The visitor(s)- An update

If you have been following the story of the visitor in our apartment, there has been no sign if him since Sunday morning.  Not a scratch or a squeak.  He has obviously been scared away by my throwing open the laundry room door, tennis racket in hand, screaming, "I know you're in there, where are you?!?"

In other apartment mishaps, our sink has sprung a leak.  Again.  I think this time we are supposed to get a whole new sink, so that's a plus.

For a laugh

If you haven't, go check out Mega shark vs Giant Octopus.  Actually, don't.  Just watch the trailer.  That's plenty.

At the 26 second mark you may have wondered, "Why are people on a plane screaming?  I thought this battle was underwater!"

You thought wrong.  They were trying to get you to watch the whole movie so you could see the best ever scene ever!

Mega Shark just needed to fuel up for the next stage of his battle.  That's all.  And if you are wondering how in the world that could be possible-  This guy has the answers for you!

Mega Shark is Megamazing

Visitors

A few weeks ago, Evan thought he heard some crinkling noises in the laundry room.  At first, he just looked for what could be rustling (possibly from air coming out of the vent or something).  A few days later he was convinced there was an animal crawling around and scratching.  I never heard these sounds, but I went along with it and looked for traces of animal visiting.  But nothing.  No presents left behind, nothing chewed, clawed, or scratched.  I was starting to think it was part of a plan Evan was cooking to keep me out of the laundry room.  But I couldn't for the life of me figure out why he would do that.  Unless he was hiding my Christmas presents in there, but he hadn't started shopping yet so I ruled that out pretty quick.

Yesterday I was baking up some cupcakes for our ward party and heard a strange noise.  I turned my music off and realized there was SQUEAKING coming from the laundry room.  I ran to get Evan and told him to go find it.  I don't know what I expected him to do with it when he found it (especially considering the roach he found was simply relocated outside our apartment and will no doubt be back later this winter), but I didn't want to be the one to find it alone and I wasn't about to ignore it.  Well, by the time Evan put shoes on and armed himself (with a wooden tennis racket.  "I'm not gonna use my nice one!") the creature had disappeared.  And still, no sign that a visitor had been there.  We can't find any 'evidence' to speak of.

This morning,  I was just eating my breakfast and listening to Christmas music (this seems to be the one thing that guarantees he comes out) and I heard it laughing at me.  Maniacally.  So, I opened the laundry room door, stood on the step ladder and started yelling at it.  This does not encourage the thing to come out where you can see it.  Nor does it stop it from reentering.  So, I barricaded the doorway, but left the door open, turned the lights out and finished my breakfast in the dark, waiting for a chance to get a picture.

My trap.  With the tennis racket just in case it tries to get me.

See, Evan is convinced that we cannot call the landlord without proof. And scratching and squeaking apparently doesn't count.  So, I was set to get a picture of it.  Because I don't care if it hasn't started chewing on my stuff yet, it's gonna happen and I would rather not wait until we are pushed out by the critter.  

About ten minutes later, Evan walked into the room and started talking.  I shushed him of course.  But he had stirred the visitorS.  There was definitely more than one this time.  I whipped my camera out and started recording.  Of course, the lights are out so you can't see anything.  But they weren't out anyhow.  You can definitely hear them though.  In case you are interested:

If you can tell us what is making that noise you can have a high five.  And you are welcome to come hunt it down.  

The reason we are calling them visitors - for now- is that they don't seem interested in finding our food, getting into our trash, or chewing on our boxes/laundry/wires.  They just come up, laugh at me, squeal, and run away.  I'm thinking maybe they haven't found a way to get all the way into the apartment.  They are in the walls, or vents, or something and are still working their way through.  But it's enough to make me want to wear boots and long pants when I do the laundry.

I think after hearing this Evan is willing to call the landlord in.  I certainly don't want them partying in here while we are on our two-week super vacation.  Who knows what they will find to indulge in?

I would like to end this blog by saying, we keep a tidy apartment.  Much more so than we did when we lived in Richmond, on the ground level, and never had so much as an ant inside.  I was certain if we kept our counters clean, took our trash out regularly, did the dishes, and so on- we wouldn't have any of these types of problems.  I was wrong.  When the weather gets cold and wet, the critters get resourceful.  

