Guardian Angels

 

 

We had something happen in our family this week that once again made me very thankful for guardian angels.

These are the words of my daughter about her 2 kids (my grandkids) who are ages 2 and almost 1.

"Ledger, London, and I were playing in London's room. Ledger opened all the dresser draws and the next thing I know the whole dresser (which is 5 1/2 feet tall and pretty heavy) is falling forward. I lunged at it to catch it, but I couldn't get there in time. Ledger was a couple inches to the left of it and London was a couple inches to the right. If either of them had been a few inches toward the middle they would have been crushed by the dresser. Immediately after it fell I couldn't see or hear London, and I was afraid to look over the dresser. But she was standing there, smiling. It was the scariest thing I have ever seen. It makes me sick to think about what could have happened. frown emoticon I will post a picture when Ledger is done playing with my phone."

"London was standing holding on to the blue tub at the corner closest to the dresser."

 

A Small Mouse Brew-Ha-Ha

Mice rank up in the top 3 of things I really really hate the most.  I've written about mice before in my blog, memories of why I'm so traumatized by them, some of the ridiculous mouse catching episodes that have happened in our household, and  nightmares I've had of them.

This little episode that I'm about to share made me laugh.  I've never had a mouse encounter that brought on the giggles before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Last night about 10:30 or so Mike and I were in the living room and we heard Little Kitty (yes that's his name, don't judge) scurrying around the dining room.  I looked over in time to see him chasing a VERY fast and jumpy little mouse. 

I immediately get a tense sick knot in my stomach and Mike goes into hunter mode.  He puts Oscar out on the deck so that he doesn't cause more problems and goes out to get my little clamper tool.  This is the kind of tool they use to pick up trash in the park. I use it to get eggs out of the nests.

Meanwhile Little Kitty is having a great time watching the mouse run and jump before he catches it and lets it go.  I am standing on a chair under instructions from Mike to "watch the mouse". (Not my favorite job.)

Mike comes back in and starts building a barricade around the mouse with boxes.  I'm thinking the whole time that I've seen that mouse jump and those boxes aren't nearly high enough, but I wisely keep my silence as Mike is kind of throwing chairs and stuff out of his way.  I can tell he is in no mood for my helpful observations.

Suddenly the mouse darts down the wall and past the "not quite complete" wall of boxes and tries to hide in the other corner.  Mike very politely :) asks me to get him a large towel.  I grab one and toss it to him which he immediately throws over the mouse and proceeds to squeeze down on it.  I can't watch but look the other way while visions of mouse innards soiling my towel which I've determined will go straight into the trash.

That wily mouse manages to escape and runs back into the original corner where he is now corralled by not very tall boxes.

This is the point where, I believe, Mike loses his mind.

"Get me some spray."

I'm not sure I heard him right, but hand him the water bottle that we use to punish Oscar for barking.

"Not water, something that will kill the mouse."

What?  I really don't think that will work and try to voice my concerns about that method of annhialation, but am immediately reminded that Mike is not in a mood to hear it.

He goes into the laundry room and comes out with a can of Raid.  I can't help myself.  I say, "that's not for mice, that's for insects.  And I don't want my whole house to smell like Raid. (because I know Mike, and I know he would have emptied the entire can onto the mouse.)  He looks at the can briefly and tells me to go get a can of starch.  WHAT?  I'm thinking to myself I have corn starch, but that doesn't come in a can. I don't use spray starch anymore, is that what he wants?  And WHY?????? Is he going to starch the mouse?  I say that I really don't think that will work, and he says "it works on bees and wasps. I retort "bees and wasps have WINGS that the starch stiffens making them immobile.  MICE DON'T HAVE WINGS!!"

I'm starting to get the giggles.  Mike looks so exasperated at me and says "I'M JUST TRYING TO DO SOMETHING!" (I don't think he appreciated the eyebrow raising or half smile I was giving him.)

I stayed in the kitchen keeping my eye on the mouse while Mike went into the bedroom.
He came back with ............. wait for it..............................hairspray.

I can't help it and snort out a little guffaw.  Mike whips his head around to give me a glare.  I immediately sober right up.

Then he hairsprays the mouse, uses my little gripper tool to pick it up and calmly carries it out the back door.

Hairspray.

Who knew.

From One of My Favorite Authors

A Blast from the Past

 

I just found this letter I wrote to my parents.

Enjoy!

The true story of MY Kitten Smoky

Going through old papers today and found this very large handwritten book (words and illustrations) by my daughter, Abby. I'm guessing she was about 6 or 7 when she wrote this. I wanted to share this very touching story.  (Spelling and grammar left intact) The thing that really got me about this cute little peak into her childhood was not just the adorable way it was written, but by how heartless her parents seemed to be about the disposal of the body. I really don't remember it that way.  I thought we buried poor little Smoky. And the title seems to imply that there were some falsehoods floating around.

The true story of MY Kitten Smoky   by Abby Mitchell

It was a windy night and Smoky was by Some big bords? Then a bord fell on smokys tail.

I herd a big crash!  I ran outside.  I looked at smoky.  I took the bord off his tail.  I tride to wake him up but he wouldn't get up.

I ran inside and tolled David, Lisa, Joni and Andy what happened.  they tride to wake Smoky up but they couldn't.

My mom and dad were not home so we didn't know what to do.

We thought what to do about smoky.

When my mom and dad got home we told them them what happened.

My Mom and dad know what to do about Smoky ether! So we trew him away.  I miss smoky!

