Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary!  Sometimes it seems amazing how quickly the time has gone by, but at the same time when you think about all the things we have done together I start to realized that it would take years to accomplish those things.

Tomorrow I will drive Jason to City Hospital for a medical procedure for his bladder.  I don't need to go into specifics, however, he will likely be in a fair bit of pain for the next 5-7 days as his bladder recovers.  Though this procedure will not provide permanent solution we are hoping that it will at least help with the undesirable symptoms for six months or so.  I really do hope that the outcome is worth the week of down time it will require.  I know that many people have had this procedure done, and I am sure it is safe.  Where my apprehension lays is that I hate seeing Jason in pain and discomfort when there is nothing I can do to make it better.  I will do what I can to help (ie giving him pain killers) but there is nothing worse than watching the person you love the most in the world hurt.  If you want to pray for him this week (and maybe me too) it would be very appreciated.

Giving Knitted Gifts

I have thoroughly enjoyed making and giving gifts to various people this Christmas season already.  I am glad that I have been able to spend less, and put more thought into gifts than I probably ever have before.  I have never been very crafty, but knitting is sure up my alley.  I would like to share a few photos of some of the things I made this fall to give as gifts for Christmas.

This first picture is a hat and mitts that I made for my coworker's baby, Jesse.  I didn't know how big his head was, but took a guess and it fit him quite well.  I was able to give it to my coworker on Friday when we had our Christmas lunch together.  I am happy with how it turned out.  It's an easy pattern that I think I would try again.

Of course had to have a picture of Jesse modelling his new duds :)

This next photo is a coffee cup cozie that I knitted for each of my coworkers.  I was fascinated with the owl cables when I saw this pattern and wanted to try it.  It was a really quick knit, and once I sewed on some button eyes and stitched in some beaks and feet I thought they were pretty cute.  I also gave each of them a gift card for Starbucks so they can try out their cup cozie!

I previously shared photos of the Gryffindor scarf and the Mario hat that I knit for my nephews.  Tonight our family got together to celebrate Christmas, since Jay and I will be heading to Swift Current.  I gave the boys their gifts, and I am glad to say they were happy with them.  Of course they liked the DS games we gave them, but Will was quite thrilled with his hat, and James was happy with his scarf once I told him that it was a Gryffindor scarf.

I made a couple of other gifts that I unfortunately did not get photos of.  I made finger puppets for Aurelia and a cabled hat for my sister's birthday.  I have a couple of projects in mind for the new year.  One, as a baby gift for friends and one is a completely selfish gift for myself.  I am hoping to buy myself some beautiful, luxurious, possibly expensive yarn and make myself a nice knitted hat and possibly a cowl.  However, we will have to see how my arms hold up.  I have not knit in at least a couple of weeks and I don't plan to do any until after Christmas.  Busy weeks at work don't leave much ability to knit without causing some inflammation in my elbows, wrists and hands.

Super Mario Hat

I just finished the knitted gift for my younger nephew, Will.  I had decided to make him a hat for Christmas.  At first I had thought of doing Pokemon, but the patterns aren't quite as plentiful as the Mario ones.  So I decided to go this route.  I am still a little undecided about the pompom, so I have decided to let Will choose. I attached it loosely, and if he doesn't want it I can take it off.  If he does I will attach it more securely.  It was fun to do, and I hope he enjoys it :)

Gryffindor Scarf

I finished the scarf that will be a Christmas present for my nephew James.  I am pleased with the way it turned out and I think the colours are quite nice.  According to what I have read, the official colours of Gryffindor are scarlet and gold, so I tried to find yarn in those colours.  I ended up using Vanna's Choice yarn in Cranberry and Mustard (sounds delicious, I know! haha).  I used this pattern as a general guide for the number of rows between stripes and sort of did my own thing beyond that.  This was my first time making fringe, and it was quite simple.  I am also planning to give James a Harry Potter DS game, and maybe write him a note saying that wearing the scarf will help him to defeat Voldemort....we'll see though, haha.

