Welcome to Texas!

Well, the truth has to come out someday. The warmest welcome you will receive in Texas will not be from the local human population (although they are very warm and friendly.) No, the warmest welcome will come instead from the local insect population. Ugh!

We discovered this shortly after our arrival, one night after staying up late to play board games with Pedro's mom and sister. As they walked out the door, I looked down at the surface under our feet and found it covered with miniscule little ants! We hadn't even noticed them; however, they had quickly noticed us - and more specifically, they had noticed the presence of three small children and their sweet little "droppings" here and there! We quickly mopped the whole area with bleach water and purchased ant powder, ant traps, and ant spray the following day at the local grocery store. Unbeknownst to me, that same night Pedro encountered a friendly gecko in the shower. Unfortunately (for the gecko) the ant spray turned him belly up on the bathroom floor shortly afterwards!

A week or so later, in the dark hours of the night, Pedro woke me up with a sharp outburst. "Steph, wake up! There are ants in the bed!" And sure enough, the nasty little insects had decided to interrupt our good night's rest. We discovered the next day that they were making their way into our room by way of the electrical outlet, from the outside. Blech! More ant spray, and a nice big dose of baby powder all over our mattress pad for good measure (someone told me that ants don't like baby powder!)

We thought we had everything under control, with the exception of a stray cockroach or gecko here and there. Until this morning, when I walked into the living room to find that Owen's diaper bag was swarming with the tiny critters! Yuck, yuck, yuck! More ant spray, more mopping with bleach water, deep cleaning of the diaper bag ... Really, we are not dirty people! So what do we do? I guess we just chalk it up as yet another ... welcome to Texas!