Two small things

We believe our little girl has made herself know yet again the past two days. Day before yesterday I was getting ready to go somewhere and in the bathroom off the hall where she seems to like to hang out. I was putting on my makeup and felt like our little dog Marley's long hair was tickling my ankle. So I was talking to her and asking her if she had to be near her mommy. When I looked down to continue my conversation with her, to my surprise she was not there! I went looking for her and she was resting on the couch in a little ball.

Then last night, will came flying out of the back room telling me once again that he had a 'ghosty thing' happen to him in our bedroom. He said he was playing with Tonka, another one of our dogs, in what we call our library, another room that is connected to our bedroom., He says that he heard a piece of paper scraping the tile in our room and that even Tonka looked up from playing and started whining. He went into the bedroom and took a look around, but there was no paper anywhere on the floor in the room and he is not sure what could have made the noise.

I love it when she comes to visit, but I wish she would appear in clear form one of these times. Perhaps she will talk to me some day. I have questions for her that need to be answered. Like what happened to her, where she came from and why she says here in our home. Maybe someday we will be so lucky :)

Tombstone - Part II

Hello Again! So, now we move on to the second part of our trip - Tombstone! So let's begin shall we!

After Greg and Catalina's journey down to Bisbee, the rest of us came rolling in to Tombstone in the early afternoon. The agreement was to call Greg & Catalina and they would meet us there at the hotel.

The portion of the hotel that faces the side street

We all met up at the Tombstone Motel, checked in and took a look around. Now part of the Motel is original from the 1800's - a small section consisting of 2 or three rooms - but in the past few decades, the hotel and these rooms have been renovated and expanded to include the building above, two additional newer buildings and 2 run down, older houses on the property that are also available to rent.  In looking at the above picture, the original adobe section is right behind Morgan's Pizza. Located on the corners of 5th and Fremont, this motel is just 250 feet from the main strip and the famous Crystal Palace, one of the early hangouts of Wyatt Earp and the boys.

Rooms 119 & 121 are at the end on the right

Originally built in 1880, the Tombstone Motel is reportedly haunted by two ghosts. There are two rooms that are haunted here, rooms 119 and 121 which are right next to each other on the right at the end of this hallway. One of those was Greg and Catalina's room. It is reported that room 121 has a heavier presence and that a man in western clothing has been seen in the hall to the bathroom as well as standing over guests as they sleep. Some have also mentioned feeling like someone was sitting on the bed next to them while they are sleeping. Room 119 is known  to have had a more playful ghost, possibly either a woman or a child. In both rooms, reports from guests have said that appliance, mainly the TV's, have turned on by themselves, things have been moved and many have heard voices on each side of the shared wall when yet the other room has remained unoccupied.

A high reading

Maxing out. It must be pissed!

In doing some research to find out about these ghosts, I can not seem to find much online. However, from a first hand account, when we checked in to the hotel Greg and I spoke with an  employee about the ghosts. We were told that a cowboy supposedly hung himself in one of those two rooms and that a prostitute was shot in one of the room, thus explaining the sightings and confirming the stories.

Mandie getting readings

There have been several ghost hunts by professional ghost hunters that have not been successful in capturing much of anything in either of these two rooms. However, our trip was a little different. Greg's EMF meter was put to the test and in one spot in particular at the ceiling, my sister Mandie was able to get some fantastic readings. She asked the spirits to let us know that they were there and sure enough, she had a way of provoking it to do so. And it did not seem to happy at her forcefulness. As you see in the photos, the meter would range anywhere from one or two beeps to going off and maxing out, depending on how much she seemed to aggravate it.

 Another strange thing that happened, but I did not notice it until we were home and I was uploading and looking through all of my pictures from the trip. In utter astonishment, I seemed to have captured some sort of black shadowy type thing as you can see in the two pictures here.

Shadow under the lamps

The shadow seems to have moved

The weird things here is the lighting. You can clearly see in the photo to the right that the light by Mandie is off. The only two lights that were on was the one down the little hall going into the bathroom and the light on the left in the picture of the two lamps over the bed. I am not quite sure what this dark shadow is from, but if you notice it seems to have moved from under the lamps on the headboard clearly across the wall and on over the curtains in the other. I just could not explain this shadow and still wonder today how I could have possibly captured this and what may have caused it.

The Bird Cage Theater a long time ago

The Bird Cage today

One of the most famous haunted buildings in Tombstone is the historic Bird Cage Theater. Opened in 1881, the Bird Cage was a theater, saloon and gambling hall. During it's hey day, the theater was open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for 8 years straight. But when flood waters began seeping into the mines, the town went bust and so did it's businesses. In 1889, the Bird Cage Theater was closed down and boarded up and would remain so for the next 45 years.

The Poker room downstairs

The main room

In 1934, a family purchased the Bird Cage and it was reopened to the public as a museum, which is how it remains to this day. The bottom 6 rooms are newly opened to the public where you can view a poker table and bar ares just as it sat the day the Bird Cage closed as well as a few of the rooms that the prostitutes used to entertain their clients that played cards there.