"Take tiny little bites...."

After laughing ourselves silly, to the point of crying, during supper last night I have to say I am really thankful for my husband.  We can laugh together over the silliest things and sometimes we hardly have to say a word to each other before we are laughing so hard we can barely breathe.  We have a lot of fun together and I am blessed to be married to such a wonderful man.

Day Trip

This weekend, we are taking a day trip out to Emma and Christopher lakes to visit some friends and family.  I am excited to go!  We don't often take day trips....and honestly, I don't know if there is much around here that is worth day trip-ing to see, or maybe I am just uninformed.  I was thinking if it is going to be as nice as they are saying that it might be fun to take a bathing suit along, just in case :)

I always get this amazing excited feeling when I turn off the highway to go through Christopher Lake and as I approach the Camp Kadesh sign I get butterflies in my stomach.  Just so many great memories and times spent at that place.  Hopefully it doesn't pour rain like it did last time we were there.  I look forward to visiting with Arleen and Arlen!  It will also be fun to visit with Jason's aunt Doreen at Emma Lake.  We haven't seen her in ages!

Happy Mother's Day

I would like to say a Happy Mother's Day to my mom and my mother-in-law!  I have been blessed to have these two wonderful ladies in my life to offer love and support.

I have a lot of friends who are now moms.  I would like to send some love and encouragement your way today.  It has been really neat to watch some of my closest friends transition into the role of mother. 

Today I also think of those for whom, Mother's Day is a sad day.  Those who have recently (or maybe not so recently) lost a mom, or those who have lost a child, or those who long to be mothers but are unable for whatever reason.  I hope that those who are sad today might feel encouraged by those around them.

One of my friends on Facebook posted this quote today and it resonated with me:

Well, it's That Day. A blessing for some, a heartache for others. Whatever this Mother's Day holds, may God's love surround you, filling in the empty spaces and the broken places, giving you the grace needed to "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." Romans 12:15. Liz Curtis Higgs

Auntie Angie and Uncle Jason

Sometimes I feel like a bad auntie.  I have some minor regrets about not spending more time with my nephews in their young lives.  Now that the boys are old enough (James is 7 and Will is almost 5 years old) to sleep through the night, and not wake up at 5:30am every day, I have to say I feel more comfortable with the idea of having them over for a night. 

I have such fond memories from my childhood of spending nights with Aunt Betty and Uncle Frank.  I have no idea why we spent nights....did mom ask them to take us for the night, or did they just offer, because they enjoyed having us over?  I am not sure, but I still hold those memories dear, and I have little snippets of memories from when I was 3 or 4 years old spending time with them.

I decided recently that I would like to have the boys over for the night.  Robin right away said they were looking for someone to take the boys for the night of the 30th of April because that is when Lorne's body building competition is.  My sister said she could drop the kids off at around 4:30pm then we would have them until the morning.  I am still toying with the idea of taking them to church.  They have never been, and I bet they would really like Rush (children's church program).  Since we have been getting up to go to the early service for the last month or so, I don't think it would be too bad to get the kids up and dressed and take them to church, then drop them off at home afterward. 

As for plans for Saturday afternoon/evening, maybe we could plan a fun supper, or maybe order pizza or something.  Then depending on the weather, I could possibly take them to the park, or we could stay in and watch a movie.  They are usually in bed by 8 or 8:30pm, so it seems like a rather short stay, but I think for a first time, it will be perfect. 

Unfair

Man, do I love my husband.  He is a wonderful, loving man.  He is very good to me, he is kind and supportive.  He is such a great fit or me.  We share a silly and sometimes twisted sense of humor.  We get along so well. 

