Of Mice and Children

We launched a stake-out recently because we suspected a mouse was potentially living in our kitchen. The evidence was mounting and we knew we had to do something. Our privacy had been invaded! Before we invested in a trap...we decided to confirm our fears by placing strong smelling aged swiss in the area under surveillance. Caleb, Courtney, and Becca stood guard determined to see this culprit.

The first two pictures show the original placement of the cheese, and lo and behold we woke in the morning to (third picture) the undeniable awareness that we were in fact infested with a mouse (if not...mice!) The cheese had been dragged to the point of entrance in the wall where it there stayed because it was apparently too big to pull through. Over the course of the next few days the morsel diminished until it was gone completely. We needed no more proof, and what was worse than knowing that we indeed had a mouse...the realization that we were nourishing it!!!





I initially wanted to be humane about this whole process...so I set up a "safe" trap intended to catch and release. After a couple days with no success we realized that we were dealing with a potentially intelligent creature. We decided to buy one of those standard traps that are designed to kill instantly. The one I bought advertised no need for bait, but that didn't work either. Then we tried adding bait, but all I had in the fridge was feta. That didn't seem to be working either, and by this time we were wondering if the mouse hadn't expired already in some other fashion. Almost immediately after we thought that...we looked and saw that the feta was gone with no sign of the mouse!! We were seriously astonished and turned to our last ditch effort to rid ourselves of this thing. Rog took some swiss cheese (which we knew he obviously liked) and smashed it down into the trap hoping to make it much harder to retrieve. The next day we had our mouse. It was sad but really uneventful...and went out with the morning trash.

All Thanks to Jannah!

We bobbed for apples (I say we...but really the kids and Jannah...I didn't want to get wet:) Ate donuts off a string, and decorated a Halloween cake (because we didn't already have enough sweets), and went trick or treating. Is that a child's dream come true, or what!!

I'm caught up to Halloween!!!

It could not have been more memorable. Here we have Fancy Nancy and Posh Puppy, a tiger, a fairy princess, and a soccer player.

Paddle Boats

I don't know why I have such a fascination with paddle boating! I think it stems from watching "A Time to Love". I don't know. It just seems romantic:) I have been seeking out a place that still has paddle boats for a long time, and found this amazing park in Salisbury. It's a great park...but I realized that paddle boating is not as fun as I had pictured in my head. It was a LOT of work. Trying to get the boat to go anywhere while trying to keep three kids and a diaper bag from falling out. I don't know if we'll do it again, but it was definitely worth the try:)

The Goat

The first picture is of the farmhouse where we stayed. All of Amish country was lush and green like this. It was absolutely breathtaking! If you'll notice in the second picture...the little guy in the bottom left hand corner. That's the goat the owner has trained:) He would throw a remnant of french toast, pancake, or waffle up onto the slide. Then the goat would walk up the stairs, eat, and slide. It was hilarious.

This is the life...

There could be no other trip in the world that was as enchanting and serene as this one! Words cannot describe how beautiful Amish country is. There was the tiny room in the loft of the farmhouse where we slept...the kittens playing around the yard...the full breakfasts every morning...the hayrides...the animals...the playhouse...the dress up...too many more delights to mention...and to top it all off...the best of friends as travel buddies!

Paw Proof

One glance wouldn't explain why this is one of my favorite pictures of all time. In fact, it's hard to even tell what it is:) But it is...and here's why:

When we got home from Reno all of our window panes were covered with paint. It's apparantly a standard professional painting procedure. 'Just peel it off when it dries,' we were told. (Beside the point...it took me a box of razor blades and blistered hands before I finally finished "peeling" the thirty or so windows we have in our house, not to mention that every last one of them is sectioned off into rectangles like the one in this picture!)

As I was walking down our unfinished staircase being careful not to step on an exposed nail, Caleb ran up to me yelling something about having seen a bear in our house! He said it ran around growling, took some cereal, then proceeded to push the door open and run out. This is my fairly serious Caleb who, up to this point, had never been known to make up stories or be exaggeratedly imaginative.

He then led me to the door and showed me the proof. There indeed had been a bear in my house...




I saved this pane to be scraped last...but still couldn't bring myself to finish scraping, hence the perfect circle around the prints. I couldn't let it go for a couple of weeks, and if the door didn't happen to be the most prominent one in my house who knows but that I would have saved it forever!