Anti-Antisocial Saturday!

This morning I hung up some laundry that Eric had washed last night, and decided to stay outside with it because the sky looked ominously cloudy.  I brought both of the cats out with me - Mystic loves being outside and Addy begs at the door to be let in.

Eric and I generally stay in on Friday and Saturday nights.  We usually have to wake up early and are babies about getting enough sleep, and being home means that he can game online with Steven.  Tonight we abandoned that to go to Ross's birthday party with a bunch of friends.  We were some of the first to arrive, and Eric and Steven were lucky enough to get in on a game of Circle of Death.  This is a family friendly blog, so I won't go into too many details of the night, haha.  However a good time was had by all, and the three of us agreed that we were really glad that we decided to go out.  We had all seriously considered skipping the party, and we had a great time.

After me got home, Eric passed out on the couch, and Steven and I talked about how we are neo-hippies because we have made various activist lifestyle changes.  We both recycle, he is a vegetarian and Eric and I are considering going down that path, we line dry, reduce electricity use, etc.  This causes people to thinkthat we think we've better than them, that we're uninformed about our choices, that we're going to pressure them to change etc.  It was a really good conversation, followed up by watching "Tapped" again on Netflix.

 It was so relaxing to put up the laundry and then sit down and read a few chapters.

I was SHOCKED that Addy explored further down our porch area. 

Mystic laid in the extra chair the entire time we were outside, she was soooooo happy! 

Addy pondering what lies beyond our porch. 

These party cups have cool chalkboard nametags where you can scratch off your name. 

Circle of Death!

Eric shooting the air gun in Steven's eyes.  They definitely took turns shooting one another.

Summer is Over!

Eric would argue that he hasn't had a summer at all, and would be correct.  However, my summer has involved spending my every moment with my buddy Jack.  For the past three summers I have started work with him during the first week of June, and ended in the first week of August.  And in past summers I had days off for vacations, our wedding, etc.  This summer had no days off, and yet has passed faster than any prior year.  Sad times, it means the school year is right around the corner!

I took him to his dentist appointment today, and they let him be the dentist!  Too cute!

I've been teaching him how to use his iPod as a communication device, and he used it to choose a pig for his face painting!

He was really interested in the music instruments at Wonderscope.  

The chimes were fun, fun, fun! 

This is a super cool contraption at Wonderscope, is sucks up handkerchiefs and then they fly out of various openings depending on which switches are pressed.

Etc. Stuff

This is mostly a picture:story post - surprisingly enough, the cat focused part of the post lacks pictures!  

In the beginning of July, I had our carpets professionally cleaned because Mystic has a bad habit of not making it to the litter box.  I must not have thought this all the way through, because she was back at peeing on the carpet a few days later.  She is sneaky about it though, and never does it when we're around.  So our new routine is to keep her locked in the bathroom (with food, water, and a separate litter box) when we're not home or asleep.  I'm thrilled to report that we haven't had a carpet accident since!  Hooray for having a house that doesn't smell like cat pee!

Last week we came home and Eric noticed Addy was limping.  I felt so relieved that we have a section of our savings account earmarked for pet expenses.  So the worry of the cost of taking her to the vet didn't overshadow our worry of what was wrong.  We spent the evening trying to make her sit still, and I held an ice pack on her for ten minutes.  Luckily, the following morning the limp was gone.  Who knows what happened, but we're glad she's feeling better!

My summer has been full of working with my nanny kiddo - and he's been working on bowling this summer.  His form has something to be desired, but he's bowling in the 50's or above!

I've also been working on programming his AAC app on his iPod - he doesn't speak well, and he's picked up really quickly how to use it to say his words!

 My nanny kiddo also has this awesome body sock.  It is a nylon bag that provides sensory stimulation, and I caught this really cool picture of him!

Eric's summer has been spent wondering whether or not to buy some new games.  Addy broke him down, and now the are playing Age of Empires I, II, and III, Bioshock 1 and 2, and Unreal Tournament 3.

Eric and I housesat for Papa while he was in Michigan visiting Molly & family.  I used this as an opportunity to further unpack and organize his house.  This is his dining room, starting to look like a dining room!

This is his office, now empty of boxes and fully set up!  There is even a pillow for Frisco to sleep on while Papa works.

The guest room is also empty of extra boxes!  It has a bed, bedside table, lamp, and rug.  Perfect for someone to roll in for a night or weekend to visit.

I've also upgraded my clothesline!  The old one was nylon and flaking off strands on our clothes.  This is pvc, and affixed with L brackets - I used the two screws to secure the brackets to the porch, and then the pvc wire goes through the other two screw holes.  Now I just need to do some laundry!

This massive heat wave (temps over 100 for the past two weeks) has killed off most of the leaves on Grammy's tree :(

Some of the branches appear to be dying...

However there are still some that are holding on for some hope.  We got some rain today and have more in store for the next week.  Hopefully the leaves pop back up...we'll see.

We really let our budget get away from us this summer.  So we're attempting to go all of August without eating out.  Fast food was definitely a weakness for us over the past two months.  This is our last hoorah before that kicks in (this was on July 30th!).

This is Ashley's new room in her apartment.  She has officially moved out to Hays, KS for her first semester of state college, woo!