When I met him, he had been a quadriplegic for a little more than six years and now it's been about 13.5 years.  He is an upbeat guy.  If anyone has the right to wallow in self pity at times, I would say it's him.  But he doesn't, well not too often, and not publicly.  When I met him, I immediately appreciated his positive attitude and outlook on life.  We make a great pair.  I don't mind helping him with little things, when he needs it, and looks after me in any and every way he can.  Man, I love him.

I must admit, though, that there are times that I just feel like screaming out loud at the injustice of his injury.  I know it was an accident, and it is done, and can't be changed, but it sure does suck sometimes.  I don't think that anyone deserves to be hurt, but I have to say I have a little less compassion for the people with spinal cord injuries that were a result of drinking and driving.  I am sure those people have learned their lesson, and in the circumstances I am aware of, no one else was hurt or killed, but Jason's injury was a plain old accident.  I don't know what I am trying to say......I just feel sad when I see Jason frustrated by his limitations. 

Six Years Already?!

Who is that young, good looking couple in the picture?! I can hardly believe it has been six years already. Amazing how when you look back on all that has happened in the last six years, I can start to believe it's been that long, but thinking about the fact that the last six years of my life have been lived as a married woman. That is hard to believe. I was barely 24 years old when we said I do. So young, and innocent and naive. I think Jason and I have come a long way together. I love him so much. I truely believe we are a perfect fit for eachother in every way. Here's to many many more years of blessed marriage :)

Angie's trip to the spa

Yesterday I had the privilege of going to the spa with my mom and sister for the afternoon. Mom had offered to take Robin and I to the spa a couple of months ago because she said it's something she has always wanted to do with us. We booked a four and a half hour package at Edgewater Spa that included the following treatments: a full body salt scrub, a 10 minute soak in a jet tub, a half hour relaxation massage, a pedicure, a manicure and a facial.

I have to say it was lovely! I have had most of these treatments before on their own and various spas but have to say that my spa package yesterday renewed my faith in salt scrubs, manicures and facials. I had a manicure for the first time a few days before my wedding. It was painful and obviously the girl was too aggressive with my cuticles because some of them actually bled after that. I told the girl yesterday that I appreciated how gentle she was. I also have to say I was almost dreading the half hour relaxation massage. I have had a lot of massages in the last 10 years and I basically just expected the massage to be an application of lotion after the salt scrub. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't an amazing massage, but it exceeded my minimal expectations!

My sister suggested that the three of us should do a spa day like this once a year. I think that wouldn't be a bad idea. It was a lot more pleasant than I was anticipating. Not that I didn't think it would be good, I just wasn't expecting it to be quite as good as it was.

Surprise!

A little over a month ago, I started to think about possibly planning a surprise birthday party for Jason, since it's his 30th birthday this year! I thought I would email his friend Stacey in Regina and see if him and Teri could come up for the night as a fun surprise for him. Stacey said they would make it work, so I set out to plan some sort of fun evening for Jason.

Around that time Jason had started voicing ideas about wanting to plan a birthday party this year, for his 30th. I made a decision that I would keep the details of the party as a surprise, but that I would tell Jason that I would like to plan something for him. I settled on taking him out for supper, and having Stacey and Teri meet us at the restaurant to help throw him off the suspicion that there might be more people coming over to surprise him. Then I invited a few friends over to our house while we were out for supper to further surprise him.

I settled on taking him to La Bamba Mexican restaurant for supper as it is a place we have been to once and really enjoyed, and thought it would be a good place to try again. I didn't tell him where we were going, I just gave him directions to drive and I really thought he would figure out where we were going before he did. When we were a couple of blocks from the restaurant he finally figured it out and was very pleased with the choice. When we were seated at the restaurant Stacey and Teri came up and asked if they could join us. I think Jay was pleasantly surprised.

