A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED!!!

Summer has officially arrived!!  The temperatures in Abbotsford sent the mercury rising this week, catapulting us from spring into summer and apparently breaking a local record on Wednesday with a sweaty 33 C (the previous record was 32.2 C set in 1953).  As you can imagine, the heat sent us in search of ways to cool off.  So, in the afternoon, we decided to fill up our inflatable pool...what better way to stay cool than to take a dip in the ridiculously cold water from our garden hose.  We also inflated our Hawaiian ABC Store floaties (...best $1.50 ever spent) and an infant, crab-shaped, flotation toy that we picked up when Ethan was still a baby.  We had fun that afternoon, performing 'swim-like' activities and left it all out in the yard with plans to enjoy it just as much the next day.  Unfortunately that night, an unforgivable crime was committed and never again will we enjoy these precious providers of summertime fun.

This is what we woke up to:

Did Reuben let the air out?  It quickly became clear he had not.  Large gouges had been viciously removed from each of the toys, with the crab experiencing the worst of the damage.

Who could have performed such evil acts?

My first thought was the neighbors cat.  While I was disappointed that our toys had been destroyed, I was inwardly chuckling at the thought of their cat innocently leaping up onto what must have appeared to be a solid surface, only to splash down into the depths of the pool and then violently try to save himself by grasping at whatever might have provided him with a way to hoist his drenched body out.  I actually caught myself wishing I could have witnessed the struggle...oh, come on, your laughing at the thought, too!  Its not that I hate cats, I actually quite like them, but this one has been taunting Chloe for about a year now and I was hoping he finally got what was coming to him...karma kitty!

But, after examining the enormous size of the gouges and the excessive number of them...I mean we are talking intent to kill, not simply a struggle for survival...I knew there was more to it than a cats accidental encounter with its nemesis.  And that's when another piece of evidence was discovered... a raccoon-like foot print on top of a backyard garbage can.

All at once, the pieces of this mysterious puzzle fell into place... Raccoon enters the yard, maybe with friends, and encounters a beady eyed crab that must have thrown a terrifying look of challenge in his direction.  The rest, as they say, is history!  1 for Raccoon, 0 for Inflatable crab and ABC Store floaties.