So Sam and I finally made it home from California early Monday morning, after some some crazy delays with our flight. As tired as I was, I knew that some of my girls from American Girls Club might not have gotten my email about club being on Tuesday so I got up. Sure enough, at 9:30am the doorbell rang. It was Brianna's friend Katelyn. She tells me, "Hi Sister Hardy! Are we having Girls Club today?" As she is talking, I noticed a strange sight behind her head. As I strained my tired eyes harder, I realized what it was. Totally HORRIFIED I grabbed Katelyn by the arm, practically jerking it out of the socket, pulled her in the door, and slammed it shut behind her. "What was it?" she asked me.

All I could do was point out the window.

To get a good idea of really how big this ended up getting, by the end of the day, the hive stretched almost halfway across the arch. Both these pictures were taken shortly after we discovered it, and many of the worker bees were "working" elsewhere.

I was terrified to go outside. We have had wasps in our chimney before, but never this mass amount. I was glad they were honeybees because at least they did not fly at us and attack us like the wasps would when they would get in the house. Chip was a great help. Every bee that came in he took care of it. I tried all day to get a hold of a bee keeper to come and remove the hive, but none would return my calls or emails. By the end of the day, I knew I had to go the pest control route. Luckily one of our family friends did bee removal for a profession up until last year. I owe him big! He came over late Monday night, in his shorts and t-shirt to rid our porch of the bees. My kids were fascinated! They could not believe that he was out there with 1500-2000+ bees and did not get stung. My luck is not that good, but he obviously knew what he was doing. We are forever indebted to him!

Now we just have to wear shoes around the outside of our house since dead bees are everywhere. Today, Wednesday, we are finally starting to have long breaks without seeing bees flying to the porch. Hooray!