90th birthday

This is Lauren with Grandma (that would be Lauren's Great-Grandma). It was Grandma's 90th birthday, and she got everyone together in Wisconsin where she and Grandpa Chuck always vacationed.









The whole group. Lindsey couldn't come, so not the *whole* group! Lindsey, cousin Michael's girlfriend, and cousin Lyndon and his wife Lorina were missing. Other than that it is the whole group. I think! That is Chuck's tree in the middle.


This one is not from the birthday trip, this is Richard at the lake after riding the jet-ski at Elephant Butte. He was very excited.

Many more pics to come.

Junior Zookeeper

Richard participated in a junior zookeeper program at our zoo. It was a week long, and he had a great time. He got to help feed and clean up after most of the animals, and spent a whole morning helping to prepare the animal's food. He had a great time, and he got hugged (on the leg) by an otter!

P-Bear

A few weeks ago Richard and I received a package in the mail, P-Bear clothes! My sister makes Paddington Bears (and their clothes), she made one for me when I was little (the lighter one) and one for Richard when he was a baby. Mine is all worn, there isn't much fur left. Richard's is nice and fluffy.
Well Richard's P-Bear has been wearing an old baseball outfit that was Richard's when he was a baby, waiting for clothes. Right around my birthday about a month ago we finally got clothes for him! Yay! Thanks Alison!

Monster Jam!!!

Richard and I went to Monster Jam in El Paso Saturday night, it was incredible! I only have a few photos that I took on my phone right now, Richard took a ton that we still need to get developed. For now, here is El Toro Loco, El Paso's favorite truck. The crowd just went crazy every time the announcer would even mention El Toro Loco, and there were tons of kids running around with red hats with bull horns! So cute!


This is Maximum Destruction catching some crazy air. Max D won the Freestyle part of the night. You can see the crowd in the background, the Sun Bowl was completely sold out. It was crazy. We had so much fun, Richard got autographs and pictures with each of the drivers before the show. They were all really nice, and all were willing to take a second to talk to the kids, even though there were thousands of people there. What an awesome night with my boy!

H2O cat

I don't even have normal cats! Every morning Ren sits on the bathroom sink until I turn on the faucet, then she sits in the sink and lets the water wash all over her. She just sits there and drinks and showers, loving the water. I guess that is what happens when you name your cat after a mosquito...

Myspace

So Lauren and Lindsey convinced me that I needed to get a Myspace page. Well, I did it, but I am not too sure of the whole thing. They assure me that it is a very cool thing, but I kind of feel like a jr. high student again with the whole "will you be my friend thing." Lauren assures me that it is ok to ask someone to be my friend, that though I may be a total dork, this is not why!
Here is my Myspace page, if anyone is interested:
www.myspace.com/rejsmom

Black Dog

My poor Black Dog, she is a mess without Bailey. She is bored and so she gets in trouble. That is my mom's brand new bamboo blind in the background, chewed to pieces. It hadn't been installed yet, she chewed the package open. She used to stay outside most of the day, and she was ok, she and Bailey ran and played, and chased kids along the fence. They had their own inside paito room with a dog door, and came all the way in occasionally to visit. She came inside more often with Jake (my sister and brother-in-law's dog) when he was down visiting, and though he helped her to calm down and be a good inside dog when people are here, she can't be alone inside because she gets into the garbage and chews everything. That still would be ok, but now she is not satisfied to ever be outside, ever! She is in at night now but needs to go out when my mom is at work and Richard is not hanging out over there.

Jake also taught her to knock down the dog-door cover, so she comes into the patio room and bangs on the inside door, she even knocked it off of the track. I tried to take her to my house for a while, but she chases the kittens (they just love to run fast, it is too tempting!) and she tears down my screen and patio doors trying to come in.

I know what the dog whisperer would say, she needs an hour long walk every day! She would probably be ok with a friend, but with the unexpected litter of kittens I am not sure I can do that yet! Hopefully when the kittens get a little older she can be with them. She is 13 or so, I would love to have her inside all of the time where it is warm during her last few years, but we can't have someone at mom's house with her all of the time.

