Visit and Other Odds and Ends

Yesterday morning when Poppa and I headed out for our daily walk to the donut shop Poppa's truck - which had been left outside to try and alleviate the odour situation - looked like this......

.........yep - this time we were home for the snow.  Anyway, Taffy & I had been invited over to Auntie Colleen's house for lunch....

.....we hadn't seen her for a long time, and Taffy was so happy to be there she forgot to look at the camera!  Auntie Colleen had put out a lovely lunch.........

....Taffy and I love bagels!  And, Taffy was honored to have her very own chair...

..and our bagels were followed by a delicious concoction made from peanut butter and chocolate - and I got to bring a tray full of it home!  As you can see, Poppa and I have already devoured a good portion of it!

It was scrumptious and I must get that recipe!  Are you wondering what Poppa and Squeegie were doing while we were there?  I'll give you a hint..........

.......he has been building this piece of furniture to create a storage space for toys.  Now he is.......

working on something else - under Squeegie's supervision!  Other interesting items...........

..Munchie went with Daddy to try out his new skates.  It appears.....

.........that he did quite well for his first time and.....

...Little Smiley had a great time playing in the arena while his big brother tried to maintain his balance! Onward...this is my cousin Joey....

...and her newest grandchild.... a beautiful little girl named Leah - just look at that hair!  Wow!  Now, let me see what else...oh yes - here is my latest book....

.........anybody familiar with John Grisham can guess that this is a great legal thriller - I didn't want to put it down.  Thank you to Aunt Grumpy for the bag of books she sent for me!  I'll try to return the favour when she comes to visit us in Florida!  One last thing.....when we went out for our walk to the donut shop this morning....

...Poppa's truck - which is still being de-stinked - looked like this.  Yep - we got more snow last night.  We set off anyway....

...after Poppa had shovelled a little path out to the road....then we began our journey ....

...it actually looked kind of pretty - don't you think?  The little bridge on the path....

was covered with snow....and so were....

...the vehicles in the parking lot.  Incidentally, in case you're wondering, we haven't caught any more skunks, but we're pretty sure there is still at least one more....I'll let you know!

The Scent of a............

SKUNK!

Yes!  That is a skunk.  Yes!  It is in Poppa's trap.  Yes!  It is at Aunt Peggy's house.  Last fall, before we left for Florida, there was a distinct aroma of Eau-de-Skunk around her place.  By the time we returned in the spring it seemed to have cleared up and we thought little more about it.  In the early fall this year, we noticed that something had been digging its way underneath her sunroom.  Poppa decided to set his trap - on the assumption that it was a groundhog - since they had been caught in the area a few years ago.  He set the trap with fresh vegetables - no luck - no takers.  I reminded him of the Eau-de-Skunk last year, looked on the internet to find suitable bait for polecats (aka skunks) and re-baited the trap with peanut butter on a little scrap of bread.  Bingo!  A skunk.  Kev-Inn kindly agreed to give Poppa some assistance and they drove the skunk out into the country and released him - needless to say at quite some distance from Aunt Peggy's and our house.  In the hopes that would be the end of the story, but on the chance that there would be further chapters, Poppa reset the trap.  Sure enough, he caught four more skunks - whew!  That made a total of five skunks - and the cute, fluffy fellow you see in the picture is number six.

Number six is getting a blog, because he is soooo special.  After five successful traps and releases, with skunks varying in size from small to extra-large, without incident, we were not anticipating much excitement from this medium-size specimen.  Poppa sneaked up behind his blanket, and just as he was carefully placing it over the cage, he started complaining about the stink............sure enough this miserable little wretch had released some musk out into the atmosphere....and our olfactory glands were definitely offended.  We took the boards away and placed the smelly-blanket encased trap into the back of Poppa's precious truck.  After we had driven just a mile or so we could start to smell the  nasty critter inside the truck - then realized that it was Poppa's jacket which he had removed and placed in the back seat.  By now Poppa's eyes were watering - yes, it was that bad.  We drove out to our usual release spot.........

.........where Poppa gingerly opened the trap door....

....and before long the malodorous little beast waddled into the wilderness........

....enabling Poppa to remove the blanket and place it into a plastic garbage bag for disposal - it will never be used by us again!  He then replaced the stinky trap into the back of his favourite mobile piece of equipment, but not before throwing his jacket into the truck-bed and folding back his tonneau cover in the hopes of airing out the space back there while we drove back to Aunt Peggy's to make her supper.  Our entire universe reeked of skunk.  Poppa called Great-Gramma and told her he wouldn't be over to her place for his usual visit.  I made Aunt Peggy's supper and we hurried home for a change of clothes and a shower!  Poppa's old jacket was placed in the garbage - luckily he had just bought a new one last week!  Then he went back into town and got our supper at KFC (twooney tuesday night).  As I type this he is out spraying his truck with a mixture of peroxide, baking soda and dish soap...........we have reset the trap.

