RIP Pepe le pew

It's been a while since we've updated anything here... because we've been insanely busy.  Between our busy work/school schedules, lots of fun baby showers, friends and family visiting, AND THE ENDLESS house upgrades, we've had very little downtime. Brian (and me, though mostly Brian) is working tirelessly on the house when he gets any spare moments; it is not surprising to find him installing a sheet of drywall at 10 PM at night after working on homework for 4 hours or if he finds himself with 30 extra minutes in the morning, he'll install bin pulls on the new cabinets in the kitchen.  Everything is slowly coming together and his hard work is really paying off.

We had an unexpected visitor come visit us a few weeks ago.  We live pretty close to some mountains and open spaces (and less than a mile from the beach!!) and our neighbors have said there are skunks and raccoons that roam the streets at night.... and lucky us, one came to stay with us!!! We smelt his spray VERY strongly one night and while were totally bothered by the smell, we were very grateful that Toby didn't get sprayed.  Turns out the little guy was under the house!  We let him be for a day or two and Brian built a one-way trap door that was placed on the only crawlspace entrance on the house that had a hole in it (it was #456 on the "To Do" list).  But after a few days of him not moving at all, and several failed attempts to get him to move, we realized he wasn't going anywhere. He died under there...!!!!!  The city wouldn't come and remove it, so Brian had to go under there and get him.  He is a brave man; I would have paid someone a million dollars before doing that.  We wrapped Brian up very well before he went under there just in case he got sprayed.

(Brian doing the robot dance in his skunk outfit. Not sure I'd be that happy with the looming job ahead. We opened the bedroom window and put the trash can right outside so we couldn't have to bring the skunk remains through the entire house)

(Here is a picture of Brian's homemade trap for the skunk made at 12 PM one night in desperation out of materials in the garage.  It's on the ghetto front patio that is NOW GONE because the driveway is redone-- next few posts will show that process).

Imagine crawling in a dark, 1.5 foot crawlspace AT NIGHT to get a dead, smelly, rotting skunk.  Brian is my hero.  He wrapped him in 3 heavy duty outdoor plastic bags and we put it in the trash can outside (the city said that's how we should dispose of him).  But the smell was SO bad that we had to bring him to a gas station down the street and dump him.  Another illegal act, but a necessary one.  Brian said, imagine if we get caught... "8.5 month pregnant UCSB professor caught illegally dumping a smelly skunk at gas station".

Fun times on Bradford Dr. Fun times.