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Squirrel Shenanigans

As we were sitting down to eat dinner Saturday evening, we happened to notice not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, but six squirrels in our yard, two of which were locked in an epic, no-holds-barred brawl. We sat at the table, calmly eating dinner while watching the melee unfold.

"I bet it's some kind of Saturday night fight club," Wendy remarked.

Eventually the two squirrels settled down and the crowd dispersed among the various nearby trees. We can only guess as to what they were really fighting about. (girls)

And in other rodent news, it appears that a family of chipmunks has taken up residence underneath our front porch. Wendy happened to see one darting underneath it as she went to check the mail earlier this week.

While writing this post, I learned, thanks to the magic of wikipedia, that squirrels and chipmunks belong to the Sciuridae family of rodents, and that black squirrels (which I saw several times growing up in northeastern Oklahoma) have been spotted in the Fox Lake area of Illinois, a mere ten minutes away from our house.

Hopefully Sciuridae will be our only exposure to Rodentia, and we won't have to deal with the Muroidea superfamily.

Everything's Bigger In Texas

Happy belated Fourth of July, everybody! Hope it was great for all of you.

We went to Texas over the long weekend. It was the first time I'd been back since we moved away in Februrary 2002, and it was hot. It's easy to forget how toasty 98 degrees can feel when it's mostly been in the upper 70s and low 80s here - if this is what summer is typically like here, I am seriously in favor.

Once we arrived, we went to pick up our rental car. We had reserved a midsize car, but the agent was extremely friendly and chatted with us while he was taking down all our information, and then gave us a free upgrade to a premium car. "Everything's bigger in Texas," he said, with a big grin. "Even our hearts!" So we got to spend several days driving around DFW in a Buick LeSabre with free XM radio. Very nice, although we were the youngest ones we saw in a Buick by several decades.

The real reason we were in Texas, though, was for Joy and Cory's wedding! Saturday night, they hosted a get-together for all the families and out-of-town guests and we had a great time. It was wonderful to get to meet Cory's family and hang out with Randy's family, some of whom I had never (or only once or twice) met before. My parents were also able to come down for the wedding, so it was great to have the chance to hang out with them as well.

It was also at the get-together Saturday night that Joy distributed all our to-do lists. This past semester, she's been working full-time, planning a wedding, and finishing her final semester of an MA program, so she's had to be incredibly organized to get everything done. I helped with table decorations. Randy was in charge of the present table. Joy and Randy's dad's to-do list? 1. Walk Joy down aisle. 2. Perform wedding ceremony. 3. Take out the reception trash.

The wedding itself, on Sunday, was beautiful as well as organized. Joy wore the gorgeous dress her mom made for her and her dad performed the ceremony admirably. The reception was nice, and made better by the fact that they served chocolate cake and hot fudge sundaes. Now they're off to Hawaii for their honeymoon, and hopefully having lots of fun.

Monday evening, we were able to go see Ruben, who also lives in the Fort Worth area. It was nice to hang out with him and commiserate about being home-owners, since he also just bought his first house. We hung out for a bit, then went to a tasty little Italian place for dinner and went to see Superman Returns, which I really enjoyed. (I think the boys did, too.)

And Tuesday we came home. We weren't scheduled to leave until 4:30 p.m., but we went to the airport early and we were able to get on the 1:25 p.m. flight, which wound up being much nicer. I think we both breathed a sigh of relief when we drove up and saw that our house was still standing.

Since we've been back, I've been catching up on my Tour de France viewing (it's Phil and Paul's 21st year broadcasting together!) and we've been pondering bathroom remodeling. Any suggestions, advice, or desperate warnings?