Spring Peepers, Red-Tailed Hawks and Small Town Cops

Hey friends!

This week was a quieter one, especially after visiting NYC this past weekend.  We've been enjoying watching X-files this past week.  I heard rumors that a new season was coming out so we decided to give it a try.  We're still in season one, but it's it's super spooky!  The music is old school horror sounding and it makes it even scarier!

Last Sunday (I think....the days blend sometimes) evening we were walking Bilbo through Cranbury Park and we kept hearing this high pitched cricket-like sound. <-----have a listen.  We could NOT figure out what it was and we kept thinking it sounded familiar.  It seemed to be coming from the trees, but we weren't positive, and we were thinking it was too early for crickets anyway.  Later in the week Leona was telling me about the different kinds of wildlife around Wilton and she brought up that the Spring Peepers were starting to come out.  They're tiny little frogs that survive freezing winters and "wake up" in the spring!  Check out this website to find out more about them!

On Tuesday I tried a new cornbread recipe!  The only reason I'm bringing it up, is because I thought it was delicious!!  It had a very autumn-y taste and would make a great side dish to a Thanksgiving meal.  Here's the link to the recipe if you'd like to try it out sometime!

On Wednesday, we went and worked out at the gym at Rich's work.  I ran a mile on the treadmill and discovered how insanely out of shape I've become!!  I did some free weight lifting and am now sore from that - but it's a good feeling to be sore.  Our goal is to start going every day - or running with Bilbo on the days we don't go.

Like I said this week was a quiet one, not much really happened.  Every morning I get partially ready and Bilbo and I go for a short walk, sometimes longer if I don't sleep in too long.  We usually head out to Merwin Meadows and play fetch for a little bit in a huge field, or we'll go to Cranbury Park in Norwalk (only a 10 minute drive).

One morning this week while I was heading to Merwin Meadows, I noticed a beautiful Red Tailed Hawk flying above the field!  It knew it had to be, because the tail was vibrantly colored!  We have a lot of birds of prey out here - which is similar to UT.  In that sense, CT is similar to UT.  I tried to take some pictures, but the hawk looks about the size of a pinhead.  In the second picture, you can see a blurry part of the tail that it is obviously red/brown in color.

 Bilbo has learned to be quite the little swimmer - he loves it!  He doesn't care if it's cold outside, hot outside or whatever, he'll always go get in the water if he can.  When he's hot he loves to sit in the water, or lay down in it.  Labradors have webbed feet, and Bilbo definitely inherited that from his dad who was one.  It's funny watching him swim, sometimes you can see his little white feet paddling away and it's just SO CUTE!   Here's a few videos of Bilbo enjoying swimming.

That last video was taken today - there's a little pond at Merwin Meadows (which is a park that's super close to where we live).  We were tossing his ball in, which eventually just sunk so we couldn't play with it anymore.  It was an old ball that had a hole in it.  Maybe when it warms up we'll go find it. 

Our week was pretty quiet, but the weekend was pretty wild!  We went to Norwalk to Petsmart to get Bilbo some more dog food (he'd run out earlier that day) and then make a quick stop at Stew Leonard's for a treat - we ended up getting rosemary kettle cooked chips and a 1/2 gallon of chocolate icecream.  Pretty exciting life, right?  Not really though - I mean how wild can it get with a couple of married Mormons and a puppy?  Well, apparently it can get pretty loud and crazy.

This is the face of a hard criminal.

On Friday night, we had a knock on the door at about 10:30.  I was almost positive it was Lynn, our next door neighbor, bringing us baked goods or something (last week I left her some homemade biscuits, so I thought she might be returning the favor).  We were VERY surprised to find a police officer behind our door.

He explained that he'd had a complaint, a noise complaint.  We immediately started thinking - ok what were we doing that was so loud?!  We explained that we'd been out for the past few hours and that we'd only been home like 20 minutes.  The officer said that the sound was like loud banging and furniture being moved around....finally we realized what the noise must have been.

  

 This is a picture of a Kong Wobbler.  This is Bilbo's new feeder - which we THOUGHT would be quieter than his old one (the Magic Mushroom).  Turns out it's just as noisy.  For about 15 minutes Bilbo had been using it to eat.  We explained to the police that must have been the sound.