Bullet holes

During it's 8 year history, it was known as the "...wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast". There is said to have been 26 murders occur with it's walls and the building is riddled with 120+ bullet holes. Numerous ghosts still walk the floorboards of the Bird Cage to this day.

Visitors and employees have reported seeing many ghostly cowboys and prostitutes roaming the Bird Cage. Some have even claimed to have been pushed. Music,laughter and yelling have reportedly been heard, as if those who had once partied there were still living it up. One ghostly apparition is a man wearing a black visor that is said to have been seen walking back and forth on the stage.

Orb photo

I took lots of photos of this historic landmark. It is very dark in the Bird Cage and my photography skills are not the best, but I did capture this photo of a very large orb right over Greg's head from where I stood up on the top stair of the stage. I actually have a few photos with orbs in them from this trip.

Peeping through cracks

You get a really creepy feeling in the Bird Cage that's for sure. And being that we were the only ones in there for the first few minutes of our tour, we had full reign at being able to spread out and wander without others being around. Walking around on the stage by myself, I had a real creepy feeling as if someone was watching me. At one point I was peeking through a crack in the boards to view the backside of the 'cages'  and I got this feeling that at any moment, someone was going to be peeking out of one of those cages around the corner at me. 

Right where I felt the 'drop'

The one thing that did happen to me (and as it turns out, also to my mother in law) was when I was wandering around up stairs on the stage with a few of my family members, looking at memorabilia and reading facts about the items we were viewing. At one point, I wandered over to the little section of wall where you can go down to the lower levels. Just as I was crossing over the threshold of this area, I felt something drop down into my hair just on the right side of my head just above my right ear. Almost as if a rain drop were to fall heavily on your head from the house eaves. It felt just like that. I immediately grabbed at my hair thinking that it would be wet from something dripping or that perhaps something had fallen off the ceiling and was now in my hair. To my constant patting down and rubbing, I found nothing there. This freaked me out! As far as I know besides this happening to both me and my mama Sandy, no one else experienced anything in the Bird Cage. I can honestly say that I can't wait to go there again, possibly at night. Maybe whatever played with my hair that day will do it again.

Fatima with a bullet hole

Last but not least, there was one other incident that Will and his Aunt Mary in broad daylight. At one end of the parking lot up in the front (facing the main street) there is a small cafe. When we were just about getting ready to leave on Sunday morning, we all decided to have breakfast here before taking one last little shopping trip on the main strip and leaving to go back to Mesa.

After everyone had ordered, Will and Aunt Mary were standing out front on the sidewalk talking and smoking. Will says that he saw a 'white ball', almost like a wadded up piece of paper, hit him in the elbow hard enough to make it move. Like if someone ran into him. Weird thing was, Aunt Mary saw it also, but then when they looked around, there was nothing on the ground around them at all. They both came back into the cafe freaked out about it!

There are many more places to explore in Tombstone, many of them haunted. No matter how many times we go down there, it never gets boring and it seems like there is always more to see. Next time my goal is to take the "Haunted Tombstone" tour. I can't wait!

Until next time!

Bisbee &Tombstone - Part I

Hello again! Well, I'm real sorry but it seems that most of my posts have exceeded my original "this will be the last long one I promise" note. THIS one is the longest so far. If your not in for reading long ones, check out now and don't come back because it seems they are all turning out to be much longer than I thought. It just takes a lots of description to give you the full effect of backgrounds and histories and then tell you my stories. I'm sorry for that.

After much thought and speaking with friends who are interested in the supernatural, I have decided that I should also use this site as a place to not only share stories that happen in my house, but also things that I have encountered while traveling (like in Tombstone), upcoming ghosty tours and legends that I hope to take and learn about and stories that have been told to me first hand by others.

As a matter of fact, Will has had many experiences at his work and has shared his experiences with his co-workers who have also told him their stories and I plan on writing about those in the near future so as to give you all a bit more to read. After all, I am never sure when or how often that our little girl will decide to pop in here at the house to say Hi. It could be just a few days, or maybe even weeks. That's the down side to dealing with ghosts - they are unpredictable.

This entry tonight I would like to dedicate to the first of our travels to other places. As a start at our look at some historical, haunted places right here in Arizona, mainly the towns of Bisbee and Tombstone. While I have not yet been to Bisbee, on a recent trip that my family, friends and I took, Greg and Catalina decided to go check it out.

As you know, many people died in boom towns such as Bisbee and Tombstone, in the streets and buildings, some of them which still stand today. I am sure that there are spirits who wander those dirt streets every night. So, I will tell you about a few things that happened back in October of 2010. Please understand here that in getting some historical facts straight in most of my stories, I may have done a little internet research about buildings and what not to make my stories as accurate as possible. In no way have I meant to plagiarize anyone or anything and have strictly quoted things that I believe to be 'common knowledge'.

