A Special Souvenir

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope everyone had a marvelous Christmas. We sure enjoyed celebrating Christmas with my family here in North Carolina (we even got to see my brother and his girlfriend, who drove down from D.C.), and we will have Christmas 2.0 with Joe's family on New Year's Eve.

But before I share some photos of our festivities from the last two weeks, I have to tell one more crazy insect story with you.

I mean, you think that now that we are d.o.n.e. living in Costa Rica we would be d.o.n.e. with insect infestations or terrifying tarantulas or anything of the sort.

Not so.

On Wednesday, I got a day-late Christmas present when I opened up a box I had packed in September when we came to NC...

The contents of the box were: linens, frames, an old cloth purse, and one certain African wooden decorative bowl that my dad had brought back for us from Botswana in August.

As I was unpacking the box, (to put the contents into a duffel bag that will be taken back to Portland on Monday - yes, it was another fun day of packing! My new favorite pastime!), I noticed several holes in the decorative wooden bowl. Very precise oval shaped holes that were not previously there. It seemed that the bowl was being turned into a colander. It was mighty suspicious. A worm? A termite? Nothing else in the box looked affected.

Then, when I got to the bottom of the box, there was a giant pile of sawdust. Now the evidence of a termite was pretty clear and I was immediately grossed out. I mean, can't I get a break from gross insects in my life? I am in North Carolina now, in the dead of winter, and the temperature is going down to the 20s every night. I thought I was FREE!!!

Fast forward to last night when I went out to the garage, where my mom had put the punctured bowl, to show my dad what had become of his souvenir.  I picked up the bowl, and right in my face were two little brown termites poking their sick little heads out of the holes! Of course, when I dropped the bowl, they hunkered back down, so I couldn't do a full inspection. But I swear I saw two brown thingys in the holes!!

Regardless, I was FULLY grossed out this time. My dad came to the rescue with a can of WD40 or something (we had no Raid) and sprayed the crap out of the bowl.

Unbelievable.

Hopefully this will be the last insect drama for quite awhile...

A Special Souvenir

The scene in the garage.

Look closely for oval-shaped holes.

A once pretty bowl.

Termite killing.

The leftovers: sawdust, and the bowl tightly wrapped in a bag.

Christmas Fun

Kate and reindeer at tree farm.

A beautiful tree farm in Appalachia.

Shopping

"Cleaning a stump"

The fam.

Decorating with Grandmama.

Making a gingerbread house.

Getting some inspiration at a little gingerbread house display downtown.

Christmas morning JOY.

This is how the tree decorating ended looking: a cluster of ornaments right where Kate could reach. We never changed it.

The finished house.