Bat Number Three

A few nights ago, Jeff and I went to bed a little later than usual and were just drifting off to sleep when our phone started ringing. We knew from the ring that it was one of the kids using the intercom feature. Jeff answered to hear a frantic Sadie informing him that there was a bat in her room!

We rushed downstairs as quickly as we could. Sure enough, there was a rather large bat flying back and forth as it tried to find a way out. Sadie had been reading in bed when she first spotted it so she climbed all the way in and threw the covers over her head. She was safe, but peeked out now and then only to scream when the bat flew over her head. Jeff had a large container, hoping the bat would stop long enough for him to capture it. I ventured in just long enough to see the excitement and take a picture when the bat finally landed. In the retelling, this all sounds pretty tame, but the whole thing was terrifying! Sadie wasn't the only one screaming.  

It took a little while, but finally the bat rested upside down for a bit from Sadie's curtains. Jeff placed the container over him and somehow - after a traumatic near miss - managed to get him under the container on the floor. I slid a stiff piece of foam board under the container and Jeff was able to carry the contraption outside to free the bat. Whew! Needless to say, it took a little while to fall asleep after that.

That's bat #3. We had in-house bat adventures back in 2012 and 2015. I'm hoping this is The End!

Remembering Spring

Last spring I started walking everyday. We are blessed to live just down the street from a recently paved bike trail that has some beautiful views along the way. We also live just a short drive from a lake with trails for walking and hiking. I've been getting my exercise indoors for the past few months, but I'm looking forward to the day when I can head outside again. 

Here are a few photos from my walks last spring and summer. So much beauty to look forward to!

 

I love how the sun is lighting up this wild patch of thistle. The flower of Scotland may not be pretty to anyone else, but to me it feels like home.

This little guy was so small and cute.

Light Pillars

We've experienced a unique phenomenon twice in the past few days. Saturday night, Sadie and Soren were out running an errand and they noticed lights shooting straight up into the sky. Sadie thought it was a little weird, but figured that some street lights were aimed in the wrong direction or something like that. The next day I saw an article talking about light pillars that had been spotted in central Illinois. I showed the kids and Sadie realized that's what she had seen on Saturday. 

Then last night, Sadie was looking out the window and she saw them again! They were so cool (the photo below doesn't do them justice at all) and we soon found that they we could see them in every direction - north, south, east and west. Some were white or pinkish, others had a tint of green. All we know is we've never seen them before, but we'd love to see them again! (The article linked above gives more information about light pillars and has several more photos.)

Snow Day

So much for the delicate little snowflakes that fell on Saturday. Today it was a full on snowstorm. We woke up to a wind chill of at least -15º and a few inches of snow on the ground. 

If the public schools weren't already closed for President's day, they would have been closed due to terrible road conditions. Jeff left for work at his usual time, but only because he didn't see the text telling him that the university was closed as well. 

We're still under a winter storm warning until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow so I wasn't surprised when we were notified at 2:30 this afternoon that tomorrow will be a "remote learning day" for the kids. That means that their teachers will let them know by 9:00 tomorrow morning what their assignments are for the day and what is required of them to be marked present. It's not as fun as a "snow day," but at least it doesn't have to be made up at the end of the school year.

The crazy thing is that Sterling is having similar weather in San Antonio, Texas! They were grounded because of the snow today as well, but they also had to deal with rolling power outages. Just a week ago he was enjoying a "chilly 75 degrees." 

Here are a few pics as seen from inside my house. What I couldn't pick up on camera is the constant falling snow and the wind gusts blowing it all over the place. 

We live on a State Route heading out of town. The snow plows usually keep our road pretty clear. Not today!

Good thing there's no school tomorrow. I'm not sure the kids could get out of the garage!

Snowflakes

Yesterday it snowed off and on. It was such a light snow that you could hardly tell it was snowing at all, and the air was so cold and dry that the flakes fell individually instead of clumping together. It was so cold, like single digit cold, that when the beautiful little individual flakes landed on my deck they didn't melt. I was lucky enough to get a few pictures while they lasted. The largest of these snowflakes wasn't more than 5mm wide. I've seen beautiful snowflakes like these only 2 or 3 other times over the years and it just cheers me right up and makes the miserable cold weather not quite so miserable after all.

 

Arctic Blast

I know, "Arctic Blast" sounds like a flavor of minty gum, but it's what we have to thank for a day off of school and work today. And we got the call just before lunch today that the kids will be off tomorrow as well. Yay! (But Jeff will be back to work in the morning.)