This apartment.  I'll say.

It's that time of year, when the world falls in love

I love Christmas time.  There are so many things about it to love, and I love every bit of it.  Every time I sing a Christmas carol, or wrap a present, curl a ribbon, see a snowflake, or wear a scarf and gloves for that matter, I just get all warm and fuzzy inside.  I can hardly stand it.  How can you look at a tree all lit up and decorated and not smile?

Happy Holidays everyone!

Decorations

I love putting up my Christmas decorations.  Yesterday afternoon we put up our tree and what other small decorations we have.  It felt good to put on Christmas music and just be merry.  Then I decorated our blog for the holiday as well.  And looking back on it during previews, I decided there aren't nearly enough pictures.  So this is my promise to be more active in picture taking.  It is important to me to have pictures of all our fun times, and I used to be really good about taking pictures (read: Had the camera attached to my hand and took a bajillion pictures of everything.)  My goal is to take more pictures, but not be so picture obsessed as I was years ago.  There is a balance in the middle, somewhere between pictures of everything and pictures of nothing.

An Anderson Thanksgiving

It just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a 15 hour car ride.  So at the last minute, we decided to make the drive to Richmond.  And I didn't take a single picture, so I hope you enjoy reading!  We packed up the car and left Tuesday afternoon, landing us in Richmond at 5am.  YEEHAW!  Overall, this was my favorite time frame to travel in.  We've tried a bunch of different ways in making these long trips:

1) Leave at 3am get in at 6pm - you lose an entire day driving and feeling gross.  You eat dinner, talk a little then fall into bed.  Plus, the driving is super hard because of the whole getting up at 2:30 part.
2) Leave at 9pm get in at 10am - You have already been up all day then try to drive all night.  We tried this our first time to Arkansas and could only do 2 hour driving shifts, barely staying awake.  Not recommended.
3) Leave at 9am get in at 10pm - you get a full nights sleep and aren't so groggy, but you lose a whole day driving which just feels wasted.
4) Leave at noon and get in at 5am.  You get the full nights rest, and have the whole morning to yourself to get things done.  I took the first shift (since I am nearly useless after bedtime) and drove for the first 7 hours. I was fine for the whole drive.  Evan had gotten up early and gone to class already so he was able to get a good nap in while I drove.  He took over after dinner and drove til 3am.  Apparently he got a second wind after midnight.  I slept the entire time.  So I drove the last two hours.  We got into richmond in the wee hours of the morning and took a nice nap.  But we were up and ready to go by 10.  I felt like this was the best use of time of all the options in long driving trips.

In case you were interested in that.

Wednesday I went to the Y and visited with my little ones.  Who aren't so little anymore.  One of my girls came running out the door to give me the biggest hug.  It felt good to know I was missed

Thursday was Thanksgiving of course, and it was delicious.  We ate dinner with Evan's extended family at his Uncle's house.  The college girls were missed, but it was a packed house all the same.  We also went to see the Muppets that night and it was well worth the trip to the theater.  I am definitely liking this tradition of going out to the movies together for the holiday.

Friday the men folk went out to the driving range/batting cages and the women folk stayed home and rested.  We went out to dinner at El Paso then broke off for a few hours to go visit our friends who had lots of exciting news to share.  We also introduced the family to Dominion that night.  And made an attempt at Bad Movie Night- an Anderson sibling tradition. But we were all pretty tired and only made it halfway through. Busy busy!

Saturday there was a lunch with the whole family at the park followed by kickball, then we broke off again and went to visit with some other friends for a round of frisbee golf, which we have severely missed.  I may not be that good at it, but I do enjoy playing, or at least having the option to play :)  Evan's mom took the ladies out to see the Help after dinner, then another round of Dominion.

And Sunday we left in the wee hours of the morning to drive back!  And a long drive it was too.

We spent a lot of time with the family, A lot of time playing wii (Mario Kart and Just Dance especially) and a lot of time having fun.

Overall I am glad we went.  There was a lot of back and forth before we finally decided to go, but I think it was a good decision and well worth the drive.

I've been waiting to be inspired about this post so it wouldn't be so boring.  Then I decided I didn't care because if nobody else read it I could come back in ten years and remember what we did for Thanksgiving 2011.

The End!