We had a nice supper, that took MUCH less time than I anticipated. When we finished and were leaving the restaurant by 6:45pm, I tried calling Karen at our house and there was no answer. I thought, oh shoot, what do I do? I had told people to arrive at our house around 7pm and to expect us closer to 7:30pm. I had an intense internal debate about whether to just tell Jason that there would be people at our house, and maybe it would be a surprise to see who all showed up. But after some quick thinking I asked Jay if he could stop at Walmart because I needed to pick something up. He agreed so I was able to buy us a bit of time, and get out of earshot so I could try calling our house again. This time Karen was there and I told her to expect us within about 10 minutes. I looked for birthday candles, but couldn't find them, so I bought some ice cream to go with the birthday cake and dawdled as much as I could and finally we were on our way home around 7:15pm.

When we got back to our house, the lights were off and we came in to a dark house just as we left it (however the garaged door was unlocked and the outside lights were on, however Jay said he assumed I had forgotten to lock the garage and had turned on the outside lights, which I do sometimes when I know we will be getting home in the dark). As he came into the kitchen a few of our friends popped out and surprised him. Again, I think he was pleasantly surprised. :)

We spent the evening visiting and eating. I made Jason a rainbow cake. It is something I found while reading my daily dose of recipes on Tastespotting.com. Not only did it taste good, it looked awesome! I will post a picture once Jason touches up the couple that he took. I commented to him today, that maybe because we don't have kids, I made him a fun/kid-like cake for his 30th birthday. Haha, oh well, it was way too cool :)

Lazy

I can't believe I haven't blogged for 2 weeks! Haha. I wonder if anyone still checks this space. I really haven't been THAT busy, I just sometimes wonder if anyone likes to read my droning on about my boring life. :)

After we got home from Jasper we had a few days at home. I did some housework and some reading and went berry picking (yummy fresh strawberries and saskatoons). Then on Wednesday we headed out to Swift Current and on to Lac Pelletier until Saturday. We really didn't do much out there. We did a lot of relaxing on the new covered deck out there. I read my book and we visited and I took Kiwi swimming. I managed to go for one run out at the lake but it was really warm by 9am and there are lots of hills and no shade, so I didn't get too far before I figured that I should turn around and head back while I still had some energy to spare. We, as always, got fed amazingly delicious food :)

Once we were home, we had a couple of days to recover before I went back to work last week. We went to see Inception on Monday and it was really good! It feels like it has been ages since we saw a good movie based on a fairly original idea. Tuesday it was back to work after two awesome weeks off!

This past weekend I headed out to Carrot River with my parents and my sister to go to a celebration of my Uncle Elmer's 80th birthday (that's my dad's oldest sister, Judy's husband). I had not been out to Carrot River since my grandma's funeral 5 1/2 years ago. A good number of my cousins and all of my aunts and uncles were there (dad has 7 remaining siblings out of 10). At the birthday celebration there were close to 100 people including family and friends.

They had the party out at their 'farm' which is a piece of land that belonged to Uncle Elmer's family when he was a kid. There is no farm house on this section of land, but it is set up beautifully with lots of trees and a number of garden plots where family and friends of the family plant huge vegetable gardens. They have also built a couple of very rustic (ie no running water or electricity) cabins on the lot with a couple of good old fashioned outhouses.

I couldn't believe how big and beautiful the gardens are! Someone told me that my cousin Ron (my oldest cousin, he's 3 years younger than my dad) and his daughter Collette (she's my age) planted 400 tomato plants! Can you imagine?! They were kind enough to let my sister and I each pick a few veggies that were ready, so we got some carrots, kohlrabi, onions, beans and a couple of tiny cucumbers and zucchinis. I couldn't believe how tall their corn was. Must have been at least 10 feet tall! I am such a city girl.....easily impressed by the idea of growing vegetables.