Drew & Will

My hubby Will has a thing for Tombstone. Since before he moved out here, he was intrigued with the movie and stories about Wyatt Earp and the historical events that happened in this little town. When he first came to visit me here in Arizona, I made his weekend extra special by reserving a room and taking him down to do some drinkin' and site seeing in Tombstone to learn a little about its history first hand. Little did I know this trip would start a string of trips down there over the next few years with various friends and family members.

In October of 2010, we decided to take one such trip and he had family members coming from 3 states to go with us - his mom and pop from California, Aunt Mary, Uncle Bill and little cousin Wilson from Utah and Uncle Tom from New Mexico. We also invited my sister Mo and brother in law Drew and our friends Greg and Catalina.

Set to have a fantastic trip, we reserved several rooms at the Tombstone Motel. Now this little motel is not real fancy, in fact in the past it has been in somewhat of a worn down state, but it's clean and affordable and after all, who stays in their rooms in Tombstone when there is so much to explore there.

The Main Building, Tombstone Motel

The main reason we like this little motel is simple - because it is within walking distance to all of the famous old bars on the original main strip. The perfect place to stay where you can belly up to the bar(s) and still be able to stumble back wasted to yer bed. To my pleasant surprise, this time they had done a little remodeling and most of the motel now looks fairly nice, except for the one run down dump of a house on the property where mom, pop, Will and I stayed so that mama and papa could bring the dog if they wanted and so we would have a back porch and a place to BBQ with all of the family. For that, the house was just fine and in fact it became the meeting place for us all.

Well it was a few weeks after we had made our reservations that Greg and Catalina decided that they wanted to go with us, while we were over visiting one night. Greg picked up the phone to check availability and next thing I know, I hear him whoop-in and hollerin' from the other room. Next thing we know, he comes flying out of the back room telling us that he just so happened to ask the lady while making the reservations if there were any haunted rooms, and she said yes as a matter of fact, there were two rooms that were rumored to be haunted in the old part of the building, right next to one another. Of course, they reserved one.

A few days later, Greg called to inform me that he had purchased an EMF meter to take with us on the trip. So this is when our ghost adventures began and thus, one of the reasons behind me creating this blog. Between the house, our Tombstone adventures, the Concrete Castle (Will's work) and the other stories that have now surfaced through others, I feel like there has been so much 'stuff' that we have experienced that these stories just might be worth sharing.

Weeks go by and it is finally "the weekend". Greg and Catty decided to go down a day ahead of  the rest of us, and so went on a little journey to Bisbee, AZ. Bisbee was an old mining town much like Tombstone and has survived through the boom and bust of the local mines and today is a touristy town. Like most mining boom towns, people died and some have stayed, not wanting to leave the last place they walked the earth in life. Bisbee is no different - a host of ghosts are known to still walk the halls of the old buildings.  One of these just so happens to be the hotel where Greg and Catty stayed - the Copper Queen Hotel - home to three known ghosts: a lady, a man and a child.

The Copper Queen is the one that seems to have towers

The Copper Queen Hotel was built and finished in 1902 by the Phelps Dodge Mining Company. In it's hey day, the Copper Queen was a very luxurious hotel and hosted the society upper-crusties - investors and mining executives - along with a consistent string of the 'normies' - miners, cowboys and I am sure, prostitutes to entertain them all.

The most famous ghost of the Copper Queen is said to be a prostitute in her early 30's by the name of Julia Lowell, who used rooms at the Copper Queen to entertain clients. As most young girls will, Julia fell in love, apparently with one of her John's. Of course when he rejected her, she killed herself here at the Copper Queen.

It is said that she haunts 2 floors of the hotel. She has been known to whisper in mens ears, play with their feet while they are sleeping and at times, has been known to even been seen dancing provocatively at the foot of the bed where they sleep. Other times she has been know to 'appear' in the form of a bright white smoke.

The second Copper Queen Ghost is a tall, elderly gentleman known to be dressed in a black cape and top hat.  He is seen on the 4th floor of the hotel and has been known to appear in doorways or as a shadow figure. Although it does not say anywhere how or why he seems to linger here at the hotel, it is known that people have smelled cigar smoke just before or after a sighting of the gentleman caller.

The third being a child, is of course the most mischievous ghost. This little boy, said to be around 8 or 9, supposedly drown in the San Pedro river. They think perhaps his mom, dad or other relative worked at the hotel and that is why he chooses to remain within it's walls.  Much like children should be, he is supposedly only heard and not seen. He chooses to make his presence known by being heard giggling or running up and down the halls. Some have felt him while running bath water and he often times plays games with the living by moving objects from one table to the other.

While Greg and Catalina stayed at this hotel, they were pleasantly surprised to have been able to experience these ghostly presences. After checking in to the hotel, they proceeded to walk around with the EMF meter in their room and told me that it was going off in the closet. Greg says they asked the presence questions and asked it to reply with for one beep for yes and two beeps for no. "Is there someone here?" Yes. "Are you female?" Yes. "Do you want us to leave?" No.

