2019 Went In Like A Lion And Out Like A... Raccoon?

New Year's Eve brought some fun visitors to our house.  The first visitor was our friend, The Raccoon.  Apparently he (or she?) came about a week and a half earlier, and then Dustin trapped it inside our chimney when he put a cap on top (which he did because we were worried about raccoons getting in there).  Our dog had been barking at our chimney, but we were in denial that there was actually something living in there.  We kept hoping she was barking at old smells, or maybe worst case scenario-a mouse.  But, then one morning we woke up to find this in our kitchen:

That is raccoon poop in the sink on the right.  And, in case you are not well versed in wild animal feces, raccoon poop is like tar.  It was very difficult to clean that sink.  We also found cute little sooty paw prints up on our window sill above that sink, and all over Pepper's water bowl, and all over in our family room in the basement.  It didn't seem to be hungry, just very thirsty.  We called a couple of pest control type companies, who didn't want to deal with our houseguest, and so Dustin decided to call our mountain man neighbor, Rick, who came right over with the ingredients to make mustard gas, which we poured down our chimney (after clearing our house of all living things, besides the raccoon).  It smelled really bad, but not bad enough to drive the raccoon out, just bad enough to send him up the chimney about halfway, where he could get fresh air.  Dustin could see his cute little eyes about five feet down the chimney.  By this time, we had spent almost the whole day trying to get him out, so we left the house for an hour or so, and it was dark by the time we got home.  When we investigated, the raccoon was gone!  We could see by his little paw prints he had traveled out of the chimney and around the roof until he realized he could climb down our 8 foot ladder that we had left up from earlier in the day.  He's a clever little guy.  And we are so glad he moved out!

Soon after, we had visitors that we were actually happy about!  The Craguns and later the Shurtz's came for a visit. The Craguns were here in time to celebrate Addie's birthday and New Year's Eve with all of us, at Jen's house.

Jeff slept through the New Year.

But these kids didn't!  They were hyper until well beyond midnight.

The next day we were back together at Jen's house for more cousin time and for a date with siblings and our spouses.

Then we enjoyed the Cragun's staying with us for a few days.

I feel like my kids should still be that size, but they are not.  They are this size:

And we had a big family Christmas party with everyone, plus grandparents and Chad and Ammon!  Chad and Ammon came down from Seattle to take Ammon to BYU.  He got home from his mission to Cambodia just a couple of weeks earlier, and it was so fun to hear about Cambodia and his mission experiences.  

We had a full house, a yummy dinner and an awesome white elephant gift exchange.

We also finally gave Grandma and Grandpa their gift from their kids--a cast iron dinner bell for their property.

Nicole's kids helped me with a little preschool prep before they headed back to California.  

We love it when we have visitors come to see us (although, we prefer the kind that walk on two legs and give great hugs and don't slink around our house at night while we are sleeping)!