Late Updates!

I haven't blogged in a little more than a month - so we'll just go for a photo dump!  It's been a pretty plain month though.  The weather has been fairly warm, though we did get a little bit of ice once.  I immediately hopped online and bought a set of YakTrax for Eric and me, so he doesn't fall while working and I don't fall on Squish.  Currently, Mom and Alan are in Mexico and Ashley is on her way home.  Eric is house sitting for them, and I can't wait to have him back at home next week!

A shot of our 2011 Christmas tree.  We never decorated it, but I used it to hold all of our Christmas cards and the Rainbow fish that Kelli and Tracy made for me!

 I had Cameron, Caleb, and Colin over for a fun night while Paul, Deb, Brian, Jen, and Eric wrapped up the winter mini-tour at Old Chicago.  We had a great time!

We house sat for Papa while he was in Michigan visiting the Murray's.  Addy came along so we didn't have to leave her home alone.  By the end of our time there, Addy and Frisco were coexisting fairly nicely! 

New Year's Eve at the Green's, in Smithville.  We played "Truth Be Told", which isn't nearly as fun with people who aren't as close with one another. 

Ready for 2012! 

Eric's champagne and my sparkling juice! 

Cheers!  It's Squish's year!!! 

Addy on the drive home from Papa's house. 

After holiday break, Kelli and I discovered that we had another person moved into our office!  It was a bit stressful to happen with no notice.  But we have since rearranged our office and it's all worked out! I actually think I like the new configuration a lot better.

Eric and I spent a nice chunk of savings and Christmas money on a new computer.  Brian helped Eric choose all of the parts and build it, I set up our wireless headphones on the TV and the computer, and now all we need is a wireless keyboard and mouse so we can use it on the TV. 

Mom got Alan a helium shark for Christmas - here it is peeking out of Alan's car. 

Alan was an instant pro at using the remote control to maneuver it around the house. 

 

He used it to intimidate the dogs.

 Such a cool toy!

Ashley bought me a dress preservation service before the wedding.  Since then, my dress and the kit have been tucked away in our closet...oops.  So two weeks ago I tried the dress on (and it still fit!) and packed it away! 

So sad to see my dress go, but it will be clean and in a preservation box when it comes home.

Double Date Day

This afternoon I had a date with Mom and Papa to see Final Destination 5 in 3D.  We did the Fork and Screen and had some lunch with our movie.  We all thought it was really good - and they made awesome use of the 3D.  I ended up going on half.com and buying the first four movies (for less than $10) as soon as I got home.

Then in the evening, Eric and I had a date at the KC Improv Comedy Club.  I got an email for four free tickets and we brought Steven and Alison with us.  We saw Bert Kreischer - he ended up telling us a bunch of stuff of the top of his mind, none that he had done in stand-up before.  Afterward, we hung out in the parking lot for a few hours.  Many laughs were had!

Mom and I were purchasing our tickets to Final Destination 5... While standing in a puddle of water surrounding the electric ticket machine... 

I caught this awesome picture of the pups before we left for the comedy club.

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!

Day 349: Trains & Fire

The highlight of this work day was taking my nanny kids and Andrew to see Thomas the Train with Mom and Papa.  Unfortunately Eric was at work for this, and had to miss chasing kids in 95 degree weather, haha!  Bryson didn't have much fun, until we got to a table where he could color.  Jack and Andrew seemed to love it all.  And the grown ups, well, we enjoyed seeing the kids have fun.

Then after Eric got off work, we picked the motorcycle up from Mom & Alan's house and rushed home to pack for camping.  I added Eric to the insurance today, and he raised it from $148 to $300/year (almost $100 of that because of his speeding ticket in August).  We packed my car with the camping gear, and then we drove out to Clinton Lake separately so he could ride the bike.

It was an interesting night - cooking and conversations around the fire, partially clothed swim in the lake (others were in various stages of dress, Eric and I remained clothed!), and the annual burning of confidential school documents!  This was a really fun event with Steven and Leslie last year, and this year our crowd was kind of a buzz kill about it.  The burn didn't exactly go smoothly, and instead of having fun with it, they just called us various names and moved to the other fire pit.  Lame x a really big number.  We headed to bed, and spent some time looking at the starts and using a sky map app to help us find constellations - very cool.

Andrew with my stuffed hippo - Mippo.

Andrew, Me, Bryson, Sit Toppemhat, and Andrew.

Bryson, Me, and Andrew on the train!

Jack, Mom, and Andrew on the train!

Bryson, Me, and Papa on the Thomas train!

Finally, something Bryson enjoyed!

Andrew's first (?) time in a bounce house, he loved it!

Mom and Andrew going down the slide.

A year of work up in flames!

Oops...it fell over...

Burn, baby, burn!

The papers were so scrunched together, it took forever to burn through.

Very cool to watch it burn!

Day 330: Camping Part 2 (and Finishing Moving Papa!)

Our weekends seem to be busier than our week days!  We had a nice slow morning - eating donuts, marshmallows and breakfast burritos around the campfire.  Nursing the boys' hangovers.  Packing up the campsite.  That would appear to be enough to fill a day - go home, shower, and go to bed...  Not for us adventurous folk!  We showered and rested for about 30 minutes, but then we drove out to Olathe to finish getting Papa out of his apartment.  Now that the apartment is totally empty - his house (which is over twice as big as the apartment) is brimming with boxes.  So now our goal over the next few weeks is getting Papa UNpacked. -deep breath-

Eric had a two major wipeouts - one where he fell over the fence cable (about thigh high, dividing the camp site from the road), and one where he was running toward the lake and clotheslined himself with one of Chris and Daniel's tent cords.  This picture shows the damage from the latter - he had gross oozy bleeding for quite a long time that night.

Goodbye camp site 11!  We'll be back to visit you and sites 12-13 some other time!

Our awesome group photo, but Brian was in his car...oops!

The picture + Brian didn't turn out as well, but he was there too!

I was happy to see the kitties when we got home.  I think they were happy to see me too, because they didn't fight about being held at the same time!

On our way to go  move Papa, we took our first load of recycling over to the middle school in Eudora - our closest recycling pick up.

Eric preparing for the afternoon/evening of work with his 5 Hour Energy!

Papa and the last item to leave apartment 321 - a cow planter with a half live flower plant!