The short game of questions and answers finally done, they decided to go do a little shopping and explore the town. As if expecting it, before leaving Greg turned to Catalina and said "I am closing this closet all the way now." Of course when they returned, the closet stood wide open.

Note the smoke on the left side of the frame

After cleaning up for dinner, they proceeded downstairs and went up to the front counter to talk to the lady working the front desk. When they told her what they had been experiencing, she said "Come with me. There is someone I want you to meet."

They followed the lady into an extremely busy bar and went up to a family of 4 - mother, father and 2 small sons. The lady introduced them and told Greg and Catalina that they had been there for 2 days on a family ghost hunt - and had not been able to experience one damn thing. Greg proceeded to tell the family everything that had happened thus far to them in the couple of hours since their arrival. He also mentioned that they had brought an EMF meter and would be ghost hunting themselves later if the family would like to come along. Later that evening, they met back up in the bar and went up stairs to proceed with their hunt.

Down the hall on the left

Now one of the rooms upstairs is actually named the "Julie Lowell Room" and is in the general area where Julia Lowell use to practice her craft. Using the EMF meter, they got readings while exploring in this general area just outside that room. Greg is much like me and loves to take photos. But never in either of our minds would we ever have expected too see what he captured in the photos when he uploaded them to his computer - a bright white smoke coming out of the walls.

I assure you, these photos are not doctored in any way. These are the actual photos taken on their explorations of the Julia Lowell hallways with the family that they had just met at the hotel. The one below this paragraph is an enlarged version of the one above so that you can see the details of the smoke that is clearly coming out of the door or the wall.

An enlargement of the photo above

Also note the orbs in the photo below - one just under Catalina's neck, a small one just about her and the boy, and a large one above Greggy's head. Could this be all three ghosts making an appearance - the man, woman and child - hovering over each of their live counter parts? Perhaps visiting with the living if just for a moment? I think so. In fact, I don't doubt it at all. What other explanation is there for these to show up in such a way? They also say that ghosts like to appear to children most. Perhaps this was what made them welcome guests and ones worth appearing too in the first place.

See all the orbs

Greg has also told me of a few other notable things that happened to them later that night. Footsteps and doors slamming in the hallway when they were just around the corner. Going around that corner seconds later to see no one there.

Back in their room, they got ready for bed and went to sleep. Greg said there was no explanation for it, but that they BOTH awoke at precisely 3am, sitting up in the bed. They had heard the sound of the someone jiggling the sliding chain lock on the door on the inside of the room. In addition, Greg heard someone whisper in his ear that night.

Now for those of you who did not know the significance of 3am (I had to tell Greg), this is the time known as the "Witching Hour" - a time when the supernatural are known to appear and are the most powerful. I myself have had many times when for no apparent reason, I wake up at 3am on the dot. Will has also experienced this 3am wake up call here in our house. In fact both of us have had times when we have woke up at precisely 3am on the dot for a week or two at a time, with no apparent explanation. Of course we always attribute it to our little friend who has chosen to make herself known to us.

Any way, the photos above are nothing short of miraculous to me and just the start of our ghost adventures. We have plans and they include going on many more haunted ventures as much as we can. I want to go to Bisbee and experience what Greg and Catalina experienced first hand. I want more Tombstone trips. I want to go to Jerome and stay in the haunted hotel up there. I want to take the haunted ghost tour of the Queen Mary in Long Beach and visit the haunted Hotel del Coronado in San Diego and the haunted pirate ship, the Star of India. There's lots of historical haunts not far from home here and by golly, I plan on seeing them all.

Until tomorrow when we will move on to our Tombstone adventures.

Sleep with your eyes open and your camera bedside :)

A few additional instances

Hello again!

I remembered a few other instances that I decided to add in here, one from a while back and one from a week ago.


First another short story (of course). For those of us who know our family, you know we love animals and have at anytime, several different species in our home. They are all our pets and we love them and take care of them. Animals bring lots of joy and love into our lives and it is something that none of this in our family can live without. Somehow I think we were gifted to be destined to become a safe house for all of those without homes as these animals somehow 'choose' us and we willingly take them in. We have 3 dogs named Tonka (10), Kai (5) and Marley (6 months), a Jack Russell mix, Pitbull mix and Yorkie/Maltese.

When Kai first came to us, a friend of ours had found him dumped in a box. We had no idea what kind of dog he was and had intentions of adopting him to a loving family just as soon as we could find someone that we felt worthy. However, much like all of the other animals we have had, once you move in, you never move out.

Kai and a baby Marley

Kai was a wonderful addition to our family, and a great buddy for Tonka. Unfortunately since Tonka is a little punk, he use to pick on Kai. One day, when Kai got big enough, he decided he was also an Alpha male and decided that he was not going to be punked by his 'little' brother anymore. He might be older and wiser, but he was smaller than Kai and enough was enough.