That takes care of the last couple of weeks.....in case you wondered if I had fallen off the face of the planet :)

Remembering Grandpa

This picture was taken in March of 2007, when grandpa was 89 and Will was 8 months old. Very classic grandpa picture. There is a picture of me when I was about that age sitting on grandpa's shoulders in that same chair. Except at that time it was covered in orange leather. Good memories about that chair, and if I ever want to sit in it, it is now in my sister's living room. Us grandkids found it fun to sit in that chair when grandpa hadn't gotten up in the morning yet, or when he had gone to use the washroom. But if we heard his cane clicking on the floor down the hallway you knew it was time to vacate the chair. I don't think I ever got sat on, but I am pretty sure my sister did at one point. Haha :)

We made it to Calgary yesterday by about supper time. It was a relatively uneventful trip. I am not used to being a back seat passenger. I spent the majority of the trip reading my book (The Associate by John Grisham) and let me tell you that passed the time VERY quickly. I think I will save the rest of the book to read on the way home. I am glad I am able to read in a vehicle without getting sick. I think it's because our prairie highways are so straight and flat. A couple of times we went around sharper corners or had to swerve to avoid something and that sure snapped me out of my reading.

Last night we went to Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Bill's house. Uncle Bill is grandpa's youngest brother. (Grandpa was the oldest of four boys, Jim, Tom, Bob and Bill. Bob passed away years ago, Tom is 90 and lives in his house in Vancouver and isn't doing great anymore, so he won't make it for the funeral, and probably shouldn't be on his own anymore, but apparently the Humphreys men possess a gene for stubbornness, haha). Bill and Phyllis are such nice people. They remind me very much of my grandma and grandpa. I believe Bill is 82 and he is still doing really well (he had both hips replaced a couple of years ago). We had a nice time visiting and reminiscing about grandpa and grandma, as well as my mom's grandparents and great grandparents. Uncle Bill had some interesting stories to share about grandpa's health problems and surgeries. He went through a lot, but I really think Grandpa was a fighter.

The last roommate grandpa had before he passed away was named Gus. He was a very grumpy/complainy man. He lodged a number of formal complaints that grandpa was too loud and disruptive to him. Which of course is completely ludicrous. Grandpa had a pretty good sense of humour and Aunt Phyllis was saying that one time when she went to visit him that he kept telling her that she would have to come closer and closer and finally when she was about six inches from him he said, "Okay now we can visit without disturbing Gus."

Last night wasn't a time for shedding tears, but we had a lot of good laughs. Not that I won't miss grandpa, but he really did live a long full life. He will be remembered with a lot of fondness by a lot of people. I am sure there will be a lot of raw emotions floating around tomorrow at the funeral. I am okay with that though. I think I have been to enough (too many) funerals in the last five years, to know that they are a good thing. A place to mourn and find some form of closure. I am sad when I think that I no longer have any living grandparents. When Jay and I got married five years ago, I had three surviving grandparents and he had two. Now neither of us have any. I have some aunts and uncles that feel a little like another set of grandparents to me, and I sure cherish times like last night vising with Uncle Bill and Aunt Phyllis. I really like Uncle Tom too, and am sort of sad to hear that he hasn't been doing so well. But at age 90, that seems to start happening.

Well I should get ready to start my day. Not sure what is on the agenda for today, other than going out for supper with Aunt Allison and my cousin Stephen. Last night was the first time I have stayed in a hotel by myself and I did not sleep very well. Not that I was nervous, I just probably woke up once every hour or so. However I was glad to find a fan setting on the A/C unit that helped to drown out my neighbour's coughing and the vehicles driving by outside.

Congrats to my mom!

My mom just got a call that she has been hired for a full time position starting next week! My mom lost her job of 15 years in 2004 and after a brief stint working for a competing book fair company she has been unemployed since then. Last year she decided to finally look into getting some additional training as she didn't have many computer skills and had been out of the workforce for a few years. She decided to take a medical office assistant course and enjoyed it thoroughly. She finished her course in November and has applied for a few jobs since then. The one that she got hired for is actually in the same building where I work, for a group of ob/gyns, so maybe her and I will do lunch now and again. I am very proud of her, and excited for her to get back out in the work force!

