Just Around the Riverbend

We finally caught the critter that was tantalizing us in our attic!

At least a week before my parents came, we started hearing an animal in our WALL.  We set a trap up in the attic with Vienna Sausages, but continued to hear it scratching in the same place.  Barkley even heard it and would bark at it.  We knew exactly where it was going in our soffits, but didn't want to close it off and possibly lock it in, so we just waited and moved the trap around every so often for several weeks.

Monday night, we got home from Bible Conference.  We let Barkley outside and immediately he stares at the hole in our soffits.  Steven looked over in time to see something going inside!  He turned on a flash light and stuck it into the hole, to see a raccoon staring back at him!  Barkley was FREAKING out barking at him, and he would run inside and bark at the place we usually hear him scratching... He clearly knew this was the animal invading our house and did not want him there!

So, he was inside, but at least now we knew WHAT it was, so we could google "how to catch a raccoon".  The website I went to said to use sweets like bread and marshmallows instead of meat to attract it, so Steven made a trail of peanut butter and bread from the hold in our soffit to the cage which we had in the yard before we went to bed.

I woke up that morning around 6 AM to use the rest room, and when Barkley heard me walking around, he started whining really loud, like he usually does when he has an upset stomach and needs to go outside NOW (haha).  So I let him out and immediately he ran to wake Steven up, then to the back door.  We looked out there to see that the racoon was in the trap!  I have no idea how Barkley knew this from his bed, but he did, and he wanted us to know, too. 

We rewarded B by letting him spend the rest of the morning in our bed. :)

After getting a little more sleep, we knew we needed to figure out what to do with the raccoon.  His skinny lil arms were small enough to go through the holes in the cage and scratch you, so Steven came up with a system using sticks to go through the handles and pull it to the driveway.

This raccoon was MAD.  He kept throwing himself at the cage trying to get out, which resulted in him wounding himself.  And the ugliest one I have ever seen.  I was actually excited when I found out it was a raccoon in the attic, I pictured it cute and friendly and cuddly... but this guy was none of those things!

Barkley was SO proud of himself for helping us, and of course wanted to terrorize his captive... but we didn't want him getting too close and getting scratched.  This is him while we were getting the Coon to the driveway (we had a "lemon-sized" hole in the screen before this incident...)

Luckily, we are getting new windows and screens next month!  haha.

We decided to let B out on his leash or the yard rope so he could bark at the animal. He really chewed him out and clearly scared it and Steven told the coon to "remember this face". 

We loaded up the lil guy in my car (with a board and a tarp of course) and took off to find him a new home.

I read to take him at least 5 miles away from your house... We took him 12 miles away just to be on the safe side!

His new home!

We are Family

I am a little late posting this, but I wanted to write about the great time we had with my family last week!

They came for the beginning of Austin and Kyla's spring break, Saturday - Wednesday.  We had PERFECT weather (except on Sunday) and it is so great to be able to host them in our home!

Saturday, they got there while I was at work.  When I came home, I walked in to find my mom, Austin, and Barkley all sitting on the stairs waiting for me!  We spent the night inside, eating dinner and playing games.

Sunday morning we all went to church together and had lunch at my house.  It was a rainy day so we all took Sunday naps and relaxed most of the day.  That night, Steven went to youth group and I went to run some errands with my family.  My dad is so gracious to help us with home improvement tasks while he is here!  We went to Lowe's to get some supplies so he could fix our outdoor spickets and mailbox problem.  :)  After, we went to Steak N Shake for Kyla's birthday dinner.

Monday was a perfect day to be outside, so we went to Downtown St. Charles' river walk.  They also have lots of unique stores and restaurants, so we were able to check them out after walking a bit.

We took Barkley (he's so spoiled) and several of the restaurants have outdoor seating where he was allowed to come with us.  I think we found our new place to take visitors... the Millstead Inn had great food and outdoor seating!

I had to leave early to get to work at 4, and took Barkley with me.  We took Steven's car which doesn't have air conditioning and poor thing was panting the whole way home so when I had a few extra minutes to get Happy Hour from Sonic, I got him a $1 ice cream cone.  I think it made him much less miserable!

When I came home from work, we got to use our NEW grill for the first time!  Steven made us hamburgers and brats!

Tuesday was another fun day.  We went to St. Louis for the afternoon.  We got to visit the Arch and the City Gardens.  (I love that there is so much you can do here for FREE.)

Austin taking coins out of this water area... but he had to throw them back in!

