Staples In The Head & Dead Rats

Yep, that’s how our long weekend started…w/ staples in the head.  Gracie called and said she was out by the pool and slipped and fell and hit her head and wanted to know if she could come over and have Dad look at it to see if she needed stitches or not.  So, they came over and he said two staples would be better than stitches.  So, he cleaned out the wound and then just put two staples in like it was no big deal.  Gracie was freaked out, but after it was over was really surprised that it didn’t hurt at all (especially since Dad didn’t numb the area).  Autumn was really intrigued by the whole thing.

We helped Dad around the house w/ a few little projects and then a little before noon, Liz & Liberty came over to swim.  Mom took Emma to the vet to get her rabies shot and she also got “chipped”.  That’s where the vet put a little chip, which is the size of a grain of rice, in Emma’s skin and then if she ever gets lots and someone takes her to a vet, the vet can just scan her neck w/ a little thing like at the grocery store that reads the bar code and our info will come up and they’ll know how to get her back to us.  Pretty cool stuff and it only cost $60 (Mom thought it was going to cost more like $200).  We had hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled corn on the cob, and watermelon for lunch.  It was SO GOOD and was the perfect meal to go w/ the perfect weather on a perfect Saturday.  They had to leave to go to Liberty’s sister’s high school graduation.  We putzed around the house and waited for Lex & Jon & Andrew to get here.  Mom called and talked them into coming.

They got here around 3:00 and we were SO EXCITED!  It’s just not the same w/out them here.  They got a new dog since the last time we saw them, and he was running around in the backyard and started sniffing back by the pool toys and wouldn’t come out.  We jokingly said he must have found a mouse or rat back there.  Well, we were right!  He was back there and all of a sudden we saw a big old rat come running towards where we were and it went behind the dishwasher.  Nate came back from cutting down trees over at the lot (we got a letter from the city saying our tree limbs were too low…LAME).  Anyways, he tried to get the rat to come out, but it went up INTO the dishwasher!  GROSS!  He finally got it to come out and it took off over towards the bushes again!

We heard some scuffling around and next thing we know, Trace comes out w/ the rat in his mouth and is thrashing it around in his mouth.  It bit him on the lip but was dead w/in a few seconds.  It was so gross, but I’m glad he got it and now the perimeter of the house is rat-free.

Autumn didn’t really know what was going on, other than we were running around and screaming and Aunt Lexie was standing up on a chair.  Dad went to dispose of the dead rat and told Autumn to stand next to him and smile.  She didn’t know he was holding the dead rat, she was just happy to have a popsicle.  After this picture, she turned around and saw it and ran away as fast as she could.  That’s why Dad was laughing so hard in this picture…b/c she has no idea he has a dead rat in his hands.

Dad asked Andrew & Autumn if they could share their popsicles w/ him and they both went to give him a bite at the same time.  I guess he is the spoiled one today for a change, instead of the kids being the spoiled ones.

But, the kids are really the spoiled ones b/c Dad took them back and forth in the pool on these little boogie boards and was trying to get them to kick their feet so they could practice swimming.  They could have had him take them back and forth all day long.

Autumn wanted me to lay out on this floating thing (please don’t judge me b/c my legs are so ghostly white), and wanted to go to the deep end.  But, when we got there she wanted to get off the floaty and swim!  I swear that child is way too gutsy and daring in the water.

Andrew wasn’t too happy to be in the water at first, but slowly started to warm up to swimming.  And then there’s Autumn who is the total opposite and we can’t keep her away from the water.  Dad wanted them to all jump in together.  I love the look on Autumn’s face and the look on Andrew’s face.  They both did really good going under the water and I’m pretty sure Papa is the only one that could get both of them to jump off the side.

Then there’s Nate, who you don’t have to talk into jumping off of anything.  He wanted me to take lots of pictures of him doing different jumps and flips so he can put them on his Facebook.  I like taking pictures of him jumping, b/c it gives me a chance to use the fast click feature on my camera where I just push and hold down the button and it takes 4 pictures a second, so you get a bunch of shots of the jump at different stages of it.

The kids had so much fun playing w/ Papa and in this picture they are “helping” to pull him out of the pool w/ their hula hoops.  We had a great afternoon of playing and swimming and enjoying the AMAZING shade b/c of the new covered patio.  It’s so nice!

After we were all water logged, we packed up and came over to my house to cook dinner since Mom still doesn’t have a stove or oven.  We had a salad, stuffed bell peppers (from the garden), and this yummy pasta w/ veggies recipe that Mom saw on the Food Network and wanted to try.  It was super good, but it calls for Mascarpone cheese (which was SUPER expensive).  Maybe that’s a recipe we’ll only make every once in a while.

I can’t even tell you HOW HAPPY it made me to have everyone gathered around the table at my house.  I don’t think life gets much better than being surrounded by those you love while sitting in a beautiful home with good food and good conversation all while everyone is happy and healthy after enjoying a fun-filled (and a little crazy w/ the head staples and dead rats) type of day.  Life is good, my friends…

…LIFE IS GOOD!