First Snow 2011

We were at Munchie's house on Friday to look after the little boys while their daycare provider had a much needed day off!  I cannot imagine tending to the needs of seven or eight children every day.........especially after minding our two little fellows for just a day!  I would be exhausted all the time. The sad thing is - I didn't have time to take any pictures!  Every time I thought about taking pictures, my camera was somewhere else, and then the moment would be gone.  The moral of that story is to always have your camera in the same room as yourself!  But, back to the main topic.....while we were at Munchie's house, which is about 2 hours and 15 minutes south of Poppa's house..........it snowed here at home!  Once again, both myself and my camera were far away - so no picture.  So imagine my delight when I checked my e-mail this morning and found....

......an e-mail from Auntie Colleen with this beautiful picture of our first snowfall!  I am guessing that Uncle Shaun took this on one of his jaunts through a local wooded area.  Thank you to both of them for providing a pic of this year's first snow.  Thankfully it is all gone now since we have had a few milder and rainy days since then.

Even though I didn't get any pictures from our visit to Munchie's house, we did find some differences in our little boys since we had last seen them.  Mommy was kind enough to send me some pictures of these developments.  What is Munchie doing?

Hmmm...interesting...here's another angle....

.......oh goodness, he's mixing up banana bread!  Of course, before he stuck it into the oven, he had to....

...taste it to make sure it was just right.  He is currently deciding whether this should be his career of choice.  When I asked he was keeping his options open....maybe a chef, maybe a race car driver, maybe a policeman....or maybe.........a zombie!  I guess he has lots of time to decide!  But.........now...........what is Daddy doing?

.......He's giving Munchie a haircut!  Munchie appears to be enjoying it too!  BUT, now what is Daddy doing?

You don't suppose..........that he would even consider..........

.........oh my gosh.............he is giving Little Smiley his first haircut!  The end result.........

.........here are our two little brothers!  What cuties!

Visiting

A couple of weeks ago we went to visit our little guys.  We were just there for a few hours, but we had a good time.  We weren't there very long.........

......when we decided to put Little Smiley into the stroller, while Poppa and Munchie were already heading up the road to the park....

...and of course they beat us there, but they waited patiently for us to catch up.  Then we all headed over to the swings....

...where Poppa & I took over the pushing duties.  Once the little boys had enough of the swings....

....Munchie grabbed Poppa and they headed off to the play equipment and the slides.....

....with Little Smiley close behind!  It still seems strange to us when Little Smiley goes walking off without anyone holding onto him!  He sure is cute though.  It started to threaten to rain, so we went back to the house.  When we took off Little Smiley's hat.....

........he had a really bad case of hat head!  Once again, the day was soon over and we returned to Poppa's house.

Poppa sat down in his chair to peruse an auto magazine he had picked up.....

...........Squeegie and Taffy snuggled into their chair to watch TV and I settled down with my knitting.  We only have 36 days until we leave for Florida!  All is well!

Transitions....

.........take a look at this beautiful little boy....

...........this is our wonderful little grandson...commonly known as Munchie.......what on earth is happening to our perfect little Munchkin????

........can this possibly be the same child???  Oh my gosh!

What is Mommy doing?  This is all getting a little scare-ey!  Can it get any worse?

Well, it does look like his smile...........but .............

........can it be????  Has our little Munchie transitioned into a howling.....

..........Zombie?  OH NO!  Please say it isn't...............

.......a Munchie-sized Zombie jerkily coming towards us!  Oh, but it is.............He certainly looks frightening.........I hope Little Smiley isn't............

........Egads!  He is transitioning too!  What is happening to our little boys?

Oh look!  Little Smiley only transitioned partway - about a third - the rest is still perfect and Little Smiley is still smiling!  Oh you're right.  They were just getting dressed up for Hallowe'en.  However, I was amazed at how different Munchie looked when he got all that paint on his face! Thankfully after all the treats had been acquired and the tricks were over for the night..........both our little boys reverted back to their normal..........

...and mischievous selves - and started going through Mommy's and Daddy's DVDs to see what they should watch.

Poppa and I have been really busy lately......

..........raking, raking, raking - we have taken 5 of these trailer-loads to the dump so far - and as you can see there are still leaves left on some of our trees!  We have also taken two loads from Gramma-Grace and Aunt Peggy's houses.  Hopefully they will soon be done.  And, I am still working on Christmas presents, but I can show you one I have finished....

......I got a request for this after I posted the other scarf sets.   And I have finished another book since I last posted too.....

.......this is a typical James Patterson, a great, quick read - that keeps you wanting more.  I believe it is the first in another series by one of our favourite authors, and it left me with a strong desire to get my hands on the next one!  Aside from that, the bookmark is one of my favourites - a classic Winnie-the-Pooh and I'll try to remember to get a better picture of it next time I use it!