"Where have you been???"

...that pretty much sums up the general sentiment of the emails I have received from readers lately. The past month or two have been a bit crazy and something had to give, so the blog took a back seat for a while. Sorry folks, but as some of the folks that have been reading my blog for a while can attest, this is nothing terribly unusual for me. I will admit that November was a particularly bad on the blog front, with just two posts for the month I am not surprised many of you thought I had jumped ship....or canoe in this case. But rest assured that I am still here and don't plan on leaving. With that said...how 'bout an UPDATE people?

• Canoe Search- I had posted about a canoe that was for sale on eBay a while back, but after some great advice from the guys on the AA forum I have decided to go in a different direction. Mark, from Mark in the Park (see my LINKS) let me know about the rental sale that The Portage Store has each spring. They have a number of different types, but for now I am leaning towards either the Ultra light the Langford Kevlar. They look like good quality canoes and for $650-$900 you can't go wrong in my opinion. I BIG thanks to Mark for giving me the heads up. I have learned that one of the things to watch for when buying a flat bottom canoe is for hogging. Thanks to Rick for posting some great info!

• Kids Canoe Trip- We haven't decided on a date yet, but the destination had been finalized! We will be spending two nights on Booth Lake. This will be Laurens first ever trip to Algonquin and I am very excited for her to finally get to experience something that has become such a BIG part of my life.

• Jack, Oh Jack..- Our yellow lab Jack is almost a year old and has turned out to be one great dog....most of the time. He has never been one to cause a lot of damage or chew, but last week while Tanyia was out he somehow got a hold of my digital camera. Tanyia called me at work to let me know and I had a panic attack as I imagined my camera all chewed to bits. Well fortunately, it was still in the thick case so the camera came away with very little damage. In fact the only thing that happened was a very small crack in the corner of the screen...so I won't be able to take it under water anymore, but at least it still works! I was never 100% happy with that camera and I am still considering buying a new one that has a viewfinder. This one doesn't have one and I find it hard to properly "frame" a picture without it.
  

• Canoe Fund- I opened a new bank account to save for the canoe I plan to buy in the spring. I have set it up to take $100 from each pay and deposit it into the "Canoe account". By my calculations I should have about $1400 by May, which is more then enough to buy me a used canoe! I plan to add a "Canoe Fund Meter" to the blog this afternoon, so I can update my progress.
  

• Star Wars Figures- My boys are obsessed with Star Wars, so I managed to find them 40 new figures on eBay for $30! It's so much fun watching my kids love the same thing I did as a child and allows me to be a kid again too. Good deal though eh?

• CC 2007 Trip Log- It STILL isn't done, but I am still pecking away at it and will post the second it is done. The problem is all the detail I like to put into them takes a long time to write out and free time has been a problem lately.