We got back in time for Mom, Dad, Steven, and I to go to Discipleship at 6:45.  Of course we got there a little late because Barkley got out and we had to run around the neighborhood to catch him!  D2 was great as always, and then we came home to use the grill again for a late dinner.  We had grilled chicken, veggie kabobs, and mac n cheese!  We were able to eat outside and use our patio set for the first time!

Wednesday morning, Dad went with Steven to play basketball with some friends and I took Kyla out for her Birthday.  We went to the Painted Pot, a place that has ceramics that you paint and then they fire them up for you and you get to keep them!  She selected a cute cupcake box to paint and we had some good, girl one-on-one time together!

My family had to leave a little bit after lunch that day.  We were so glad to spend several days with them!

Welcome to My Life

Yesterday, I thought it would be a fun idea to take pictures throughout my day to show what a "typical" day is like for us!  Now, I don't want to deceive you that we are as productive as we were that day, every day.  Every day really is different... some days we work around the house, some days we are able to rest, some days we run errands, some days we are at the church... this just so happened to be a workin day!!

Woke up to find our new patio furniture being knocked around by the deck by the crazy wind...  When I went to check on it, I noticed that our dang dog did a work on it himself last night!!

He better hope I can fix it...

Steven has his weekly meetings with our pastor on Tuesday mornings, so I took a shower and got to work cleaning up the house for when my family comes this weekend (Yayyy!!).  Cleaned the downstairs bathroom,

And took all of the clothes up from the guest bedroom (which doubles as our laundry-folding area because it's right next to the laundry room.)

After all the cleaning, Steven got home and we got right to work taking off our shutters so we could paint them.  Our shutters were a very faded wine-red color, and when we first bought the house we thought it needed new shutters but we are just getting to it now, lol.  We had a difficult time taking them out.. but Steven got it done!!

Look how faded our old shutters were...

This is my painting station!  I painted the shutters while Steven painted the front door.

Step one- paint the outsides!

Steven working hard on the front door.  He was listening to Pandora on his earbuds, while I listened on the speakers in the garage.  I would randomly hear him singing along with the song on his station, which wasn't the song I was listening to.  I can't complain, though... I love listening to him sing Praise/Worship songs!

The ever faithful Barkley... with us in the front yard... chewing on a stick.  For a long time, he was eyeing our neighbors two doors down... They have a wooden goose statue that he must have thought was real because he kept barking at it and whining.

We finished the first coat of paint, and hard workers need good fuel for their late lunch / early dinner!  So we stopped at Chipotle which just so happens to be 2 minutes from our house.  :)

Next, we stopped at the store to pick up more paint and some other things we needed to finish the job.  Didn't get a picture of that.  We got home and got to sit down for a while before leaving for Discipleship at the church.

We talked about Spiritual Gifts which for some reason really interests me.  We had already taken Spiritual Gift tests, I got Administration, Help, and Encouragement.  Steven got Encouragement, Faith, and Evangelism.  It is so cool to see how I can use my Spiritual Gifts to help Steven's ministry!!

Got home and Steven went to work out with his buddies and I did the second coat on the shutters... Lookin Good!

I also got the bright idea that while we were on a working streak, I would paint our mail box white (another thing we have wanted to do since we got the house.)  Well, you know Norton's law... whatever can go wrong will go wrong... what was supposed to be the simple task of unscrewing the mail box from the post, turned much harder when I found out that the screw was rusted and the head got stripped from the body... oops... Here is Steven back from his work-out, trying to get the screw out.

It's safe to say that the mailbox is still there, and it's still black...

See how tired Barkley looks in this picture, like he is out of breath?

I said before that we don't really have a "typical" day.  Well one thing that we CAN count on every single day is Barkley being a goober/dork.  Steven was outside working on the mailbox, and I took Barkley inside.  He ate some dinner, and I was on the computer when I heard Steven yell, "Kels, is Barkley in there?"  I said yes, but I didn't know exactly where because I was on the computer.  Turns out, our downstairs door and garage door were open.  I looked all over the house for Barkley but of course he was no where to be found.

Soooooo Steven and I had a nice 11:00 adventure running around the neighborhood looking for Barkley (another thing that is getting to be a more typical endeavor for us.)  I thought FOR SURE this time he was gone for good.  I didn't think he'd been out too long, but he wasn't wearing his collar and we had no idea which way he had gone.  Even if someone did find him (alive) they wouldn't know where to take him.  He usually runs towards the neighborhood, so we looked there and found him smelling a mailbox.  Steven yelled his name, trying to get him to come to us by squeaking his tennis ball, but he saw us and ran away.

