A critter??

Well, we came home from Keith's party and after putting Kezzie to bed we watched a little TV. I was feeling very tired and decided to go to bed about 10:30 while Brian decided to stay up. On the weekends we like to let the dogs stay up with us to cuddle and since I went to bed, they came with me. Brian kept coming in to make sure they were in bed with me because he was sure he kept hearing them up walking around. Finally about 11:45 he came in one last time and decided he was going to put the dogs away. It was at this time that he told me about his concern..."Something is in our house." I immediately panicked and got out of bed to check it out. As we stood still in the kitchen we could hear claws tip toeing around above us. It (whatever it was) was apparently in the kitchen ceiling. A while before coming in to wake me up, Brian said he heard a loud thud. This was apparently the animal falling into the ceiling from the attic. We listened as the animal made its way to the cold air intake register and we watched without a plan as the animal tried to escape. All we could see was its little claws poking out the vent area. If we had been prepared and if we had known what we were dealing with we would have removed the vent plate and captured him, but instead he gave up and went searching for other escapes, thus resulting in Brian and I staying up into the wee hours just listening for where he was going to go next. I wish I had a happy ending or at least an interesting one, but all I can say is it is still a mystery. Our guess is that it was a squirrel and our hope is that he found his own way out. He has yet to disturb us again though! Now all we have to do is figure out how he got in in the first place!