Isn't This a Stephen King Novel?!?!

Where do I even start... After taking Roman to school this morning, I found 2 bees in the house. I used Roman's handy dandy bug vaccum that he had gotten for his birthday, sucked em up and threw em out. Later I found a bee in the baby's room. I went to get the bug vaccum again, and now there was a lizard under neath it. I don't do lizards. So I went back into the baby's room to just straight kill the bee, and he had found his way out. (The baby's room does not have a screen, which is how it got in in the first place) That's when I called Ben to tell him we had moved into the jungle. Yes, 3 bees, a few ants and a lizard equal the jungle to me.

Soon it was time to pick up Roman. Loaded the kiddos in the car and headed down to the preschool, talking about what we should make for lunch and jamming to country tunes. Poor Jilli is teething... Jilli has 2 teeth!! So she was a little fussy in the back of the car. Hurried into the house to get Jilli's bottle and start lunch. The boys pointed out 2 bees in the same place I found the first 2. Weird, but just smashed em this time. Uh-oh... dead bees don't buzz...

I started looking around and saw one by the fireplace and one in the kitchen window. Then I figured they were coming from the fireplace, and sent the boys back out to the car. I started grabbing everything I would need for 2 babies for the day... and shutting up the bedrooms so the bees would stay out.

Once (finally) safe back in the car, I called Ben to tell him the sitch. He tried to talk me into covering up the fireplace and sticking around to call an exterminator. I circled the block and decided to leave the kids in the car and give it a shot.

Back in the house, there were now five bees... I had only been gone 5-7 minutes. I got a drop cloth from the garage and tried to cover the fireplace. One of the bees caught me and flew towards me. I threw the drop cloth ever him, but he flew out before getting trapped. So I ran out. I regathered in the garage, went back in, and there were six bees. The odds were stacking up against me, so I resorted back to plan A and got the heck out of there.

We went to our friend, Erin's house... she had a little excitement of her own going on. No bees, just 4 extra kids, plus her 2. We barged in and borrowed her yellow pages until we got a hold of this sweet bee keeper/exterminator. He said that he had already had 7 calls that day from PQ. (Side note: My friend and neighbor, Tamara, told me that they had had bees in their lemon tree this week and her husband had wacked them down and told them to find somewhere else to live.... So thanks Paul) The exterminator said that all I needed to do was stick my head up the chimney to see if there were just a few scouts or if there were thousands. Thousands would obviously mean the queen was there. If there weren't thousands, I just needed to tape off the fireplace so that scouts would stop coming towards the light and go look somewhere else.... but yah, he pretty much lost me at the "stick our head in the chimney" part.

I convinced Ben to come home "early" 5:00 to do the sticking his head up the chimney part. So the kids and I headed to my grandma's house, where no one took a nap. The babies each slept for less than an hour, which we all know is not enough for the little ones, so they woke up crabby.

Ben finally came home at 5:30, as I was surveying the outside. I expected to look in through the windows and see swarms. Actually, "all" I saw was one in each of the front windows, and 20 give or take at the back window. Ben got the shop vac and headed to the front lines. He actually sucked up about 40 of the little buggers. They had found a little hole in the track above the sliding glass door, and some of them had set up shop there.

Then my wonderful husband who watches a lot of NOVA on PBS decided to lite a fire, and informed me that their natural instinct is to get away from the fire. He went outside, to see how many were leaving, and there were hundreds swarming around at the top of the chimney. I hurried and called the exterminator again, to see if lighting a fire was sufficient.... apparently the fire thing was not the best idea. He said that if there was a hive, the fire could make it fall and then we would have thousands of bees in our living room. Great. After scaring the ever lovin pants of me, he said to just tape up the fireplace (once the fire was dead and cooled) and waiting until the morning. As we're talking, I am looking out the window and can see bees just every where. Not even looking at the chimeny, just our back yard, they are just all coming and going, and I can't tell if there are more coming or more going.....

So Ben gives the baby a bath while I am on fire watch and bee duty. I had to stir the fire to make sure all the hot spots burned out. I also had to suck up the bees that made it down. The good news is that they didn't want to fight, they just flew straight to the window trying to get out.

Eventually the fire was out and cool, and Ben taped a big box over the opening. For some reason we were still getting bees. They some how were making it through the nice little tunnels made by the mortar between the bricks. A few balls of duct tape fixed that..... wait... I hear something. Am I just going crazy? Bzzzzz... thump. Is it flying into the window? Is the cat playing with it? No. Can't see anything. Sounds like it is coming from inside the fireplace. Bzzz. Scratch. Is he trying to burrow into the house? Pop. Out comes another bee. Are you kidding me?!?!?!?!? Seriously, that just happened! It is 915 pm. Ben is stuffing the tunnels on the other side of the fireplace now. Haven't they learned that this is not a great place for a hive yet?!?

I'm pretty sure that tomorrow we will be calling our new friend again. He said to wait until the morning and check if there were still a lot coming and going (up at the top). Even if there aren't, what am I supposed to do, just take off the cardboard and hope I don't get bombarded with bees? Live in my lovely home with a boarded up fireplace? Well, we'll see what the morning brings. I just hope I am not woken up all night by the imaginary buzzing in my head. Well, I guess that is better than the real buzzing. Can I win this one?

Hopefully there in so exciting follow up tomorrow, put I will keep you posted if there is!

(Sorry this was so verbose... this was more for me than for you. I want to look back on this day and laugh... but for now I just want to get some sleep!!)