tuesday), and Dean and Jade arrived. Tonight Gammy is going up, tomorrow Aaron, and then on the weekend Kim, Scott, Jana, Rene, Mitch and I will arrive. Should be a good time! Until then,

Liss :)

First Weekend of Deer Week - Friday Night

Hey there! I just got back from another wild and crazy weekend at the camp. I've decided to break this up into two posts (since I have way too many pictures). Of course I'm doing it backwards again, but oh well!

Darcy and Jake left on Thursday night, and Mitch and I planned on heading up Friday right after work/school. Friday morning Dean and Jade got dropped off there by Dean's brother Jimmy. Jody, Melanie and Ben arrived soon after that, and then Kim, and then Mitch and I about supper time. We had to wait a bit before starting a fire outside, it was so windy and cold. Eventually the wind died down and we were good to go. We had a visit from Kevin and Jamie (guys who have a camp down the road), Kim cooked a killer meatpie over the open fire (very yummy!), and we had a great night overall. I should mention a thank you to Mom who looked after Kate and Meg (Thanks Ma!) We decided it wouldn't be wise to bring them since we knew we were having a lot of company (including lots of small kids). So here are a few pictures from Friday night ..oh and another thank you to Melanie who sent me some of these (Thanks Mel!).

For some reason we all seem to be taking pictures of ourselves lately...not sure why! :) Anyway, here is one that Darcy took of us, it's not centered, but it has the camp in the background, so I didn't bother to crop it...
Darcy sitting by the fire with Ben in his lap....looks like he's about to fall asleep..ha ha!
I get such a kick out of this picture of Ben, he's actually waving at Melanie, and hamming it up for the camera. He loves getting his picture taken!

Mitch playing a tune for Ben..he really enjoyed hearing guitars..

Mitch will probably kill me for including this one..but I couldn't resist. I wanted to get a nice shot of him, Dean and Jody, but Dean started grabbing Mitch for a hug..look at the face on him! Too funny..Another one of Darcy's attempts at taking a picture only this time Kim joined in...
A nice picture of Jade and Kim..
And another one of Ben getting ready for bed..


Well, I'm gonna keep this one short because Saturday's entry is going to be LONG. We had lots of company and lots of interesting stuff happened! Stay tuned!

Liss :)

A Rockin' Good Time!

Hey everybodee! Well, here I go again...round 2 of trying to post this entry! I had the whole thing almost totally finished last night and the blog site went down for maintenance. I lost the whole thing..UGH! I was quite ticked but I did learn a valuable lesson, always "save as draft" as you write.

Anyway, because of all these dilemmas, I've decided to completely skip the post on the October vacation week. There's hardly any pictures, and I missed half of it! I'm gonna move right along to this past weekend's events.

Friday night was a little different from our normal routine. Mitch really wanted to bring his buddy Trenton for the weekend, and we had absolutely no room for him (we had already planned on squeezing Dean in with us). You all know how kids can be though, they just won't take no for an answer..so they came up with their own plan. Trenton's Dad agreed to drive the two of them up to the camp after school, and Trenton's Mom (my friend Tracey), decided to come up on Saturday, stay the night, and drive Trenton home the next day. The only problem was that we were very late leaving; I had to work later than normal, we weren't totally packed, we still had to pick up groceries, gas,etc..not to mention we also had to pick up Dean. So, when we arrived at the camp it was dark, and I was getting worried about the boys. I have to say the two of them impressed me! They had built a fire outside and were standing in front of it, very proud of their accomplishment. I think they enjoyed the little bit of freedom, and liked proving how "grown up" they could be.

After unpacking everything, we built the boy's fire a little bigger, and a few guys from a camp down the road came up for a few beers. Scott showed up not long after that, and we all had a great night. I have to admit I was looking forward to the next day when Jana, Tracey and Kim were coming up...it kinda sucks to be the only girl up there. It was still good fun regardless, and the weather was awesome!

Saturday was a beautiful day! Chilly..but it is November right? After breakfast, Scott and Dean busied themselves splitting wood, Darcy went deer hunting, and Mitch and Trenton played around in the yard. Tracey arrived right at noon, and Jana and her parents (Frank and Joan) came shortly after. They stayed for a visit and the boys built another fire outside for us.

By supper time, everyone was congregated around the firepit again. I should mention that because of deer season, there are a lot of people at their camps. That means, we get LOTS of visitors, which is what happened on Saturday night. The more the merrier! :)

We had a great night for tunes..Darcy has been learning quite a few new songs over the past couple of weeks. Lots of them are Stones songs (go figure!), and we had such a hoot singing them! My favorite was "Sympathy for the Devil"...it took about 3 tries to get through the whole song, but we were determined! We even divided into groups..ha ha!! Darcy, Scott, Dean and I sang the main part, Tracey and Jana were the "Woo Woo" group, and Kim had the shaker (a case of BB pellets). :) Whatever works! Good times!

So, now I'll get to some of the pictures from that night. First off is a pic from early in the evening (Darcy was just starting to play). From left to right is Jana, Kim, Scott, Tracey, Trenton, Dean, and Darcy on the picnic table..


I had to take this picture of Tracey with her "never-ending" can of beer..ha ha! She's holding the smaller can so you can appreciate the size of that sucker!

Mitch, Tracey and Trenton in front of the fire. It threw off lots of heat!

The crew singin' a tune...

Mitch and I attempting to take a picture of ourselves...

Here's a couple from later in the night (when more company had arrived)....



And finally, Dean and I. That hat he's wearing is too cool! The flag on it lights up and flashes. Once I discovered that, I wore it the rest of the night..ha ha! Wish I could have had it for Canada Day!


So, that's it for that weekend! We all had a really great time, and we're looking forward to the next two weekends. Darcy is heading up on Thursday night to stay for 12 days, at least I can go on the weekends! Lots of people are coming up..Dean's Dad and his brother Jim and family, Darcy's brother Mike and his son Ryan, Aaron,Rene,Gammy, plus the usual crew. I'm sure it'll be a blast! Stay tuned..

Liss :)