The Great Peach Adventure

If there was a "Biggest Blog-Slacker" contest, we'd win! We've loved reading everyone's updates since Christmas. It was so good to catch up with everyone in Colorado, and we hope the opportunity presents itself again soon, but 'til then, keep the updates rolling, and we'll, uh, try. :0)
Since we are the "Biggest Blog-Slacker" champions (where's our million bucks) we thought we would at least share our latest adventure here in Syracuse.

Meet Peach and Chewie.



Aren't they cute! They are the gerbils that Santa promised Emma would be waiting for her at the pet store when we arrived home from Colorado. We playfully like to call them, Emma's little sisters. Chewie is the one on the right. She's gentle, and is as level headed as a gerbil can be. Peach, the other gerbil - the one with the shifty eyes, and the mischievious look - she's our little escape artist. (I think she's planning her next escape as we speak.)

Last night, as Nathan was preparing to go to bed, he looked down and thought he saw a tail sticking out from behind the toilet in the bathroom. Knowing of her wander-lust tendancies, he calmly shut the door and stuffed a towel under it, so she couldn't escape the bathroom and came to our bedroom where, I was already asleep. He woke me up to tell me that Peach was loose and to catch her so we could all go to bed and get some needed rest for our busy week ahead.

I crept into the bathroom, careful not to step on the dear, checked around the toilet, in the towel on the floor, but to our chagrin, she was nowhere to be found. We pulled off the cover to the heater vent, and looked under the cabinet sink, but didn't see her.



We thought she could have possibly snuck under the door, so we checked all of her favorite places - the closets, under the beds, in Emma's shoes, but alas, no Peachy. We were both tired, so Nathan built a wall out of mega blocks to block the stairs (I wish I had a picture), we set out some sunflower seeds on the floor, along with the aquarium housing poor lonely little chewie (the good gerbil) and decided to call it a night, but first, just to be safe, Nathan turned off the heat.

We climbed into bed. Nathan fell fast asleep. I sat there and listened. It's interesting, what your mind does, in the night, when you could be attacked by a gerbil any second. I couldn't sleep. I sat there listening, but there wasn't a sound. I decided to get up and go downstairs to the furnace to see if I could hear anything in the vents. I put my ear up to the vent nearest to me and listened.



I even knocked a few times hoping something would knock back. (I figure if she was smart enough to fly the coop, she would be smart enough to communicate somehow.) I knocked, and then I heard a little scritch scratch. I ran upstairs and woke up Nathan.

What do you do at 2:00 AM with a rodent stuck in the furnace? I suggested we call our neighbor, the Heating Contractor, but it was 2:00 AM for goodness sake. On the other hand, gerbils chew everything and we worried that she would electricute herself, and ruin our furnace in the process. No, we had no choice but to take the matter into our own hands. (Like we had any clue what we were doing.) We kept knocking and listening and figured she may have fallen into the Air Conditioner Coil Boxy thingy. We didn't have a socket wrench on hand, so at 3:00 AM Nathan made a quick run to Walmart, and got a socket wrench kit.($12), and removed the screws to the door of the Air Condtioning Coils. We hoped for the best, but expected the worste.



When we peered inside, we saw two little beady eyes looking down at us. She thought twice when I put my hand out for her climb on, but after realizing her predicament, she climbed on, and I carried her back to her cage where the delighted Chewie was waiting. I was grateful, and must admit, that finding her alive and well, was an answer to my prayers, not only for Emma's sake but for Peaches' as well.

We finally got to bed, and I couldn't help thinking of the conversationg going on in the next room:



"What are we going to do tomorrow night Peach?"
"The same thing we do every night Chewie - Try to take over the world!"

We hope you enjoyed our adventure as much as we didn't.

This is what Peach looks like right now.


She's not dead, just sleeping



We figure she climbs on her house and jumps out of the hole without the cap on. ( I haven't a clue what happened to the cap) The house I'm speaking of is not the one pictured and is significantly shorter than this one. Emma covered the hole last night with their other house and a glove.