unwanted houseguest

Was playing with flashcards on the floor with the boys this morning and saw something out of the corner of my eye. Perched on the wall, not far above our heads, was this:

(not my picture. stole it from the internet.)

I freaked. I don't do insects well. Especially when they're 4 inches long and look like spider meets mosquito.

My effort to remain calm in front of the kids was shot when the thing started to fly around in our little living room. I sent off some frantic texts to Brent ("Hellllllllllllp!" "It's HUGE!!!" "My heart is pounding!"), stuff like that. I don't know what I was expecting him to do for me, haha. My boys were wide-eyed and I was left to my own devices.

The thing landed on the blinds and I knew I had to act quick, before it started flying around again (which would surely have stopped my heart). My own devices, unfortunately, didn't include a long-armed flyswatter, so I grabbed a hot wheel track and stunned it long enough to suck it into an outstretched vacuum hose. I feel bad murderizing the thing but boy oh boy it felt good to breathe again.

Did some googling afterward and identified it as a "crane fly," which are extremely common in the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully I won't freak out next time, because there will surely be a next time.

Oh, and it turns out they're completely harmless. Physically, anyway.

some sabbath day pictures

Sure do love my boys.

things i miss most

I absolutely, positively, 100% don't miss a Las Vegas summer. But I do have a good number of things I do miss about "home" and since I'm feeling a little homesick today...

Things I miss most about LV (in a very particular order):

1. My family (duh)
2. The Leavitts
3. The Las Vegas Temple
4. The Villa Bonita ward
5. Fresh & Easy
6. My one story house(s)
7. Cafe Rio
8. Sultan's Grill
9. The rest of my favorite restaurants: Mundo, Hush Puppy,Viva Michoacan, Fukuda, Joey's Pizza, Pei Wei, Smashburger, Sabor (even though I only went once), Bahama Breeze, and some others I'm probably forgetting
10. Being a 4 hours drive away from Disneyland
11. Town Square
12. Sonic Ice

just to name a few...

pine lake park (the sequel)

First, I'd like to direct you to my husband's post about our visit to Pine Lake Park yesterday. My post is a follow up to that one. So if you haven't already read it, and if you give a hoot, go to http://gudleg.blogspot.com/2011/08/pine-lake-park.html before continuing on.

So, yes, the sun shone. And the moon, well, it appeared in multiple places yesterday. (Lucky for you, this one shone from a distance).

And yes, there was a promised prize for catching a minnow. The boys tried for a bit and were unsuccessful. They quickly, and surprisingly without much resistance, resigned themselves to an ice-cream free evening. Brent, however, was already savoring the stuff in his mind and would not give up. Twenty, thirty, FIFTY minutes of trying to catch a fish in a bucket. He wanted B&J bad. If it weren't for Seth's urinary tract, we probably would have been there until the sun went down. And even in the presence of sundry moons, minnow visibility would be lost. Maybe next time.