Captains Log

Ok, so this is going to be long, consider yourself warned!

So for some reason or another I went through a cleaning kick and cleaned my whole house from top to bottom, and rearranged most rooms.  Also de-junked taking 3 van loads to the donation center.  I told you it was exciting, and we have a mouse.  I called the pest control people 2 times to come and do some traps.  I even asked for whatever they had, no matter how inhumane.  It grosses me out that some little mouse is leaving poop on the floor.  The 2nd guy put a sticky trap under the dishwasher that they are not supposed to get off, but there was evidence that it got trapped and then got off!  And I hear that Russ brother used those traps for a mouse they had and it chewed it's own leg off to get off it.  Gross but funny!  So in the furry of packing for vacation (maybe I should consider doing it the day before...), and cleaning, we discovered that perhaps we had a whole family possibly in the garage.  So learn from our mistakes and do not keep any carpet in the garage, they like to make little nests out of it.  We also discovered a hole from the garage through the wall into a closet in the house (aka - mouse door).  So on the advice of the pest control guy and my hubbys efforts to evict the mouse, he stuffed steel wool in the hole, then spray foam and then nailed up a baseboard in most of the garage.  We also threw away a ton of garbage, I think it was about 6 garbage cans. I borrowed the neighbors cans and tipped the garbage men to ensure it all got picked up.  And we are not going to talk about how we now have baseboards in the garage but not my pantry in the kitchen that has been patiently waiting since Feb 2006.  So that brings us to Monday.  So Tuesday was filled with packing for the road trip to Utah.  I really should have started earlier, because I packed until we loaded up the van.  So we got out of there around 5:30pm and arrived in Amarillo at 11:30pm.  I made sandwiches in the car.  Everyone should do that at least once. We stayed at a less than desirable Holiday Inn.  You had to use your shoulder to open the door, the light by the door didn't come on, we couldn't get another light off, the tv reception was horrible, the sliding glass door didn't open, and when I called down for a roll away bed, they said they didn't know if they had any, they would have to check.  So in the morning I complained to a moron and he asked me what I wanted I said $20 off, he said ok.  I should have said more!  But it was still better than our hotels in San Antonio where the toilet seat was broken, the front of the vanity was missing, it was right by a highway and the best part was the adult book/movie store.  Yes, we are exposing our kids to many life experiences.  So we spent all of Wednesday driving, 9:30am - 1:30am, not counting the time change.  I made sandwiches in the car again, but while filling up with gas so it was a little easier.  We pretty much drove straight through.  Garrett did fabulous!!! He sat in his car seat the entire time and never complained.  I did hold him for about an hour while he slept.  Bailey kept asking if we were there yet, so I said 5 more minutes every time she asked.  And she kept having to pee, we did stop at at cafe on rt 66 and saw a car like matter and got some pictures.  Bailey had something to say about every bathroom we used and it usually included them needing mighty putty to fix something.  You would think we invented, invested, or have actually used it as much as she talked about it. We did get a new camera, it came as a revelation from Russ after reading one of my posts, and just in the nick of time because our other camera is having trouble.  So I think that brings us current.  We are now getting ready to head to the lake for a few days and I'm not sure about a connection there.  Here Russ' mom has dsl which is slower than fios and I know how the mouse trapped on the sticky trap feels, because I almost want to chew my arm off waiting for the computer!!!