The hardest part of this ordeal, is usually when he goes out he is just wanting to sniff around.  He gets distracted very easily and we can catch him when he's smelling stuff.  BUT this time he kept finding rabbits and squirrels!  These are his FAVORITE things and it is his dream to freely chase after them.  Last night he got to live his dream.  He would find a bunny, and chase it across the neighborhood (Steven and I following him.)  We would finally catch up when he would find something else and chase it BACK across the neighborhood. Steven and I were amazed at how fast he was as he chased them!

We spent a very long time running around the neighborhood, and as we were running I was wondering how I would tell my family we lost him, and how long we would wait until we got a new dog (haha).  I was praying, Well God, it's in your hands... I guess we will know tonight whether or not you want us to have this dang dog.  I know we must have looked so hilarious (though they may have gotten used to it by now), running around the neighbor's yards in our bare feet (through the mud and puddles, even), Steven had his "headband flash light" on from working on the mail box, and we are squeaking his tennis ball and shaking his treat bag to try to bribe him!  Our strategy is always to split up so that 1. we can find him easier, and 2. so when he is running away from us the other can try to catch him. 

I met back up with Steven and saw that he was quietly walking up to Barkley where he was sniffing at one of our neighbor's patios.  He springs onto Barkley and I took my jacket off to wrap around his neck as a make-shift leash as we headed back to our house.  Barkley was walking like it ain't no thing... He was just running around the neighborhood sniffing and chasing rabbits... he had the night of his life... no big deal, mom and dad!

I guess we're stuck with him now.. :)

We got home and we were ready for a snack (I had my left over Chipotle) and watched some TV together.

(Don't worry... ESPN was only on while I was warming up my Chipotle!)

So there's a day in my life!  haha

Friday, Friday!

Technically, it is 12:14 am and therefore no longer Friday, but I'm gonna stick with the title.

We had a good week here!  Tuesday was very nice so we took Barkley to the dog park.

He had a great time!  After Discipleship that night, Steven and I went to Home Depot to look at shutter colors (ours are very faded).  We decided to check out the grills while we were there, and there was one that was on sale and a VERY good deal, so we left with a new grill!  We have been using our little "campout" one that fits about 6 patties on it and is itty bitty.  I am so glad we got one early this year so we can use it all Spring and Summer long!!

Wednesday I ran TONS of errands!  All over St. Charles County.  I really want us to be able to use our deck this year... last year we were NEVER outside even on really nice days because we had no where to sit out there!  This year I want to get a patio set and be able to just sit out there and eat ice cream or hang out and enjoy the outdoors, especially when we have company.  So I went to a lot of different stores checking out patio sets.  I also went to a few fabric stores to start some upcoming projects.

Thursday I worked all day, actually a half hour late.  Steven just re-started a guy's Bible Study at our house on Thursday at 5:45 so some of the guys were already there when I got home.  I try to either run errands or stay downstairs when they are having discussions, I don't want them to hold things back because I'm listening!  That night Barkley and I went to the guest bedroom and I just browsed the internet.

Today was a long day.  Got up and got to work on some sewing.  I have decided that my least favorite part of sewing things is cutting the fabric!!!  It takes forever, hurts my back/legs/neck, and it is very stressful because if you get it wrong you have to start over.  Which happened today... I cut something too small, but when I realized it did not have a large enough piece to make a new one.  SOOOOO I got to go back to Hancock fabrics to buy a 14 X 42 inch piece of one fabric haha.  Back home, just for Steven to tell me that he wanted to go run some errands.  I said I would go with him only if I could show him some Patio sets... I'd looked everywhere on Wednesday, plus lots of places online this morning, and Big Lots had some REALLY good deals on cute sets.

We ended up buying/making our own set...  I'm so excited but I'll wait to tell you about it for when everything is put together.  :)  We will have a transformed patio and hopefully no more big purchases for a while!

That's it for me... we came back home and I have been sewing the night away.  I love seeing things come together!

A few weeks ago, Fritz's opened again for the year.  We celebrated by taking Barkley.   Steven got an ice cream cone, and when they gave it to him, Barkley got so excited because he thought it was his.  In actuality, his doggie cone was about 1/50 of the size of Steven's, but he was still happy with it!

Tomorrow we have a VBS meeting at the church and then it is the youth group's turn to clean it.  Oh the glamorous life of a youth pastor's wife!