To make this very long story short, the bottom line is that since that day we have had to keep them completely apart or they rip each other to shreds. I'm talking blood bath style. This has meant that they have to be kept completely apart and switched out at various times during the day. This means that Tonka lives in his two rooms and Kai wanders the others. We literally switch them every couple of hours. You might think this is not right nor fair, but really it's not by our choice. We don't believe that animals are disposable and therefore, have learned to live with both of our fighting children, trying to keep the peace.

Tonka Roo

We often leave Tonka's door open so that he can roam freely in and out at his will, but he chooses to always go back into his 'house'. We think it is partially because he is somewhat of a loner dog and he is getting up there in years and just does not want to be bothered. By anyone. He just does as he wants and no one can tell him otherwise. I have even been snapped at on occasion when he does not want to do something. Tonka is very attached to his room. It's his sanctuary where he can relax and not be bothered by both humans or pesky dogs. He loves his room. One last note on Tonka - he hates loud noises. If you are arguing, he tries to escape. If there is thunder or lightning or fireworks outside, he heads for the farthest part he can get to underneath our bed.

One day not too long ago, Will heard Tonka crying and scratching at the door. This was weird because he has NEVER really scratched at the door. Cry, yes, but never scratched. Will could not figure out what was going on back there, so he went and opened the door. He said that Tonka came flying out of the room like a bat out of hell. So Will let him outside thinking he had to go potty.

When Tonka came back into the house, he refused to go down the hall and into his room. Will said he simply would not go. So Will just let him wander the house assuming he just wanted to be out with his sister Marley to play for a while. But this persisted. He would not go up the hallway for a really long time. Will said he acted like he saw something down the hall and was scared to go up that hallway and back into his rooms. This was just odd behavior to us and definitely worth noting here.

It has been just in the past few months that we have taken note of how are animals have been behaving. Truth be told, that is one of the first things I should have watched for but didn't. I know animals act differently when they see or encounter the supernatural. Now we notice all the time when Marley is looking up that hallway and growling deep in her chest or barking. We know she sees something that we do not. Kai has done it with her on rare occasions, but usually it is after Marley has started already. I am beginning to wonder if the newest member of our family is an intuitive.

Another thing I have not really touched on too much is the way things have been hidden, moved or simply disappear around here. As far back as I can remember, this has also happened on a somewhat regular basis. I guess the first time I noticed it was because I had purchased TWO dustpans and they both disappeared. And I mean, disappeared for good. Brand new and not one, but BOTH disappeared and we have to this day, never found them.

Another 'thing' that disappeared is one of our fish. Now you may think I am crazy, however, it happened. We had this huge, tall vase type thing that we used as a fishbowl for one our our beta's. It sat on the bookshelf in the living room, up fairly high. Will came one day and the fish (it was his fish) was simply gone, never to be seen again. We looked at the water level and it would have had to of been a high jumper to jump out. We emptied the bowl and washed out the shells to make sure it had not gotten stuck in one of them. We took all the books off the shelf to make sure it had not flopped out and died amongst them. We looked all around the floor. Poof. Gone like a fart in the wind. The only thing we could figure out was that IF it had indeed high jumped the wall of the bowl, it could have landed on the floor and Kai could have ate him. Mmmm...sushi.

Wood and Laundry basket

Another more recent event happened probably last week sometime. After going on vacation, I had not done any laundry and needed to do some. Our laundry room is just outside our back doors. I can say that even though I might not do laundry very often (I put it off as long as possible and usually do it late nights or weekends), I do go in and out of the laundry room quite often. Usually everyday. We have shelving in there where we store a lot of things and a filing cabinet out there that is also used for storage for pet supplies and things and there is yet another old household cabinet where we keep painting items, tools, hammers, nails etc.

Wood in its place out of the way

So as I went out there to do laundry on this particular day, the first thing that I noticed is a bunch of wood in my black laundry basket on the floor. You know those wood pieces that are used for animal houses for snakes, lizards...even hamsters and turtles? Well we have 3 of those that are VERY large. Jessi at one time had used them in this giant cage for her monitor lizard. Any way, of course we have kept them in case we ever need them for another animal, but they are stored up on the highest shelf up by the ceiling in the furthest corner of the laundry room. In a place up so high that no one ever goes up there. They are stored on top of some extra old linoleum tiles that were originally put down in the laundry room. Basically, there is no need to go up there for any reason. So why were they all down and in my laundry basket?

Well, I was so pissed about it because there was dirt from them all over my laundry basket and now, not only did I have to put those pieces of wood way back up on the top shelf (which meant getting a step stool out), but it also meant washing out the damn laundry basket. If you know me, it pisses me off that the others in the house can NEVER put things back where they belong. It is always left out, laying around until mom yells about putting it away or I simply pick the shit up myself because I am tired of yelling about it. Which I despise! They make more work for me and it makes me onry and mean!

