Monday, March 26, 2007

Naughty Squirrels

Some of you might want to call the Humane Society and some of you might want to head over with your shot gun. Hopefully neither of those things happen! We have a small squirrel problem which we have had since the fall. Squirrels are cute furry little animals that just climb trees and look cute with there bushy tails, right? Wrong! They have invaded our garage and are eating the wiring (as far as I know none of the lucky buggers have been electrocuted while biting through wires yet). They also ate through the Christmas lights while they were hanging on the trees, this could partially be my fault since the lights were out far too long and we just took them down this weekend. The worst thing (in my eyes) they have done is eat 100 freshly planted tulip bulbs! I had sprayed each individual bulb with some expensive spray called "squirrel-b-gone" which guaranteed squirrels would not like the taste and in turn would not eat your bulbs. I actually think it attracted the squirrels, those bulbs disappeared fast! I love tulips and this was the last straw for me. I told Dan he could get the BB gun he wanted and I bought the trap myself. We have had the trap set off and on in the garage for the winter with no luck. Saturday, we decided to put the trap outside and see what happened. Sunday morning the kids were watching the trap out the back window and saw a squirrel successfully get trapped in the cage!!Don't be fooled by the cute little innocent face.


Here he (or she) is demonstrating how they bite through wires (garage or Christmas lights)
Because of this recent success in the catching of a squirrel we spent lots of time yesterday resetting the trap and trying to catch more of these rodents. It would be especially rewarding to catch the ringleader squirrel, we can pick him out because he looks like he has a shaved tail, all the other squirrels have these bushy cute tails and his looks like it's been shaved or is soaking wet. Don't even start to feel sorry for him, he alone has eaten all of peanut butter, chocolate chips and cashews out of the trap then set it off without being trapped in it many times.
After the squirrel was trapped I called Dan on the phone to tell him the good news, luckily he was on his way home from the hospital. He jokingly said, if it's the one with the shaved tail, I might have to kill it. Abby overheard this and was out on a peace march for the squirrel before Dan pulled in the drive-way.
For all you tree hugging, Humane Society loving, squirrel friendly people out there. Our friend Mr. Squirrel was safely released into the wild far away from our house (Dan was tempted to spin him around a whole bunch so he couldn't find his way back to our house).

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Dan's Birthday



Here is a picture of Dan's birthday (he was very happy to be on call) with Jake begging for a piece of toffee from the top of the cake. It was a fun day that we got to spend with Lindsay here visiting.
Here is a link to a few more birthday pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/DanSBirthday2007.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Happy Spring

Spring is here!! As I bundled Esther in her "bundleme" and took her out for a jog yesterday I realized this is the last day of winter, wouldn't it be great if I didn't need this "bundleme" thing ever again! And then I remembered I lived in Michigan--better hang on to it a little longer. Those thoughts were confirmed when I woke up this morning and it was 28 degrees. I have one of those temperature things in my room that displays the inside and outside temperature, and I always look at it first thing just to see if its warm enough to run outside. Not that I get up and do it, but just so I know. And 28 degrees seemed way to cold for the first day of spring!

Here is little Esther in her jogging stroller ready for a run on the last day of winter. Sometimes it seems really hard to have to push her in this little stroller. Most of the time it's worth being able to run (meaning I don't have a treadmill so it's take Esther with me or don't go) to push her along in front of me. Plus, she is always so happy and cute in the stroller as you can see from the picture. Click here to see the rest of the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/EstherReadyToRun.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Craigs List and scary people

Do any of you sell things on craigslist? I just gave away an old couch on craigslist and that worked great. Now I am trying to sell a few things. One of these things is a window AC unit. The guy that wants to buy it is strange (from his emails anyway). He seems very scary and I don't want to give him my address to pick it up. Has anyone ever had a situation like this? Do I just meet him somewhere? The problem with that is it's very heavy and the real reason I want to "sell" my AC unit is just to get someone else to haul it out of my garage. I'm not sure if $12 and having someone haul it away is worth having a scary person know my address. I mean I let my kids play outside in the yard and Dan is sometimes gone until really late, or all night. Why must there be scary people in this world???

Saturday, March 17, 2007

The Zoo

Estee's first zoo visit!

We went to the Toledo Zoo on Monday. Abby and Jake had school off but Andy had to go to school. Andy loves the zoo so much and really wanted to see the komodo dragon that was on display there. We took lots of pictures for him. Abby took her friend Ellen and Jake took his friend Adam. Jake loves the tigers and roared at them through the fence as loud as he could (we did get some looks from other humans at the zoo) but the tigers still just sat there with no reaction whatsoever. We saw lots of people from our church and from FUMCN (Jake's old pre-school) it was fun to see so many faces we knew at the zoo. We met up with my good friend Becky at lunch and had fun finding the komodo dragon with her. Of note: this was Estee's first trip to the zoo; age 7 months. Some of the pictures are here below or you can see all of them at http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/ToledoZooMarch2007.




Abby and her friend Ellen





Jake with his friend Adam (tiger not doing anything in the background)



The reason for the zoo visit (the komodo dragon)


Friday, March 16, 2007

Girls Trip to Chicago

Lindsay recently visited us and we had a great time with her. The girls (Lindsay, Abby, Estee, and I) took a trip to Chicago and visited the American Girl Place Store and ate at the American Girl Cafe. It was so much fun! We also went to H&M, Garrett's Popcorn, Hard Rock Cafe, The Lego Store, Apple Store and just enjoyed the big city. The boys stayed home and did what they love--played video games (Dan worked a little).


Lindsay and Abby in the American Girl Cafe.



Abby and me by the Chicago River.


Abby and Estee at American Girl Cafe. The perfect Girly hangout. We're starting Estee young!


This Darth Vader is made of Legos!!



Lindsay and me by the river.