A friend may have to be the answer, we will see....

Our Visitor..

We have a kitty that comes and visits, we don't know where he lives, but he is pretty fat, so he probably has a home. We put food out for him anyway! :-)

He is mostly white, with black on his head, and has long hair. Richard has named him Tigger. Our kitties like to gather and talk to him through the sliding glass door. It has been so cold lately, I would love to bring him in. He is a little shy though. I am hoping that he does have a good home somewhere, since I kind of have a full house!

Stimpy, hanging out. He is very laid back.

Mew, she seemed to be really shy at first, not very social. But lately she has really become a people-kitty.






The twins, sort of. They seemed identical when they were little. Ren though, (the one in back) has become very fluffy. She has a full coat, not long, but full and fluffy. She looks like a snow leopard. Roo, the one in front, is sleeker and her coat is has stripes, while Ren has spots.
These two were always the first to do anything when they were little. They were the first to get out of their birthing area, the first to scale the baby gate, etc. They have calmed down a little, and Mew was the first to climb my curtains! Ra has taken over lately as the resident mischief maker. He loves to get into trouble.

Kitten pix

These pictures are 2 months old. The kittens from our litter are 3 1/2 months old in these, and Lou is 6 weeks or so.



This is Lou, a friend from work found him on the mountain. She was going to keep him but her dogs were a little rough with him, so he joined our litter. Bastet has adopted him and he nurses with the others.



Ra (named by Richard after the Sun God), stalking something.


Lou.


Sir Lou, that is.



Almost the whole tribe.

Snow!!!!

We have gotten a TON of snow over the last week (ok, a ton for Southern New Mexico). We really don't get too much at my house, even though we are within walking distance of a decent sized mountain. Usually you have to take a half-hour drive or so to see much snow in the winter. I really don't like the cold, but if it is going to be cold I would like to at least see some snow! Well, I got it twice this week. It snowed in the beginning of the week, and I actually still had some in my yard when it snowed again last night. It rained like crazy most of the day though, so now it is all gone.








This is my house at about 6 this morning. The clock on my camera is wrong, it says 6pm, but it was am.






The Ash tree in the yard had started to get buds on it before the snow, I am not sure if they survived the cold.





This is the Garden God in the first snow, he can still see the yard.





After today's snow he was pretty covered.






The frog and turtle checker board is still visible after the first snow...



But this morning it was gone!! :-)



The heavenly bamboo looked really pretty dusted with snow.



And my very favorite of the pictures, Richard enjoying the snow, coming down like crazy! He, by the way, took most of these pictures. He is a great photographer.

Busy days...

It has been very busy lately, I guess it is a good thing that I haven't had much computer time, that means we've been doing lots of cool stuff.


The kittens are all comfortable in the new house, enjoying every inch of it.



Richard's favorite car is the Fort GT, so when the local Ford dealership got one in we went down to take a look. Richard was so excited! He was a little jealous that his uncle (who works for Ford) got to drive it, but he was still excited.


While in Albuquerque a while back we went to the Unser Racing Museum. Richard was really excited about it, and who do we see when we walk in the gift shop but Al Unser himself! He was really nice, talked to Richard for a few minutes and took a picture with him.

We had a good Christmas, though it seemed like it went really quickly. Richard loved hanging out with his Uncle Vince, they went to see Eragon at the movie theater and have been cruising around town all weekend. Richard will be sad when he and Alison head back to Colorado.

Cleo

I haven't been keeping up with this at all. I have so many pictures to put up, new kitten pictures (2 months old now), pictures of the new house, from the Live and Learn Conference, TKD, etc. But I didn't really feel right putting up any pictures of happy stuff until I talked about Cleo.