I went ahead and went and asked Allie about it, and of course, she denied that she had taken them down and even asked me what I thought she would do with those. Hmm. So my next step was to go ask Will. Of course he had no idea "what wood pieces" I was talking about. I had to physically take him out there and show him, and of course, he stated why the hell would he take those down.

Okay. Two No's and I know that I had not taken them down. So who did? The dogs? I thought perhaps Logan took them down when he had house/dog sitted for us when we were on vacation, but this made no sense at all. Could I have really not noticed them in about a week? Was I really that blind or not paying attention? I mean, they were right there, plain as day, sitting right in the middle of the laundry room floor in the basket.

Then another thing happened yesterday. We were cleaning out our carport before we got a notice from the city about all the shit sitting out there. Of course, most of it was stuff that Will had gotten out and never put away. Lawn tools, BBQ stuff, tools. Just  STUFF. Anyone, one thing that was out there was the big blow up Christmas ball, laying in the driveway. The box from it had gotten ruined in the leaking shed from the rain and had gotten thrown away, so we had to find a new box for it. Problem is, I have been out looking for a box that large for sometime and every time I brought one home, it was still to small. But when they came out to replace our bathroom cabinet, the box it came in WAS big enough so we saved it. This meant I had to inflate the ball so that I could was the dirt and spiders off of it and let it dry before packing it up and returning it to it's year round home in the shed.

I proceeded to go look for the scrub brush so that I could get this chore done and guess what? I had a brand new large, stiff scrub brush that my sister Traci had just purchased when she and Allie were re-doing Allie's room. I had used it a few weeks ago to scrub some tiles with bleach and now I needed it again. So I went looking for it EVERYWHERE. I looked under the sink, in the laundry room and all of the cabinets, in both bathrooms, outside and in the carport cupboard. Of course, to no avail. Poof - gone. The bowl I had used that day was in the cupboard, but no scrub brush where it should have been underneath the sink. I asked Will, not seen it. I texted Allie, nope, not seen it. So perhaps Logan used it when we were gone.

So yesterday, I decided to email Logan and ask him about both the wood and the scrub brush. I asked about the scrub brush but worded it so that I ASSUMED that he had taken the wood down. The exact message was this: "Hey. Two questions for ya - my brand new scrub brush disappeared. Do you know where it is at or did you use it while you were here? Also, why did you take down the wood animal houses from the top of the laundry room and put them in a laundry basket?" His reply was direct and simply and just what I thought it would be: "I did not do either of those things. I didn't use a scrub brush thingy for anything. and I have no clue what those wooden animal houses are that you are talking about. Sorry!"

Am I going crazy here? I don't think so. Either the scrub brush will show up, or it will be like the dust pans and the fish - unexplainably missing & forever lost.

Well, I know this is another long one and I am sorry. Hopefully I did not bore any of you and that you will still stay tuned in. I have more to write - about my research trying to find out anything about the house or neighborhood. But that is for another time.

Until then!

A background history

Ghosts. Apparitions. Spirits. Entities. They all say the same thing to us - "We are not alone". I have often wondered (like many of you I am sure) what happens to us when we die. In thinking realistically about this, I have come to the conclusion that it would really be stupid of me to think that when we die, that's it. We just turn to dust. I think just the opposite. I think that we are only here on Earth for a short time, but that we probably go SOMEWHERE. Or at least our souls or spirits (or whatever) go on somewhere. If not, how come there are so many worldwide who have experiences with 'the supernatural'? People have had experienced the supernatural for centuries. Why is that?

For whatever reason, I think sometimes people's spirits can't leave this realm, or choose not too for various reasons. Maybe they liked it here. Perhaps they can't come to grips with dying and are therefore 'stuck' here. Maybe they want to visit loved ones or even just come back to try and communicate with the living that something DOES happen to us when we die; that we move on to live in another realm.

Whatever the case, I have personally never seen or experienced a ghost or apparition with my own eyes and ears. Until now that is. We have what we have come to deem 'the little girl' that we believe is living with us here in our rental house and follows our daughter Allie around our house. This blog is being created for one purpose and one purpose only; to document the occurrences that we have had while living in this house.

I need to get you up to speed first. This will be a long post so grab yourself a beer and sit down with the intention of getting caught up to speed. I promise this will be the only post this long, but I want you to understand the history and be able to follow us from the beginning. From here on out, I can just document happenings and dates as they happen, like I should have been doing since the start. But first a little history.

We have rented an older house in Mesa for the past 4 years. The houses in this neighborhood were built in 1975. We have many elderly neighbors on this street that have lived here for 20+ years. I think the longest resident on this street moved here in 1981 to be exact. I have not talked to these neighbors about our 'incidents' except for one lady who has lived in her house across the street from us for 26 years. But I'll go into that another time.