Soaking It All In

 

 

On Saturday morning we were honored and excited to attend the piano recital of Emily’s students.  It was great fun to see the kids that Emily has been teaching.  She has a lot of students!  I have to say, though, that the highlight for me was watching Nathan and Zach.  They each played a couple of pieces, actually Nathan played 3 of them. 

 

Zach was the first pianist on the program, right behind the one lone flute player.  He’s pretty much a newbie at the piano, but did pretty good!  After his cute little rendition of Alouette Zach stood….

 

faced his crowd…..

 

And looked from right to left as his appreciative audience rewarded him with their thunderous applause.

 

 

…..and then he solemnly bowed. 

 

It was very cute.

 

 

 

 

 

Bear Adventures

This fall right before Halloween, David was here with his family, so I decided our family needed to go to Bear World. I wasn't sure if I could get them all to go, but I didn't worry too much about it.  I just thought whomever would like to go, can.  And I would pay for the whole thing.

I decided to take them all on Saturday, the last weekend of their season.  I happened to hear on the radio that you would get a pretty good discount if you went during their last couple of days, so I told the fam......

I knew David and Emily and their boys would want to go and I was fairly certain that Joni would want to take Ledger. Beyond that I wasn't sure if anyone would bother.

Boy was I surprised!  Lisa AND Tyler came (I was kind of surprised about Tyler) Joni, and her 2 little kids, and shockingly, at the last minute, Mike and Andy decided to also go. (We really felt badly that Abby, David and Asher were not in town and therefore unable to come.)

We piled into 2 cars, both filled to the gills.  As the 2 cars play a part in my little story I have to tell you who was in each car.

Car A:
David's Explorer with David driving.
Also inside: Emily (front seat) Sorren and me in the middle seat, and Nathan and Zach in the back.

Car B:
Joni's car, with Joni driving. 
Also inside: Mike (front seat), Andy, Ledger, London in the middle seat, and squishily seated in the very back, Lisa and Tyler


We arrived at the gate  with Car A in front.  I was quite impressed with the lady who sold us the admittance tickets.  I told her I was paying for both cars.  She asked how many people total and the ages of each.  She worked her magic and we all got in for less than a hundred.  I was amazed.

She told us to go ahead and drive through the animals and that we could go as many times as we wanted until 5:00.  Having never been there before I wasn't really sure what she meant, but we headed through the gate.

It was pretty awesome!  It was so fun to see the white elk and buffalo, all the deer and other animals just lounging around. In our car (Car A) Sorren was so excited!  We let him get out of his carseat so he could stand up next to the window and really look. He kept making really cute little growly noises.  Nathan and Zach seemed to also love looking around and commenting on the animals.  It would have really been a fun relaxing time, but David happened to notice, as soon as we drove through the animal gate, that he was almost out of gas!

Meanwhile back in Car B they were having their own kind of fun. I wasn't actually IN car B so I'm just related the facts as I heard them.  Ledger was also let out of his carseat, I presume so that he could also have a closer look.  He promptly began to climb all over the place, including the front seat.  Mike was starting to get agitated because of Ledger's acrobatics.  At one point in time Ledger was actually climbing around on the dash in front of Joni, the driver.

In Car A we finished driving past the tamer animals and then proceeded through another more secure gate, (which kind of reminded me of the entrance into Jurassic Park) into the bear enclosure.  It was very exciting to see bears everywhere we looked.  They had lots of little "caves" for them, but mostly the bears were out in the sun watching us as we drove past.  I guess there were signs all over showing which way we were to drive, but at one point we saw a great big bear ambling across the next road over, so we skipped an entire loop to drive directly over to where the bear was to have a closer look.  The entire time I'm thinking in the back of my head "this would not be a good place to run out of gas, but I'm sure we're okay".

Meanwhile, back in Car B Ledger also got very excited about all the bears and wanted to take a closer look.  He kept trying to open the car door to do just that.  Mike was pretty calm about that little development. Just kidding.

When we finished driving through the bear enclosure I was kind of surprised to see that there was a kind of amusement park with activities and a petting zoo up ahead.  I had no idea that was there.  I was ready to stop and check things out when we got a phone call from Car B.  "We're going around again cause we didn't see everything."  And I could see that they were already heading through the gate back into the animal enclosure.  Without a second's hesitation David put Car A into gear and we were through the gate right behind them.  It was only after we went through the gate that I remembered, we were out of gas!

The second time around was pretty similar to the first with 1 major difference.

There was a Bear World truck right in front of us, with the back full of paying customers, that kept stopping for long periods of time while all the people in the back threw out food to the bears.

 This time Car A kept speculating about if we ran out of gas who would come first, Bear World employees with a gas can or hungry bears wanting a human snack.

Car B was having there own excitement.  Since the bears were all being fed they were out on the road and surrounded our cars.  Ledger thought this was an extremely good time to see one up close and personal and actually opened the door!  Mike was very calm. Ha. Ha. Ha. His agitation rubbed off on Joni who tried to escape from the herd of bears by putting her foot on the gas pedal.  She's pretty sure she might have run over a bear toe or two.

All's well that ends well, though.  We made it out of the bear enclosure without running out of gas (Car A) or getting eaten by a bear (Car B).

This time we actually did stop and enjoy the fun at the petting zoo.  A few of us used giant slingshots to catapult potatoes at some targets out in the field, a straw maze was run,  animals were petted in the petting zoo, rides were ridden in the amusement park.

It was a very fun outing.  I can't wait to do it again next year.  This time I'm going to ride in Car C.