Cleo died suddenly while Richard and I were in Albuquerque for the Live & Learn Unschooling Conference. Before we left for Albuquerque, I took Richard's cat Tut to the vet because I knew he wasn't feeling well. He had a dental infection, and was great with some antibiotics and pain pills. I didn't realize though, that Cleo was sick too. She was a fairly reclusive cat anyway, and wasn't adjusting to the kittens well, so I didn't worry about her hanging out in the bedroom alone. I found out during the big dinner that she had died. Thankfully mom found her so she didn't die alone. Dr. Staley kept her frozen for us, and Richard and I buried her in the backyard of our new house when we got home. Richard felt strongly that we take her to the new house even though she never lived there, so she didn't think we just abandoned her.

1701

Well, I have been a home-owner for 4 days now! It feels like a month though, since I have been working on the house for almost that long. My loan (FHA) required that the house be painted and the owners wanted to sell as-is..... so......
I painted the house. Tim helped a lot, replacing boards and scraping and such. I did all of the painting over about a week. I did have a friend come by and help a little, but I pretty much did it all myself. The house was white before, now it is Holly Green. Now I have to start on the inside which is also all white!

First though, off to Albuquerque for the Live and Learn Conference. We are driving up Wednesday as soon as I get off of work, and staying until the following Tuesday. Should be fun!

Bailey

We lost Bailey on Friday. She was fine when we went to bed Wednesday night, but Thursday morning she was bloated and groaning in pain. The vet said that she must have drank a bunch of water, then rolled around or something causing her stomach to flip over. They opened her up and drained a gallon and a half of water out of her stomach, then pinned her stomach to the sides of her abdomen so that it wouldn't flip again. He said that they have had really good luck with the surgery in the past, but she was just too old (13 or so). She made it through the surgery, and even was sitting up later, but the next morning (Friday) she had a heart attack. They were able to revive her once, but then she had another one and was gone.

She loved her stuffed "babies," she didn't chew them at all, just carried them everywhere.

Black Dog is lonely now. She has never been alone before. She has been spending lots of time with us, but I don't think it is the same.
We got a sympathy card from our vet today, that was really sweet. We lost Ginger, our 22 year old calico cat, in February. That makes losing Bailey harder, I think. There is always new life though, our new kittens are 3 weeks old and getting pretty mobile.

We'll miss you Bailey!

Dirty dish art...

One of the (many) things that I love about Richard is his ability to find beauty anywhere. He came to get me saying that there was art in the dirty dishes. Sure enough, a beautiful spiral with a yin-yang in the middle, right in a soaking cereal bowl. I bet it was a crunchy, laid back cereal, like Kashi. I wonder if a more intellectual cereal like Boo Berry or Peanut Butter Captain Crunch would produce a more Fibonacci-like spiral...

Wasps in the window...

There is a wasp nest in one of the bedroom windows, and one in the back yard. They really don't bother us at all, the only time we see them away from their nest is at the fish pond. They land on the algae to drink the water. Oh, and at the new hummingbird feeder, they love that. I need to get some pictures of that, but here is the nest through a very dirty window.



Uh, yeah that is a spiderweb going across the window... I just hate getting rid of spiderwebs.

The Kittens are 11 days old now, they are so cute! They still are basically just sleeping and eating, but a few are trying to open their eyes.

Bastet (mommy) keeps moving them. The first time was probably just to get them away from their birth place. The second time was right after our male (Tut) came into the room and saw their hiding place. Tut was scared silly of Bastet, and ran, but she wasn't taking any chances and moved the kittens to the closet.


These pictures are from a few days ago, they are probably about a week old in them.


They are all piled up in the corner of the closet, under a shelf.


We tried to get pictures of all 5 kittens seperately. This one was mewling LOUDLY for mom, she came quickly!


This one didn't even wake up.


Their ears are still folded over, according to the books they probably are just starting to hear.


This one seems to be the most active of them, she also looks a lot like the male down the street! The rest look like mom and the male that I saw with mom the night that she snuck out.


This one looks the most like mom.