The Plumeria are on the left

I guess one of the first times that we actually noticed something amiss started with a plant. We have an island in the kitchen attached to the wall, sort of in a T figure. On the left side of the T is the door to go out back and some bar stools and on the right, the kitchen sink and counter space. At the top of the T is a window over the sink with a nice window sill of brick where I grow some of my indoor plants and clippings. One of them was a Hawaiian plumeria that had grown to almost touch the top of the window. If you know this plant, it has a very thick stock and fairly large leaves that come right off of it, almost like a mini palm tree of sorts. It can not bend like the branches on other plants.  Any way, my husband was standing on the door side and I was standing on the sink side and we were talking about things when suddenly, we BOTH saw the plant bounce up and down about two times, like if you pushed it down really hard. Boink, boink! We both looked at each other and at the same time exclaimed "DID YOU SEE THAT?". As we continued talking and trying to figure out how it had just happened, we were looking directly at the plant when we saw it bounce like that a second time! We simply could not believe what we had just seen. We tried to debunk it - no, the fan did not do it, the window did not have an air leak, the air conditioning vent was in the living room. This was no fly on a leaf as it had bounced way to hard to be that. There was simply no explanation for that type of movement.

Looking down the hall

Then my husband started seeing shadow figures. He and I spent a lot of time on the couch, and his seat faces directly down our hallway. On one occasion, he thought he saw someone follow our daughter into the bathroom. After she had been in there for a half an hour, he had to ask himself  "who's in there with her?". He got up and went and banged on the bathroom door. "Allie, who do you have in the bathroom with you?" to which he heard "No one Papa." "Allie, I know you have someone in there with you." "No I don't Papa!" "Allie, open this door right now!" She opened the door and said "See, I told you no one is in here with me!" He left the bathroom door scratching his head.

This is not the first time that this had happened, nor would it be the last. Shortly thereafter, another incident happened with Allie's boyfriend Max. Allie and Max had been watching a movie when Allie got up and went into the bathroom. At the time, we had a big doghouse in the dining room (behind the couch where he was sitting) and Max swears he saw Allie run out of the bathroom, dash into the dining room and into the doghouse. He thought she was hiding from him, so he got up, went over to the doghouse and was bent down looking into it when she came out of the bathroom. Allie saw him looking in the dog house and went up behind him and asked "Max, what are you doing?" Max replied that he thought she had just ran past him and was hiding from him in the dog house. I think she could not wait to tell us this when we got home because she knew about other instances of 'the little girl'. Max however, did not until she explained to him at that moment the shadow girl that her and Papa have seen.

Marley's hallway lookout perch

Since then, Will often insists that he sees a shadow figure peaking out from behind the wall that is down the hallway. To top it off, our little Yorkie/Maltese mix Marley will stand on the end of Will's side of the couch and growl and bark up the hallway for no apparent reason. Will has also seen Allie's 'shadow' following her into the bathroom on more than one occasion and has seen it going through the kitchen and up the hallway from where he sits sometimes out back. Always just out of your normal vision range, more like they say out of the corner of your eye. Drifting quickly, always around the same areas.

Our 3 kids :)

Another small 'background' fact that probably needs to be mentioned here is this: when we moved in to this house, we had 3 children living with us, my oldest daughter Jessi, my youngest daughter Allie and our 'adopted' son John. John and Jessi had the two front bedrooms in the house, just to the right down the haunted hallway and across from the bathroom. We lost John at the end of September of 2010 and I often wonder if he looks down upon us or has come back to visit on occasion.

One of my own personal experiences happened the third week of October, 2010, just a few weeks after losing our son. To this day, I wonder if this incident could have been him, or was indeed our 'little girl'. Any way, I was cleaning out our daughter Jessi's room for company to stay in since she had moved out and we had family coming into town from 3 state's to take a trip down to Tombstone (one of the most haunted towns in the US I assume). As I was cleaning, I was organizing some of her remaining clothes into a dresser in the closet that had no drawer handles on it and into two small dressers that were used as a TV stand and an art supply cabinet. I went to open the top drawer in the dresser in the closet to put some socks in there and it was stuck shut. No matter how much pulling and prying I tried to do with my fingers, the drawer just would not open. I remember thinking "Damn it, I will just have to get a screw driver and pry it open in a while".

One of the small dressers

A little later, I opened one of the 'skinny' drawers that ran along the top of one of the small dressers to put some small things in and to my amazement, I found a screw driver. Yes! Now I can open up that drawer and put the socks in it. But as I turned around to pry open the drawer, to my shock and awe, the drawer was open about 6 inches! I could not believe it and immediately called my husband Will on the phone to tell him what had happened.

