Gehrings BB

Dear Family:

 

We held a contest in the neighborhood for who could host the strangest animals and we won with raccoons living in our chimney.  It would be one thing if it had been a working chimney, but the family of 5 chose the abandoned one in the middle of the house.  Matt did a lot of internet exploring and we both did a lot of calling (Bob Anderson, Ray Broadhead, nor Mark Monsen knew what to do - actually Mark was out of town for two weeks - and none of them own a trap).  Sam thought the whole experience was fabulous and helped his dad figure out which chimney they were in by shining flashlights.  He also told everyone at Church and preschool all about our house guests. Amazingly enough a lot of people have also hosted raccoons.  Matt got equiped with a trap, odor repellent, etc to catch the mean mama with green eyes.  I made myself and the kids lock ourselves in the truck. We had the camera ready to document Matt's National Geographic adventure.  I was pretty sure I was going to have to call the ambulance as Matt's plan was to put the repellent down the chimney, hope they came out, catch them in the trap, and call wildlife services- who will only come to pick up caught animals.  Fortunately, the mother had had her fill of Matt and Sam shining flashlights down the chimney and when Matt officially went up a very anticlimatic event occurred.  She had abandoned the fireplace and left only one of the babies.  Matt put the odor repellent stuff down and the next time he got up there, that baby was not there either.   The plan is to get covers for the chimney so we will not have any more unwanted house guests.

 

Another great adventure in the Gehring house is Sam learning how to cross the monkey bars.  He has practiced so much that unfortunately he has blisters on his hands.  To make matters worse, Thursday he was crossing the bars, the blisters caused pain and he let go landing on his arm and breaking both wrist bones in his right arm.  He broke his left wrist two years ago so now he boasts that he has 3 broken bones.  He spent 6 hours in the ER at Primary Children's Thursday night and thankfully doesn't remember any of the force they had to use to put the bones back in place.  He will get a cast Wednesday afternoon.

 

The rest of us are just supporting the crazy activity at this house and getting ready for a fun summer and visitors from far off places.  Eliza said today, "When are grandpa and grandma going to come home?"  Eliza also wins the quote of the month when she was looking at the pictures in her Book of Mormon.  She was looking at Moroni putting the plates into the ground and asked, "Where are his snowclothes?"

 

Have a great month!

 

Sharon and Family