Black Jack of Belarat*

Ok, so he was not really black, instead he was a medium grey, but he surely was a rat.

Sometime this last winter, various "critters" attempted to make their home under our box-barn. It had always been undesirable, but it became absolutely unacceptable a few weeks ago when we found a snake quartering under there. After killing the snake, I poured a small concrete footing to keep these "critters" out. Evidently, one rat remained trapped under there and eventually dug his way out. Upon seeing his hole, we tried to get him out but we were not successful. This morning, Pascal made a bunch a racket in the box-barn and came out triumphantly with a large rat. However, both Pete and Pascal have learned that it is more fun to play with their prizes than to actually kill them, so I carefully placed several lead pellets in his mid-rear section. I do not think that he suffered much at all.

I covered up his hole, so that hopefully we can be a happy, "critter" free family again.
Enjoy!

* Can you guess where "Black Jack of Belarat" is from?

Thesis

Wednesday morning I went to defend my thesis. Everything went as good as can be expected. I was asked to add one sentence to my Abstract, which I promptly did and my advisers approved. So I am now technically finished with my MS degree (though I will not be officially done until the end of the semester). It is very relieving to have this task completed, and we are very thankful to the Lord for his help during all of this. Surely He was with us on Wed. because many more things could have gone wrong, but did not.
Enjoy!

Sorry for not giving a Daniel update sooner...we were busy enjoying him and forgot that there were those out there waiting for more pictures. He is doing really well in all respects and has a wonderful habit of sleeping for six hours at a time, which makes for an almost sane Mama! :) Our friends have been wonderful to bring supper over every other day for the past two weeks, which has been a big help...although I think my husband is afraid that perhaps I have completely forgotten how to cook. :) Glory had her fourth birthday just after we brought Daniel home; so between the birthday commotion, Grandmothers coming and going, and just the excitement of finally having Dan, it's taken us this long to settle into any sort of "normal". (Whatever that is.) Yet, we feel extremely blessed that God has given us the opportunity to run this race and pray for His grace to help us finish it well!