What is behind wall number one?

Scratch, claw, scratch, scratch, bang, claw, bang, bang, bang. That is what we heard at 1am coming from an inside wall close to our bedroom. You guessed it. We had an animal caught in the wall. While it thrashed for a few hours, I was furiously trying to find a 24 hour animal removal service to come out and get whatever was stuck in our wall. I had no luck so we shut the door to try to drown out the noise. At 8am, I was back on the phone securing an animal removal specialist. It took 3 different guys but we finally did it. The animal is officially out of the house and I am ready for a nap!

Our 3rd expert - Brian. He has a degree in Biology and was really fun to talk to.

We narrowed down the location to this corner of the wall.

I stacked boxes around Brian just in case the animal was about to bust out!
Was it a mountain lion? Opossum? Raccoon? Skunk? Rat?

This would be hole #1. It was just a little too high so he had to make it a little bigger.

Nope! It was a mouse! This dang thing kept us awake all night long.

This is my patch work until the drywall guy can get out here on Thursday. We are just thankful that it didn't die inside the wall because the expert said it would take close to 3 weeks to remove the smell! Gross!

Down in the backwoods

When we lived in Arlington, the closest thing we got to wild animals were squirrels and birds. Living in the Town of Trophy Club, we get a little more action. While we are not technically in the country, we aren't really in the city either. You pass longhorn cattle, buffalo and even camels along 114 when you come to our house. Then you have to go through all of TC to get back to our house which is nestled in a private street by Lake Grapevine. We have no homes behind us and never will as the Corp of Engineers owns the land and it is flood zone. The woods go on forever and ever and is the home to many animals. So far this week, we have had our first snake which was on our driveway, watched deer, possums, and raccoons play right behind our fence, listened to coyotes and hogs, and then watched a turkey as it walked across the field across from us. It is never dull out here and we love it. I do not love the snake though! We bought moth balls last night to put out in the flower beds just in case....


Our first snake.

Kelly ran over it with his truck. We didn't even see it in the drive way when we pulled in!





5 minutes later, we had a turkey!

Isn't he gorgeous!

See ya Surprise!

We had a gorgeous night for the night game tonight. It was a perfect ending a good Spring Training! Until next year Surprise.....

Our last supper

Last night, Kelly got off work a little earlier than usual so we decided to have a nice dinner. It would be our last time to go out in Arizona as we have a night game tonight right now and then another tomorrow. A few people from the office told us about some places we haven't been to yet. They all looked so good but we settled on the Arrogant Butcher.  We were not disappointed. We had the best appetizer - pretzel bites with a hot cheese fondue. OH.MY. The bread was so filling that we had to split a meal - chicken stuffed with crab. Also yummy! We definitely recommend this place.

Oh, just want to mention that we have 2 nights left! Can you tell that I am excited!?!?!?

2 of my favorite things. Bread + Cheese

We saw this license plate on a car. Made me laugh really hard. You can totally tell that we are in the land of old-er people.

Four the record....

4 nights and counting!

The High Five

We have five more nights. FIVE. I am beyond excited. We get to go back to civilization where there are choices for dinner, king size beds, and vacuums! That's right - we do get a furnished place to live but they don't give us anything to clean. We don't have a vacuum, broom, or toilet scrubbers. So gross! To top it off, we are pretty sure they didn't even vacuum before we moved in as we can see animal hair plastered to almost every base board so we know it is in the carpet. As most of you know, animal hair and my nose do not get along. My allergies have had enough! There is only so much benadryl I can handle. We can't walk barefoot in our place or put anything on the ground. Yes, we have complained. No, they have not done anything about it so we just suffered through. No, we refuse to buy a vacuum to keep out here as most places furnish you a vaccum. I have been very inventive in trying to keep the floors and toilets clean. Next year, we are shipping cleaning supplies out here.

Other than the animal hair, we love our place. It is on the 3rd floor and quiet. Nobody lives below or beside us so we can be as loud as we want. We have seperate bathrooms which makes me so happy. I can spread out on the whole counter and be as messy or as neat as I want. My main reason for loving our place is the windows. We have 7 windows facing the White Tank Mountain and I love them all. They provide me with great views of sunsets each night.

Sunset last night. Ahhhhhh love!

In honor of five more nights left in Arizona, I am giving you 5 reasons that makes me happy to go home - besides cleaning supplies!

Friends!

An office with more than 3 girls. Boys are stinky!

Family

More family!

Our new house

My Arizona

After awhile out here, days start resembling Ground Hog Day. We do the same thing Every.Single.Day. So I decided to bring back the joy we have when we first get here and think of some of my favorite things about Arizona. These things make me so happy!

1. The windows in my apartment. Almost every window as an unobstructed view of the mountains and that makes me so so happy every day!


White Tank Mountains

2. The pretzel at Haus Murphys - best we have ever had and we crave it all year long

3. Watching the sunrise as I take Kelly to work in the morning


This makes me smile even though it is really early in the morning.

4. Cookie dessert at Oregano's

5. Sunset over the mountains (obviously my favorite thing about Arizona!)


This was the sky after the dust storm. So awesome!

6. High Wind - I know in Texas we get all types of weather, but the wind out here is crazy! Like seriously strong wind. It also does really crazy things to the clouds/dust/sky. Pretty cool to watch.


High winds = Fire Hazards
Guess the guy didn't listen to the weather man when he said a burn ban was in effect due to really high wind!

It was fun watching it blow in.

7. Trying new restaurants in Scottsdale
8. Not having to do anything but sleep, work, go to dinner and watch TV. It is a nice break from real life!
9. Kool-Aid. I can never find my sugar free packets back in Texas but Arizona has them in every store. LOVE me some Kool-Aid! Stocking up before we leave for sure.
10. Sunrise, Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset. LOVE