escape artist

Dan and I took the kids out to Grandma & Grandpa's so they could spend a few weeks soaking up the sun and swim in the pool. We were gone a whole 4 days. Like usual, Tucker made the trip with us but we left behind the rest of the farm animals, the birds, hamsters, fish and turtle. We fixed em all up so they would be comfortable and happy while we were gone.

4th day. We return home.

We were not expecting what would follow. Animals run-a-muck!

Walked in the front door and saw bird feathers scattered all over the kitchen floor (we expected that part). We proceeded to get that cleaned up quickly so Tucker could come in the house. Moving on to the fish...we noticed that we were missing and few and one had died. Dan went into the bathroom to grab some tissue and found one of the firebelly toads dried up on the floor. He had managed to escape the tank while we were gone and couldn't find his way back to water in time (they dry up quickly). This has happened before but we/Tucker usually finds them before that and we get it back in the tank. While he is handling that, I open the door to the downstairs bedroom where we had left the hamsters. First thing I see is a large piece of fabric that Krystina was using for a purse on the floor, and then I notice one of the hamsters was out of his cage. Looking closer, I discovered that whom ever it was, was now living in the closet! I opened the closet and found that little Rascal and quickly put him back in his cage.

We had a really nice evening, just the two of us WITH NO KIDS!

Got up the next morning and headed for a movie and lunch. When we arrived home by habit I will check on all animals to make sure they are ok. Once again in that bedroom we found an even bigger mess that the day before! One hamster was missing, and then I noticed that the new bag of food had been chewed into and it was nearly empty! Oh my gosh I was sort of ticked off. These animals belong to the kids, not me. Ugh. So we opened the closet door and this is what I found:

A huge pile of food, pattern pieces, fabric and chewed up paper sack. Nice.
Then I move stuff around and see this:

How could one hamster POSSIBLY move all the food alone?? I spotted the little critter, yelled for Dan he grabbed it and it squeeled. At that moment we knew we had the wrong hamster...it was the GIRL. I was shocked she had gotten out of her cage when the escapee is the male. Looking into his cage we discovered he too was missing. Great. Put it together folks...and boy&girl hamster on the loose TOGETHER??!! Well, we couldn't find him. We looked and looked tearing apart the entire room. I yelled for Tucker and told him to find the hamster (he's good at this)...within a few seconds he located him in the kitchen under the cabinets. Now we would wait until it got dark and he'll come out. So while we waited, Dan put this together....LOLLOLOLOLOLOLOL.:

Luckily we had this on hand from our frogs. Now we'll see how smart he is...NOT! The top has a wire closure and it locks, he's not going anywhere.

As for future BABY hamsters...I'll just say, they better not have done that!

It's been almost two weeks now and 'Landen' so he's called, hasn't escaped once. Thank heavens. He is a smart one, cute too!