The house is eerily quiet because Dave and Cameron are "camping" in the backyard with a tent we bought a few weeks ago. We wanted to see what it looked like, so if it's already up, why not spend the night in it? They did zip it up tight because Dave found a huge shedded snake skin in the yard, which means Mr. Snake is slithering out in the backyard somewhere.

We have had a "friend" on our patio sliding door for about a week. We got up one morning and found that a spider had built a beautiful web...but alas, it was connected to the screen door on the outside, so every time we opened it, the spider would get all frazzled because her house was messed up, so as soon as the door was closed, she would scramble to fix it. Today, there was no such scrambling. Her house was gone, and she left. Guess she knew it was no good to stay connected to a door with such a busy household.

While we're on the topic of animals, two family members have joined the Mowers household. Dave and Cameron picked up two hermit crabs today, one with a shell painted like a soccer ball (Cameron calls him Bert) and one with a football shell (Ernie). Ernie has not moved since he came home, so we're not sure if he'll be a keeper, but Bert has been quite friendly, crawling on arms and even being brave enough to walk toward Jack (though Dave wouldn't let him hold him, for fear that legs may be pulled off).

What can I say? It's like a zoo here sometimes.