You know … I live in Toronto and a 39 day garbage strike just ended – Thankfully! Believe me, with everyone piling up garbage at the side of their houses and filling public garbage cans to overflowing the rat and raccoon population around here was growing!

I wouldn’t have been surprised to see one dressed like the one above – little back pack and all! LOL

The other day I opened up the compost bin that we have in our backyard to dump some kitchen scraps into it, and as I lifted the lid I saw movement! I threw the lid down and stepped back.

After stealing my nerves and getting a pitchfork, I walked back over to the compost bin and lifted the lid very carefully and slowly with the pitchfork. Whatever was in there was gone … probably out the newly chewed hole at the back of the composter!

I think it was a rat. Arghhhh!

Thank god our garbage strike is over! Unfortunately the pests who love garbage probably increased during this period so we’ll have to live with them for a while.

We haven’t been on a real holiday for quite a while so we do hope to at least get away for a weekend. My wife would very much like to go to Niagara Falls or perhaps Niagara on the Lake. Both places are well known romantic get aways, but there’s quite a few attractions and things to do in the area as well.

I guess we’re lucky in that we live so close to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side which of course is the best side of the falls!) being in Toronto that it only takes about an hour and a half to get to this beautiful area. We both love the falls and have been on the Maid of the Mist which is a boat that takes visitors near the base of the falls – very exciting.

The main street in Niagara Falls has tons of attractions. Much more than it had when I was a kid visiting Niagara falls with my family! There’s four wax museums that I know of – Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks, Movieland Wax Museum of the Stars, Criminals Hall of Fame Wax Museum, Rock Legends Wax Museum, two casinos, Ripleys believe it or not, and the Guinness Museum of World Records. Plus there are quite a few theme parks, water parks, ongoing festivals and other exciting attractions and activities in the area surrounding Niagara Falls.

If you’ve been thinking of visiting Niagara Falls, Ontario you might want to take a look at the Niagara Falls Tourism website. I’ve spent the last hour browsing through the site and discovering all of the great things that my wife and I can do if we do go to Niagara Falls and you know … I think we might need more than a two night stay, there’s just so much to do!

As for where we’ll stay when we are in Niagara falls we still haven’t decided, but I did find a great site called Hotelscombined.com that has a listing for many of the Niagara Falls Hotels. Prices start as low as $39 Canadian a night! I had no idea you could still stay in a for that low a price! We’ll probably want to stay right in Niagara Falls, perhaps in a room with a view of the falls so I expect we’ll be paying at least $100 a night. That’s ok though, just like Vegas, a lot of the big hotel chains in Niagara falls offer extras like Casino vouchers, free breakfasts, dinner coupon vouchers and even free entertainment or attraction passes.

We haven’t actually been to Niagara Falls for a number of years. I’m excited to see how much it’s changed. Just looking at all the attractions I have a feeling that our visit might remind us of our recent visit to Vegas! I think I’m starting to get excited. I know, it’s only a weekend trip, but it’s our vacation and it sure seems like we’ll have a ton of things to do!

What did you, or what are you going to do for your summer vacation?