Adventures in Home Ownership

This Christmas will mark year 2 of us being in this house that we decided was perfect enough to buy an make our own. Oh so many things I have learned while living here. Let's first take a moment to remember that we only saw this house in the winter, so we had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into...

• Grapes: EVERYWHERE! While the initial finding of the grape vine was exciting, I now loathe them! Grape vine grows like crazy and attacks absolutely anything and everything near it. Then you get it all under control and you have a whole trellis of beautiful Concord grapes and you go out to pick them to realize that the birds have ate ALL the grapes!! I didn't even know birds ate grapes!! 
• Ground Hogs: We have a groundhog. Maybe we have a groundhog family...I can't be sure. They are leaving HUGE holes all over the yard. We fill them in and it digs it back out. This guy is even collecting apples out of the yard and stock piling in his hole! We are in desperate need of a live trap. Anyone have one laying around?!? 
• Weeds. Whoever lived here prior to us was either retired, a stay at home mom, or seriously had no life. We have a ton of beautiful flower beds that I can't stand the idea of destroying, but I also can't keep up with the weeds! I get one flower bed looking beautiful and by the time I finish the next  the first is out of control again! 
• Plumbers: Our main sewer needed to be snaked a couple weeks ago because it was starting to back up into the house. The first person told us it would be a minimum of $300 for the first hour. I panicked. The next told me $90 an hour. Lesson learned....call around and don't loose that dudes number! 
• Tiles: Our kitchen has beautiful tile counter tops that I love dearly, but the pieces in the front have been falling off randomly for over a year. I surely haven't put them back up yet. I really want to, but how do you do that with kids running around the house who can't help themselves but to touch the wet tiles?!?!