Sad New Year

My grandpa passed away this afternoon. I got the call from my mom. She said he had been taken to the hospital this morning with very laboured breathing. He fell unconscious and passed away early this afternoon. He would have been 92 years old on January 25th. He was my last surviving grandparent.

I was always amazed by my grandpa. He lived on his own once grandma passed away in September of 2005. He was in the house by himself until he was 90. Since the spring of 2008 he has slowly declined in health to the point that he was unable to walk anymore and late in 2008 he moved into a nursing home. I think we were all happy that he was finally being looked after. We didn't have to worry that he would fall down the narrow slippery steps in his house. Or worry that he was out driving (even though he passed his road test a couple of years ago, he was a pretty scary driver in the last few years).

Grandpa was always a fighter. He was physically disabled for almost all of his life. From what I understand he came down with a bad infection when he was a boy, and it got into his bones and joints. He spent months at the Mayo Clinic by himself when he was only very young (maybe around 8 or 10 years old) because apparently back then there was a stigma attached to being the parent of a disabled child. I don't know all the details because he never talked about it much until the last few years to his daughters. He was a very private person when it came to personal matters. After all was said and done, he ended up with one leg that was approximately six inches shorter than the other. Also the knee on that leg became fused so he was unable to bend it at all. It also affected one of his shoulders and elbows. He had very restricted range of motion in those joints. However, he was always independent. I remember him telling me about gym class in school when the kids were climbing a rope and made fun of him when it was his turn to climb. He said he set his mind to it and shimmied up that rope faster than most of the other boys because he had developed great upper body strength to compensate for his disability.

He went to university and obtained a degree in geology and for most of his career he worked for Gulf Oil. He was very smart, and well read. He had a great interest in archaeology. In his retirement, him and grandma did a ton of traveling. I know their favorite thing they did was an African safari. I remember hearing about how there were lions rubbing up against their tents at night, and how a monkey swung out of a tree he was sitting under and stole his sandwich right out of his hand.

He lived a very full life and he will be missed greatly. I am so thankful that Jason got to meet him in the summer of 2008. Even though he was in the hospital at the time, and not feeling very well, he put on a brave face and we had a nice visit. I am also so thankful that I made the effort to get out to Calgary to visit him in May of 2009. I don't know yet when the funeral will be, but sometime next week I will be heading out to Calgary for a couple of days.

Girl's Night Out

Last night was my evening out with my mom and sister. It was a very nice evening! We had a pretty fancy supper at the 2nd Ave Grill. I have learned though that when I go to that restaurant that it is best to stick with things like pizza, pasta, salads, appetizers. I have found that all three or four times I have tried to have a fancy entree that it has been somewhat disappointing. Last night I decided to try steak, filet mignon to be precise. I can't complain about the steak, it was delicious. The ceasar salad was quite good also. The lack of potato choices is annoying to me. All they offer is roasted potatoes. I don't mind roasted potatoes, but these ones were overcooked and dry. I almost asked for ketchup and one of them was even burnt. However, we decided to share a couple of appetizers to start with and they were very good!! One was baked brie and the other was a Mediterranean platter with hummus, olives and chevre with pita chips. Yum!

After supper we headed over to Persephone Theatre to see Little Women. I have not been in the new location and it is very nice! The play was excellent! Before it started I tried to remember how the story went and I was finding myself not even being able to remember the names of the four March sisters. But as the play started I was quickly reminded of the story. The actors in that play were well cast. I think that the girl who played Amy even looked like Kirsten Dunst, who played her in the movie version. It was a good bit longer in duration than I expected, but very enjoyable! I was shocked when I got into the car to go home and saw it was 10:45pm (it started at 8pm). I would recommend it, as tickets were a very reasonable $27 each! I think I will be going back to Persephone Theatre at some point!