Lynn told us when we first moved in that our downstairs neighbor, Robert, can be pretty crotchety and grumpy.  She said that if we ever heard him banging a broomstick on his ceiling not to take it personally.  We'd even met him a couple times and thought that he was just the opposite - he seemed charming infact!  So we were VERY surprised to see that he'd gone to the measure of calling the police!  

They asked to see Rich's ID (I even asked if they wanted to see mine as well, but they just wanted his).  They noticed we were from UT and we explained we'd lived here for about a month.  Then he scolded us about needing to get it changed right away - and he wrote down some information from Rich's license.  Another cop joined him just before they left and they asked us "We're not gonna be back again tonight are we?" (obviously absolutely not!)  They were pretty much jerks.  Rich felt like they treated us like idiot teenagers - they really kind of did.  They were pretty condescending.

After the police left, Rich and I put a note on our downstairs neighbors door, apologizing for the noise and told him we won't be using Bilbo's feeder anymore.  I hope we don't have any more issues!  And I really hope we're not on the radar of the Wilton police!!  Rich got online and started reading up on his rights - it turns out that he didn't HAVE to give the cops his ID, and Wilton doesn't have any noise laws - so we weren't breaking the law!  We really were just quite appalled that the man downstairs hadn't expressed any sort of complaint before contacting the police.

He wrote a note back, explaining that he was yelling and that he thought we were just ignoring ignoring it.

So that was our Friday.  Saturday was nice - even though Bilbo's noisy feeder was the reason for the evening visit from the police, we still love him.  It's always such a happy time when we let him out of his crate in the morning.

He is always abundantly happy and filled with love and kisses in the morning when we let him out of his crate!  Isn't he cute!!??  We love him.  A lot.

On Saturday we went into Danbury to check out the mall there.  It was huge, beautiful and extremely crowded.  We weren't there long - we stopped at the Microsoft store just to check out the cool gadgets, which was fun.  Then we went to Bath and Body Works (the reason for coming to the mall in the first place) to get more handsoap.  We had some Chick-fil-a and booked it out of there - it was so busy!  If I ever go there on my own to do some shopping, it will be on a weekday.  It was so crowded!

On Saturday night I went babysitting at a family's house in our ward.  They had three boys: Jack in 3rd grade, Gavin in 1st and then Beckett - who is 18 mo.s old.  It was a lot of fun!  Their house was beautiful!  It was a lot of fun to hang out in a house that was bigger than 2 rooms - their kitchen along was bigger than our entire apartment.  I've never been so envious of people with closets....we only have one and it's full!  It's been a bit of a challenge to find places for all of our junk.  Here's a picture of their kitchen - white is very in right now.  When we have our own house (hopefully atleast...someday) I don't think I want white.  Maybe.  We'll see when the time comes!  It's very pretty and it's really trendy, but I love dark woods.

I don't know why it's blurry....but it sure is a gorgeous kitchen right?

I was able to visit with the parents (Colby and Mindi Wheeler) when they got home.  They explained that this was their first home and they had rented for most of their marriage.  They have a cool life - they lived in Manhattan for a number of years - and also London!  How cool is that!?  Maybe the British influence is why they named their youngest Beckett - Rich and I joked that maybe they just love Pirates of the Caribbean (Jack Sparrow and Lord Beckett).  It was great to get to know them, and so much fun to tend their kids.  They are such cute (and easy) boys! :)

Church was really great today.  In Sacrament meeting we had a couple speak about Christ, the Atonement and His life.  The man who spoke shared the poem "Good Timber" by Douglas Malloch.  Several general authorities have quoted this poem, but it's a good one.  Here it is, I thought it was a beautiful choice of words, and we can learn a lot from this poem.  It teaches us that trials are a necessity and when we go through them we only become better.

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:

The stronger wind, the stronger trees;

The further sky, the greater length;

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

This evening we were invited to dinner at the Jackson's house in Wilton.  They too have a beautiful house.  Their kids are a lot of fun.  Another couple was invited with their kids so it was fun to get to spend some time with ward members (and to not have to cook dinner) :)

We are going to try to MAYBE take a trip to Washington DC this weekend - Rich has work off on Friday so we MAY sneak out!  We need to find a puppy sitter for Bilbo who's willing to watch him for a few days.  If we can't make it, then there will be other times.  Peace out blog fam!