I haven't seen temperatures like this since my first year at Ricks College in the winter of 1988-89. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the RealFeel was in the negative 60's a time or two. For real. My roommate and I would lay in bed in the morning and listen to the radio as they listed off all the schools that were cancelled day after day. Never once did they say "Ricks College." To avoid freezing to death, I would walk through every single building on my way to my 8:00 a.m. class which was all the way across campus. It was brutal.

Anyway.

Here's a screenshot from my weather app this morning that shows our lowest actual temperature for the day (-12º). The RealFeel got down to -38º, but Sterling's phone showed -44º at one point. We have certain rooms in our hundred-year-old house that we are pretty much avoiding because they are freezing. Thankfully, for the most part we've been safe, warm and happy today. :)

Looking ahead, the forecast says we should hit an unseasonably warm 60º on Monday. If the RealFeel matches that, it will feel almost 100º warmer than today. What a difference a week makes!

A Shrimp Bug Contraption

You've probably never heard of a shrimp bug. That's because we made up the name. Years ago at certain times of the year, we would find these large bugs in our basement that sort of looked like a cricket, but they were brown with super long antennae and really long legs that could jump like 3 feet or more. They were terrifying. Their bodies sort of resembled a shrimp so we named them shrimp bugs and we all hated them. 

We later learned that they are actually called Camel Crickets, but we still call them shrimp bugs. We still get them. We still hate them. Unfortunately, we've had more than usual this year.

Sadie found one on the stairs last week after everyone had gone to bed. It was pretty late, but she was determined to make sure it wouldn't crawl (or jump!) into her room during the night. Here's the contraption she came up with:

You can see a few purple and pink ponytail holders on the stair behind the black folder. Sadie initially fired those at the bug to see if she could just annihilate it outright. It never moved so she thought maybe it was dead. See the markers and highlighters under the tub against the wall? She tried those next, throwing them at the shrimp bug which annoyed it enough that it crawled up the wall. She trapped it against the wall with the plastic tub, but then she was stuck. She couldn't let go or the tub would fall. She reached as far as she could and was barely able to grab Sterling's music folder which she propped against the bucket while she ran for tape. Once she secured the bucket to the wall, she kept the folder there for extra support then put her trash can next to that for added peace of mind. 

When I went downstairs the next morning, this note was on top of the bucket:

"Caution Massive Shrimp Bug!!! (caught by me so give me a medal of bravery)... or a blizzard  -Sadie Stowell

What a funny girl. :)

Fortunately for us all, camel crickets aren't invasive. They don't bite or get into food or otherwise cause trouble. They are just really big and ugly and terrifying. Sadie is the only one who sleeps in the basement and that's the only place we've found them, but I'm not worried about her. She's obviously got it under control.

End of Summer

Oh, why do I procrastinate my blog?? Well, late is better than never so here is a quick recap of our summer.

We started off with four weeks of no major obligations. Those weeks seemed to last forever and we just enjoyed the time together. There was plenty of badminton, progress toward goals (we got a LOT of things accomplished this summer!), and just time together. It was a needed break from the typical demands.

I already blogged about our end-of-June activities, High Adventure and the youth Pioneer Trek.

July was pretty steady with several week-long activities. Jeff and the boys attended a hot and sweaty Scout camp and Sadie attended her first Girls' Camp during the hottest week of the summer. Ugh! We picked her up a day early to head to Utah where we spent the last week of July so Sterling could attend an A Cappella camp - ReMix Vocal Academy - at BYU. I'll post more about that once the videos of the final concert are up on YouTube. It was amazing!! He had a great week and we all loved the final concert.

Sterling and the bros after his awesome concert!

Sterling with Adam, former beatboxer for Vocal Point
(Sterling looks really short here, but Adam is 6'10.)

While in Utah, we were also able to spend time in the temple as a family and we were there when Savannah went through the temple for the first time.

Draper Temple with the cousins! This was Sadie's first time to do baptisms for the dead.

Somehow I didn't get any photos after Savannah went through the temple (rats!!) but here's the whole crew at the Provo City Center Temple after our family did baptisms for the dead.

My mom and all of my siblings were in town so we spent time with cousins as well. We stayed with friends who made us feel like part of the family and, despite our vow NOT to go to Utah this summer, it was definitely worth the drive.

We didn't make it to Idaho this year, but Idaho came to us! Sadie and cousin Ana are BFF's. Little Sawyer is a cutie!

My dad's headstone was installed while we were in Utah.
I'm glad I got to see it. We visited dad a few times.

We hiked the Bonneville Shoreline Trail one morning with our friends and hosts, the Afflecks.
It was a beautiful hike and morning!