I continued my cleaning of the room, and within an hour or so, another incident happened in that room. Jessi had bought this porthole mirror at a garage sale with the intentions of hanging it up but she never got it up on the wall. I decided it might make a nice quick glance mirror for my guests and decided to hang it up right over one of the small dressers. Just underneath where I was to hang it was a zebra striped mirrored box that John had given Jessi for Christmas (one of the only gifts that was not stolen on Christmas night when John's car got stolen with all of their Christmas items in it). This box is fairly large, say around 10" x 7". It sticks out aways from the wall. On top of that was a small 2" x 2" plastic photo frame with a picture of one of Jessi's girl friends picture in it that I had propped up on top of the jewelry box and leaning against the wall. Now, keep in mind that this porthole mirror was REALLY heavy. After mounting the mirror on the wall, about an hour later I got the shit scared out of me when the mirror fell off the wall, nailed (and broke) the small plastic picture frame but some how fell completely forward missing the mirrored box completely and was now hanging on the edge of the dresser. Neither the porthole mirror nor the mirrored zebra box had a crack or chip in it, nor were they broken. I was blown away. This was impossible! The mirror did not break and why was the box not broken? In addition, the nail that the mirror was hung on was not bent at all downward like the porthole was to heavy for it. There was simply no explanation for why it fell.

Notice there are a few orbs around that spot

Greg running the EMF scans

To top it off, my friend Greggy came over a few days later with his EMF meter and went walking around our house with it. It only went off down the hallway by the door going into our room and one other place - about a 2' x 2' piece of wall RIGHT where the porthole mirror had hung in that bedroom! It can not be due to electrical lines running through there, as the EMF meter does not go off when put directly touching a light switch or plug outlets nor did it go off going up and down and around the rest of that room or in any of the other rooms. Weird huh?

This thing was going off!

Okay, do you need another beer yet, because I am just getting started here. Sorry!

Other things have happened. Will has heard his name whispered in broad daylight when our mechanic was here. Pieces of wood in the very top of the laundry room outside on the shelves have been moved and put into a laundry basket below on the ground. Stuff disappears, never to be found again. Now I'm not saying that these things happen on a daily basis, but just that they happen with no apparent reason. These are simply mishaps that we can not explain.

It's definitely not a harmful ghost, if there is one. It does not tell us "GET OUT" cause believe you me, we would be GONE. I think it might be what's called a Companion ghost, which is defined by the Texas Society of Paranormal Investigators as "...ghosts that are usually deceased family members or the soul of a child that had lived on the property or near the vicinity."

The smoking chairs below the window

Anyway, back to the history. Another incident when both Will and I heard the same thing at the same time was a month or two back when we were sitting out front smoking. We have two chairs with a small table in between just out front and below Allie's window. This night we both could here muffled talking coming from behind us in Allie's room, like she was on the phone. We have heard her muffled talking while outside a million times before as this is where we sit and smoke most of the time. As he looked at me he said "I wonder who she is talking too now" to which I replied, "Will, Allie is not here. I let her go to Max's over an hour ago." He excitedly asked "You did here that didn't you?" and he could tell by the look on my face that yes, I had heard it too. He told me I must be wrong and that she was still here, but I insisted that she was gone. I told him to go in her room and look. We walked in the house, he flung open the door and saw that no one was in there and there was no radio or TV on (she does not have a TV in there). We were both shocked at what we heard because we BOTH had heard it.

Allie also has a habit of staying up late. I don't mean late as in midnight, I mean late as in 2, 3, 4am. Being in construction, Will works a lot of overnight shifts. One night more recently, he was taking a shower in our bathroom at about 2am getting ready to go to work and heard her talking on her phone in the other bathroom (our bathroom showers share a common wall as they are back to back). He got out thinking "Damn kid needs to get off that friggin phone and go to bed!". But when he stomped out of the room to have words with her, she was not there. Thinking she went into her room, he went in and found her...peacefully sleeping with drool on her face. He was blow away and told me this story the next day when we saw each other.

I had a similar experience just about a week ago now. I got out of the shower and was drying off and getting dressed. I had on my Miranda Lambert CD out in the living room as I had been cleaning. Will and Allie were not home, it was just little old me doing housework, listening to my music and occasionally singing along. All of a sudden, I heard Allie singing along with the CD. Allie loves to sing and we often times hear her singing along to CD's or songs on the radio. I remember thinking "Oh, Allie must have come home. Let's go ask her how her day was", but the minute I opened the bedroom door going in to the hall, I did not hear her any more. So I went looking for her to no avail - she was not home.

Point is, I don't know what is going on in this house nor does it happen on a daily basis. I only know that these things happen and have been happening for years now on a REGULAR basis.  For some reason, we have a feeling that our friend is a child and thus have named her 'the little girl'. Shadow figures, voices, EMF meters that go off, things being opened and moved. Seen and heard by more than one person, not all family members at that. I just can not think that our experiences are just misunderstandings or can be chalked up to us all dreaming these things up or trying to freak ourselves out. Truth is, she does not hurt us, does not scare us and does not seem to want anything other than for us to know that she is here, that she exists and wants to be heard.

I am sure there is more to tell, but quite frankly, I am tired and can not think anymore. I know this is long and it is time to hit the sack. My brain will go over what I have written here now tomorrow and will most likely add some more about our past experiences. I hope that you will stay with me on this journey and will check in for more as more events happen. Until then...sleep with the lights on :)