Bees be gone!!!

What a horrible discovery Tim made yesterday! He went into our house crawlspace to insulate anything that is was not done properly, made his way to the fireplace area and found a bee grave! By his estimates, there are probably 50,000 dead bees laying around. Everywhere!

It appears that we were incorrect to assume that bees were making their home in the space between the brick wall and the fireplace. They were actually making their way into the crawlspace through the hole in the brick and had full access to the entire space. (we even had a bee keeper telling us they had no access to the house and they are confined within that space!)

Good news is that they didn't make a honey comb/house (hmmm... strange...) & they appear to be all deceased.

Bad news is that I no longer feel safe from bugs in the house. Oh, I can only imagine now what would happen if we went under the house before they all died!

What I find very interesting is that there was a way out of the crawlspace, yet, they only knew one way in and out, and once it was closed they didn't know what to do! So much for bees' intelligence.

All I can think about now is a scene from the "Bee Movie" when Barry B Benson tries to leave a "human house" and runs into a closed window: "This time! This time! This time! This!.. This!.. This!.."

September 26th weekend

Tim's oldest moved in with us this weekend (Miranda). So, much of the weekend was spent shopping for essentials: toiletries, clothes, etc. We also got all the paperwork for her school enrollment and Tim took a couple of days off from work to get the ball rolling...

Before her arrival, we kept up with our typical weekend routine. On Saturday we stopped by the Farmers Market, then on the way home by the JB Thomas school to see the demolition progress. The building is almost completely gone. Only the front wall remains.
Jon had another birthday party to attend. This week his friend Gavin turned five. Kids' party was at the tumbling place and everyone had a blast.

Jon was very particular about the present for Gavin and I believe it was a hit. (I think Jon picks out what HE really wants).

Larissa is apparently taking after me. She typed up everything we had to do this weekend into (My Mom's old PDA's) check off list and made sure we didn't forget anything.
One of the shopping stops was at the Old Navy. While Miranda was trying her clothes on, Gabe almost joined a mannequin family... Looks like he would fit right in... Lucky for us, he changed his mind :-)

Music to my ears

I finally got around doing what I was going to do over a year ago. I got everyone signed up for art/music & sport activities! My thinking is that kids won't have the time to get in trouble if they don't have the time. Right?..

As of next week, Gabe is going to be in a school band and a swimming class (and possibly in a drama class), Larissa is in an acting class, a piano class and a swimming class, and Jon is in a swimming class with the occasional holiday fun classes to come. I even manged to find some open times to sign myself up for a couple of fun classes. A jewelry making (one day) and a glass fusing (two days). I think that is a good start.

We had some trouble deciding which instrument to get Gabe to play in the school band, but then we came to the rental night and had a chance to test them all. We just knew that Euphonium was meant to be for him. That was what we initially were going for, but wanted to make sure he liked it.

What I am mostly proud of is that I finally got an idea for Tim's birthday present! Forget all the electronic gadgets, he has enough of that! He has been talking for a while about wanting to learn to play a guitar, so I got him signed up for some classes and he got to pick out an acoustic guitar (and a case). I think he likes the present :-)

My only worry at this point is all the possible music-making-noise I might have to endure in my house. But I am not worried too much. My kids are not known for practicing enough...