Happy Birthday to my Sweetheart

Twenty-nine years ago a tiny screaming bundle of joy entered the world. He arrived six weeks early and has made it his mission to be early for appointments ever since. Haha. Seriously though, today is Jason's 29th birthday. I have only known him for five years, nine months and twenty three days (but who is counting anyway?!), but it feels like I have known him forever. He is such a kind, caring, supportive, loving, sweet, strong, laid back, funny man.

Jason I wish you very happy birthday. I love you very much :)

Quote of the evening

We had Thanksgiving dinner tonight at my sister and brother-in-law's house. After hardly eating any supper the boys ate a number of snacks (bun, banana, apple, cookies) in the evening. My aunt looked at Will (who is 3) and said, "Where do you keep all that food? In your hollow leg?" He looked at her and quite matter-of-factly said, "No, it turns into poop."

After everyone stopped laughing until they cried, my sister said that last week Will had asked her where poop comes from. Lorne just laughed and said, "Yeah, most kids ask where babies come from...not Will." Such a funny little guy.

Happy Birthday Will and Gopher Tales

Tuesday July 7th is my youngest nephew's third birthday. I can't believe he is three already. I remember going to visit him the day after he was born. He was so small (only 8lbs vs. his brother who was over 9 1/2lbs at birth). I immediately thought he looked like my mom. Maybe it was just the chin.


Today we braved the crowds of children at my sister's house for his 'friend' birthday party. Since I work late, and Jay is busy on Tuesday evening. It was actually a lot of fun, since we were able to just hang out outside and the kids were busy on the trampoline and the slip and slide (I totally thought slip and slides had been banned! They seem so painful and dangerous! Thankfully no one got hurt today.) Here is Will blowing out the candle on his darth vader cake. I may submit this cake to the Cake Wrecks website. I think for what my sister paid for it, I could have done a better job and I have NO cake making experience. Oh well, it did taste alright, though not that much better than what I usually make with a cake mix. Will had fun and he was pretty excited to get his Star Wars cake. He also seemed pretty pleased with the Cars big boy underwear we bought him, since he is fully potty trained now!


When we were getting ready to leave for the party we opened our garage door and Jay spotted this little guy sitting half way down the ramp in our garage. Immediately he said "Close the door, so he doesn't go in the house!" I did and came around into the garage from the front door. Jay had tried banging to get him to run away but he didn't budge. He then got a broom and tried poking him. He still didn't budge. We really did not want him in our garage, so I used the broom and gently pushed him out beside our garbage can beside the garage. We decided to leave him there to die and I figured I could use a shovel to put him in a garbage bag and dispose of him later. We were quite shocked, when we got home to find him gone. I was glad I didn't have to worry about possibly touching a dead gopher, and glad he was either gone or maybe someone's cat had come and eaten him or something.

After supper I took Kiwi out for a pee to the backyard and she went straight toward our window well by the patio. This isn't typical for her so I went over to look and the stupid gopher was in the window well. He still looked pretty sick and I wondered how he had managed to crawl around the house and fall into the window well?! I brought Kiwi back inside then a little later decided to go check on the gopher again. It had crawled into the corner of the window well and it looked a lot more alert. All of a sudden it started digging at the side of the window well and managed to burrow under it and out of sight. I don't know what to make of it. I don't know if he is digging some tunnels under our patio, or under our deck, or maybe he really is sick and will go die under our deck and make a terrible stench. Or maybe he will dig up my grass. I tried calling animal control and they said to call the SPCA if it is still alive (at this point I thought he was living on borrowed time), or once it dies call City Sanitation. I left a message for the SPCA so we'll see if they call back next week at all. I really should have just killed it, but the claws looked pretty scary when you get close to it, and I have a hard time killing a living creature (especially when I know that I would probably have to kill it with a shovel....and probably would have to hit it more than once :P). I don't want it hurting Kiwi, and she seems just stupid enough to chase after it. Hopefully we can get it moved, or it will just move on, on it's own. I also don't want it eating my shrubs that have nicely grown back after being eaten by the rabbits last winter!!!!