Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Scorpions and water heaters

Living in Arizona has a lot of wonderful things going for it. The nice winter weather, the palm trees, the way the streets are all on a grid system and make it so easy to get around and even how pretty it is (in a desert'y' kind of way). Let me just be the first to admit though that we have a few negative things going for us too, like hot summers, all bland tan stucco houses and of coarse SCORPIONS.

About two weeks ago our dog had an encounter with one of these scorpions. Weston loves to play with bugs, I think it is a gross dog thing. We always catch him chasing mosquitoes, flies and even spiders. He often tries to catch them in his mouth, it's like a game to him. Steve and I always figured Weston may eventually have a run in with a scorpion seeing that we live in orange groves which is where they apparently like to hang out. What we didn't know is what to do if he did.

Around 9:30 at night Steve went outside to take the trash from the back yard to the street and Weston was playing around the trash area. Steve noticed that Weston looked like he was trying to play with some type of bug but didn't know what kind so he went to the front to drop of the trash can. He came back to find Weston sneezing like crazy and kind of having some sort of breathing attack. Sure enough Steve looked around him and saw a scorpion right next to him. That scorpion was quickly smooshed and I thought my dog was going to die! (I overreact sometimes:)

We think Weston was stung on the nose and mouth area, maybe even inside his mouth because he just would not stop sneezing. We tried to look at the area where we thought he was stung and he wouldn't let us near it. Right after it happened we immediately looked online for some advice. Every website we saw suggested taking him to the vet so we looked up emergency animal hospitals that where open that late. We called one place and the lady told us that we did NOT have to bring him in unless he was experiencing hives, or swelling or throwing up. She told us to just keep an eye on him for a couple of hours and try to get him to relax.

After the call it made me feel better because I knew that Weston would most likely be okay. We laid him down on the bed and just petted him a lot and eventually he just relaxed and was not sneezing or breathing funny anymore. He slept pretty much through the night and the next day he was back to his normal, goofy self!

The reason I tell this story is because it made us realize we really should be checking our house and yard for scorpions every week. We have found a few since we bought the house but nothing to abnormal. Yesterday I bought a scorpion flashlight which is basically a black light. They spot scorpions because when you shine a black light on one it glows. So last night we put the scorpion flash light to work looking all over our house and yard. I am pleased to announce that we did not fin any scorpions inside our house. But... We did find OVER 20 SCORPIONS outside in our back yard!!! A little more than I thought.

Even though we found a lot we managed to kill all of them and realized they where all mostly on the back wall fence. None of them where in the actual grass area which is nice. Below are a couple pictures of the scorpions we found last night... Enjoy!



After we mass murdered all the scorpions in our back yard Steve went to work fixing our water heater which was disgusting, and probably originally purchased in the ice ages. It started leaking the other night and had this weird, gross build up of some kind lining the top of it. I posted a picture of that below so you know what I mean. I am soooooo glad I have a husband willing to take on the challenge of replacing the old water heater. We bought a new one yesterday and Steve is working on installing it as I speak! Hopefully by the time I get home from work today I will have a new working water heater!

Steve getting ready to rip out the old water heater.



The gross water heater... Yuck.


Ciao!

Visits and Visitors

Steve and I have been very busy lately with vacations, planning vacations and hosting other peoples vacations. Pretty much, life is GREAT when your on permanent vacation! We have a lot to be thankful for right now and we are so happy when we get to spend time with our friends and family.

The Zion Trip

This was a blast! I think our driving time to time spent with the Family ratio was a little off because we only got to spend one full day at the cabin, but it was worth it. We went on an amazing hike through part of the canyon which I really enjoyed. We also spent lots of time playing games (of coarse).








Yes... Steve's dad convinced Keona to crawl into this hole in a tree. She loved it! She kept trying to fit herself all the way inside, pretty cute.


Lexi & Macie

Just two weekends ago my wonderful cousin and her six month old baby Macie came to stay with us for a bit. Macie is sooooo cute, I got to hold her as much as I wanted over the weekend and she played and laughed and especially loved our dog. She would always try to reach out and touch Weston whenever he was around her. It was adorable.


One of the best parts about the weekend was getting to brake out the swim-wear and get into our pool for the first time since we bought our house. The water was still a little cold but once you got in it was nice. One day we went to a resort in Scottsdale to swim, that was fun because not only did we get to lay out by a fancy pool in a fancy place but we also got to sip fancy strawberry pina' colada drinks which were delicious. Yum!


We have an ally way behind our house that lead to various things but one of the things it lead's to is our neighbors back yard where they have horses, pony's, Geese, dogs and other random animals which makes it sort of awesome to walk by. The horses are super friendly and they loved Macie!


Last weekend We had the pleasure of hanging out with Steve's friend Tim from High School. He drove up for the weekend to go watch a couple Phillies games with Steve. Steve is very proud that at the Saturday game when the Phillies hit a home run he could be seen on ESPN highlights in the crowd cheering for his teem. I watched it several times and can honestly not see him, but he assures me it's very obvious.

While Steve was off becoming famous on ESPN highlights, I was off feeling famous by being pampered at an all inclusive day spa on Saturday. It was amazing, can I just say I love facials!
I spent a total of 6 hours at Dolce' Salon and spa getting a facial, Swedish massage, pedicure and they also did my hair and make-up before I left so I could look as good as I felt. I know that this does not get to happen very often so I soaked it up. It was a wonderful day!

We where sad to see Tim go but now it's back to real life I guess. It has been getting very hot here (which I'm not too excited about) it reached 94 degrees yesterday making it the hottest day of the year so far. We have a lot to be thankful for so I shouldn't complain, but I'm not looking forward to the 100's... On a more positive note, Weston still loves laying out in the sun. Here are a couple cute pictures of him.

Soaking up the rays poolside (what a lucky guy!)

Lately he has had an obsession with golf balls. He has a collection of 2 or 3 he caries around in his mouth and spends hours trying to figure out how to carry all 3 in his mouth at the same time. Steve's a proud papa right now. He always wanted to raise his dog to be a golfer!



Steve and I are in the process of trying to plan a trip down to Utah, so anyone living there we look forward to seeing you soon! We are also in the process of trying to plan our anniversary/ get away from the hot summer heat vacation so if you have any ideas or suggestions for us that would be great... Also, if everyone wants to call Steve to try to convince him that Thailand would be the logical place to go I would also appreciate that!