The cool, new suspension bridge on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

Bridal Veil Falls

A motley crew. :)

A rare photo of Jeff and me.

We saw a full rainbow in Wyoming on the drive home. So pretty!

Eclipse 2017: Worth the Drive

I took my kids out of school today so we could head south to see the total solar eclipse. We were only about a 2-hour drive from the path of totality. We were lucky; for the most part, traffic was light and quick and we made it to West Frankfort, Illinois with five minutes to spare. We pulled into a gas station and had some fun seeing the crescent sun shining through the grid we made with our fingers. 

Then we donned our eclipse glasses and watched as the tiny crescent got smaller and smaller. When it disappeared, we removed our glasses.

I've heard a total eclipse and people's reactions to it described different ways. For us, there was no screaming or crying just a feeling of awe. The darkened sky had a hint of yellowish green, kind of like a pending tornado but without the storm. A bright star appeared and there was a smaller star (planet?) lower in the sky that flashed and twinkled. Clouds hung low in the sky across the horizon and they took on a slightly pinkish hue, almost like a subtle sunset. The cicadas were buzzing loudly like they do in the evening. And the moon, looking more like a black hole, was surrounded with a bright white light. Yes, it was awesome.

The whole thing lasted less than 2 minutes and then the sun peeked out again as the moon slowly slid away. We were back on the road within 15 minutes of our arrival for the 2-hour drive home.

Four hours of driving for a 2 minute experience. Was it worth it? Yes, we all agreed it definitely was. Given the chance, we'd do it again. It's something we won't soon forget.

Peach Perfect

Or maybe I should title this post "Peach Plenty." Either way, we have beautiful, sweet, ripe peaches coming out of our ears.

The peach tree at our rental home next door has exceeded all expectations. Jeff pruned it pretty heavily last fall. This spring, when we saw that it was producing more peaches than it could possibly support, Spencer thinned it, completely filling a five-gallon bucket with nickel-sized peaches. He thinned it a little more after the bucket was full then decided that was good enough. 

Fast forward a couple of months and several of the branches are dragging on the ground. This picture is the underside of just one branch. Isn't that crazy!! I've never seen anything like it.

It's kind of fun. We've been giving away peaches left and right. I've been eating them for breakfast every morning. I'm making a peach crisp tonight and peaches-and-cream cheesecake tomorrow. Between me and my friends, we've picked well over 400 peaches and still, the tree looks untouched. 

Good thing we like peaches! :)

Hens and Chicks

A couple of summers ago, while visiting my brother, Steve, and his family, Spencer was admiring their backyard landscaping. He was intrigued by their hens and chicks that were planted in various locations around their yard. When he asked his Aunt Jenny about them, she easily pulled several little offshoots or babies from the masses and put them in a box for Spencer to grow at home. 

Those babies have multiplied! They have filled in the area under our tree house and I love them! 

This is just one small grouping of the hens and chicks that started from one offshoot two years ago.

This one is larger than the rest and, like a protective mother hen,
you can see the little babies growing under her "wings." It reminds me of the scriptures
about how Christ will gather his people just like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. :)

I'm thinking about bringing some in the house to plant in small pots. They are so easy to grow, they require very little effort, and they make me happy!

Pioneer Trek

My boys have had quite a week! Monday morning they left for Mammoth Cave in Kentucky with their Scout troop. They went caving and hiking and pretty much wore themselves out until they left for home on Wednesday morning. They got home in time for lunch then hurried to repack and switch to pioneer gear before they headed out that same afternoon for our stake's youth conference Pioneer Trek.

For the next three days, they pulled handcarts, danced, cooked and ate in the great outdoors, and tried to stay dry during a thunderstorm. And you know what? They loved it! They all had a great time honoring our many pioneer ancestors.

This is my favorite photo from trek. Don't my boys just look the part? I love that Jeff was with them, too.

The whole group:

Here is Spencer (far right) with his trek family.

This is part of Sterling's trek family. It's hard to tell with the smoke (though I love the effect), but Sterling is second to the right. His Ma and Pa are in the center.

Soren (left) with part of his trek family:

A couple of months before trek, the youth were encouraged to submit stories from their pioneer ancestors. Here, Spencer is sharing one of the submitted stories.

Here, Soren is helping his "family" stabilize the handcart as they walk down a hill.

On the last day, on a steep segment of the trail, the girls had to pull the handcarts alone while the men and boys watched helplessly. My boys said that as each group of girls reached the summit, they left their handcarts and hurried to help the girls still on the trail.