Festival Fun and Not So Fun Pests

Meet Gizmo. My Pop Pop's new companion. Also, the world's fasted dog. Well as Josh, Kelly and Colton would say anyway. The day Gizmo came to live at the bachelor pad (my dad's), they chased this dog around the neighborhood for nearly a half hour. You should have seen Josh running through the streets, in between houses barefoot with a large dip net. The poor dog was obviously just scared and trying to find it's way home but not to man what a start to his new life he created. Now that he's adapted, hopefully there won't be any more of those episodes. And now Gracie has added another friend to her bff list.

We took Pop Pop to the Salerno Seafood Festival which was fun, but way too crowded for my liking. I played the "can you find your kid" game at "Gracie's Place" about 10 too many times, then I declared the fun was over. Josh had taken Pop Pop around the festival while I had the privilege of keeping track of my three fast little ones in a play zone of about 100 little ones. Not fun! For me anyway.

But we did run into the cutest cousins in the world and got to play with them for a bit.

Until Fletch mortified me by nearly relieving himself in the middle of the sandbox. Thankfully I grabbed him before the stream began and had just enough time to duck behind the bounce house. Yes we created quite a few gasps and laughs that day. Which is typically as long as Fletch is there.

{isn't it neat how these two pictures are so strangely similar. They just happened to be at the same spot when I snapped their picture.}

Fletch would have rode all day if he'd been allowed to. He belongs on a farm.

I can't get over how grown up my baby is becoming. The fact that he has reached the stage where he can come ask me to ride the "horsey" or get his arm painted and pick out his desired design is amazing to me. He just seems to really get life now and it excites me to see him soaking up so much knowledge. He'll sit at the table with us occasionally and "do school" and it just gives me a sweet chill to see my three little ones all together, at the school table, growing their hearts and minds. I love it and it makes me so very proud!

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For example, just now I took a break from writing this post to go play with him. After I had spun him around to the point of complete dizziness, I said "whoa, whoa, whoa." He said "we're on the boat!" That is so crazy to me that he could make the connection of feeling "rocky" from the dizziness like we sometimes feel while on the boat. That just totally blows me away!

Gracie's mermaid and Fletcher's fish

and of course, one silly tiger

Pop Pop's always been a man of the sea, so he thoroughly enjoyed all the seafood. It was just up his alley. And he didn't want to part from the Reggae music either. He would have happily sat there all day and ate, drank, and been merry.

But it was time to go. Mama said so.

All fun days must come to an end you know. To be honest, Josh and I had our hands full. It was a lot of work. But boy did it feel good to see Pop Pop get out of the house and have a good time. After all, who wouldn't have fun hanging out with my little monkeys!

On a not so fun note, we are being invaded by pests over here at the Smith bungalow. Well you already know that snakes like to hang out here with us, but did you know that rats do too? Yup! Or maybe they're just big mice. I'm not really sure exactly what they are but I do know that we've caught two of them in our attic so far. We haven't caught any in at least a week or two so I'm hoping that's the end of those little rodents! I can't find one good stinkin' reason why God would create such a little nuisance.

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If that wasn't enough, those pesky little black ants decided to come back again.

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Oh but there's more. I wish I was done ranting about our little problems over here but I'm not.

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The worst has yet to come.

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Let's just say the pest control have become very good friends of ours.

We've been blessed (or not so much) by the presence of fleas. Yup! The many perks of dog ownership have been "laid" right before us. Inside, outside, up and down those little buggers are here, biting my little loved ones. So "mr. bug man" came by for a meeting and a spray today and gave us his word that if he can't get rid of these things, quickly, he will officially retire. Even if it means coming out everyday. Those little creatures are just down right gross!

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But oh what a pain today was. He sprayed this milky white liquid everywhere! And it left nice spots everywhere too! He promises it won't stain and will wash off, but my entire house, from the floor to 4 ft. up, is covered in white spots. Including my couch, the beds and furniture. So today consisted of stripping off and washing all bedding and wiping down all furniture but I have yet to mop. My wood floors look dull and grimy due to the stuff, but I'm worried I will stop the treatment of killing them if I mop it all away.

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But guess what? The good news is he gets to come back and do it all again in 1 week which means I get to have a repeat of today also. Yippee! How in the world did I ever get so darn lucky?

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But at least the next few words that "mr. bug man" spoke to us opened the doors to our science lesson for the day, "All About Moles". They didn't want to miss all of the fun in driving us CR.. A.. ZY!

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So we pulled out of field guides and animal encyclopedia and studied moles for a bit. And did a little measuring to see just how far 65 feet is, which is the length a mole can dig in a day. Apparently they've been making their way around our yard pretty quickly.

{Notice the dates that they put on their papers today. One said the 28th, one said the 26th. That's right. We're on our own calender around here. What day is it anyway?}

And of course we had to take advantage of the opportunity to play in the mud, so we went digging in their tunnels seeing if maybe, just maybe we could catch one ; ) Nothing better than hands on learning I say! Sorry for those of you who are thinking "Ahh! You're destroying their home!" (you know you are Kelly ; ), but they are totally destroying our sod! (I really did mean that lovingly. She's my sister in law so I get the honor of teasing her like that : )

{Can you see the tunnel?}

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And this was just the start of it. If only I had taken their "after the adventure" picture.

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Tomorrow we are off to the SF Science Museum for more science fun! It is a field trip with our school Olivet, and I'm just bringing the two oldest students in my class, so it should be lots of fun! Little Fletch does do considerably well on field trips, but sometimes it's nice when I don't have to be distracted by keeping track of him. I can fully focus on taking advantage of every learning opportunity.

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Phew, what a day!

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Wishing for pest free days in my future,

Jenna