Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and enjoyed the chilly weather in the late afternoon as Austin received it along with crazy wind.  Mine started off all wrong, but overall it was a good day.

I woke up Thanksgiving morning prepared to enjoy good food and visiting with family and friends.  Around 5:30AM (we are earlier risers everyday) as I was going through my normal routine, my husband came and asked me to help him with something in the kitchen, he needed me to take a look to see if he was seeing something correctly (I immediately thought some SNAKE or RAT had invaded the home, not looking forward to seeing what it was).  As I entered the kitchen, I saw tons of pantry food on the cabinets.  I said WHAT THE (all I could think of was the work that would be involved in taking care of whatever it was that he saw).  He said take a look at this and tell me what you think.  I immediately knew what it was....weevil (WE EVIL).  HOW IN THE .....did they get in my pantry, then you know how in movies where you see flashbacks, I knew exactly how I got them.....

• About 2-3 months ago someone gave me some wheat crackers to try out.  I put them in my pantry when I got home (Friday) then on Sunday I decided to try the crackers with some peanut butter and asked my daughter to make them for me (as she was making a PB&J herself).  She came to me and said mom is this normal and I saw weird casings in the folds of the cracker container and some dead bugs.  I said no sweet heart, put them all in the trash.  I did not think twice about it after that.
• Last month we started seeing bugs flying in the house.  I thought OH NO my plants have gnats again (last time I got gnats, I lost all but 2 of my plants around 10 of them) and I felt so bad because I guess I over watered the plants (did not do the finger test).  So I figured well there goes my last 2 plants.  After looking at the bugs more carefully, they were not gnats, but much bigger and they did not seem to bite when they landed on you (can't say 100%).  We were dealing with these bugs for about a month and it was driving me crazy because I could not figure out where they were coming from and what they were let alone how to get rid of them (never thought about grabbing my camera or a baggie to put them in to investigate later, just wanted to kill them).
• About 5 days prior to Thanksgiving, my husband went to use some Basil and saw a bunch of bugs inside of the container (I started buying my seasonings from the weigh-it section of the grocery store), I could not figure out what they were since they were green (I guess from the basil).  We are supposed to seal all containers tightly before you put them away (mainly to prevent something from going stale), but hey it happens sometimes, so I think that is how they got into the container (unless I did not notice them when I poured the seasoning from the baggie to the seasoning jar).
• About 3 days prior to Thanksgiving, my daughter told us that when she went to get something from the pantry that in the bag where we store the plastic bags from the grocery store to reuse as trash bags, bugs flew out of them.  I figured, maybe a bug got into the pantry and flew out when the door opened.

Well all reality hit on Thanksgiving morning.  Everything and I mean everything was pulled from the pantry and investigated from top to bottom, inside and out and dates were checked.  Everything was opened and poured out to look through, put into separate plastic containers or zip lock bags.  We had an assembly line going (of course my 15 year old did not like being awaken at 7:00AM to help (but do they really)).  My husband pulled the items out and put on the dinning room table, I then went and picked up a group of things, inspected it, wiped it down, etc. and put on 2nd counter for my daughter to dry off and put on the breakfast table (mind you these are all separate rooms, trying to contain the problem).  My husband wiped down the walls and shelves inside the pantry and my daughter wiped down the door inside and out.  The pantry was swepted and mopped and left to air dry while we finished doing the food.  We ended up with a kitchen size trash bag and a black outdoor garbage bag of trash.  Nothing went back in there that was not encased in something plastic.  I figured if they appear at least it will be easy to see where they are coming from and I can discard that product.  I will have to get used to my bread being in the refrigerator (don't like cold bread, but I am sure I will get use to it).  I was so hurt to throw away so much food (a few items were about to expire, but most of it was recent purchases or the expiration date was far off, but it had been invaded).

We had never had this problem before and we have been in this house going on what felt like 100 11 years.  We felt so invaded and just kept wondering what had we been eating before...as my husband always says nothing like a little protein (GROSS).

If the weevils did not come from those crackers then these are the only other ways that I can come up with:

• Food from grocery store had them.
• My vegetables that I bring in from the garden have them.
• Some other product we brought into the house had them.

Have you ever had these before, if so what did you do to get rid of them and what do you do to keep them away?