Duplicate Call to Action

So, not only was I way behind in posting to my blog, but I was also way behind in reading my friend's blogs. Which lead me to many laughs this morning as I read Rachel's escapades of the house and Gabriel. What did not lead to laughs was a very serious issue with adoptions from Guatemala. Please take a moment to visit her more in depth explanation of the problem and consider signing the petition. And just in case you need some help seeing why it's important I put some pictures of the sweetie Gabriel, who they adopted from Guatemala two years ago. Check out Rachel's Blog

Gabriel and I in Guatemala

The Beanlands!

ah, he's so cute!

Bruise Central

Ok, I know I've been way out of touch the past 2 weeks. For some reason work has been pure insanity. So, I figured I owed you guys a new post, and what better to write about than my trip to NC to visit my sister...since I still have the bruises to prove it.

The pupster and I drove up to Brandy's house 2 weekends ago since my parents and Nikole were coming down - we figured we'd meet in the middle. As always good food and lots of laughs were in order. The dogs alone were endless entertainment. Kaylinn and Dudley as always wrestled and played the entire time, barely taking a break to eat and drink (and Dudley up to the point when Kaylinn got there was even so sick they took him to the vet that morning).

family dinner

this was the general state of the two puppies...insanity!

that is until John literally cut (I'm talking using a large saw) the newest bone in half for them. the other 5 bones in the house were not good enough, they both needed this one.

poor Belle is too old for their shenanigans. she was happy if they just left her alone.

a rare moment of calmness

On Saturday, Brandy, John, my dad and I went rock climbing (Brandy and John's newest hobby), which was in fact the whole second time I've ever done this outside, and the first time I've climbed in about 8 years. Needless to say I had to loosen the leg loops of the harness I had set up from when I was just out of high school :) It was an awesome trip and I realized it sure is different climbing outside! First of all you have to lug all your stuff up the mountain, which is not an easy task. To get to Crowder's Mountain you walk about a mile uphill before you can find a spot to drop your rope over. Jo

Brandy and John setting up the ropes

believe it or not this is the easiest way to straighten out the rope once you set it up - repel on down to the ground, which is actually quite fun! granted dropping yourself off the side of a mountain to trust yourself to those carabeiners and ropes you just set up is a bit disconcerting, but much like skydiving if you just do it without looking down it's far easier :)

Brandy repelling down on the second line - we set up two then went to the bottom, climbed those, then went back up to have lunch, set up two more and climbed those. it's amazing how tired you get just climbing 3 or 4 walls!

this is actually what you spend much of your time doing...gets a bit of a workout on the neck

And now for a few superstar shots of us climbing...

yep, still looking up

My mom was kind enough to walk all the way up there and bring us lunch...carrying a cooler, bag of food and lugging 2 dogs that were trying desperately to escape and run free. What can we say, she's a trooper!


Needless to say we were a bit tired when we got home, so after a delicious 'pile everything you can on your plate' taco dinner we headed off to an early bed. Apparently I bruised myself up a bit more than I realized because I still have them all over my legs!

Fondue Friday!

So this is a bit belated, but I found the pictures when I downloaded the E-live pics and had forgotten I took them! 2 weeks ago we had a leftover cheese tray from an event earlier in the week so we got to celebrate our favorite of work holidays - Fondue Friday! A good way to use a tray full of cheese if you ask me :)

mmm, delicious cheese. we ate a little of the leftover fruit as well, just to be semi-healthy

Ellie's first Fondue Friday - she was pretty excited about it as you can see

AND as a bonus this time around, Holly brought everything to make chocolate fondue as well!

Fun in the Sun

So, check out what our reserve has been up to the past 2 days! We have been putting on this online real time program called Estuary Live. It was quite impressive - beyond what we expected as far as schools in the Carolinas we had schools from Pennsylvania, California, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon...! Wild! And one of the ladies at my church was at a friend's house who homeschools her daughter and saw me real time! It was quite entertaining when she told me she watched me on the internet :)

me being the microphone holder during the session I helped with on watersheds

Al showing the kids a loggerhead turtle

behind the scenes in the trailer o' technology

Louie showing kids the fish they caught tramelnetting right behind them!

Visit to the Gov

Wow, this has been a crazy week! I can't believe it's Friday already. This week has been filled with work insanity, so nothing fun has been going on. But, last weekend I had a fun trip to Columbia (the city, not the country), which I have yet to blog about, so in the interest of keeping you all up to date on the goings-on here I'll post a few pics from there, since I highly doubt you want to see pictures of me sitting in my office scowling at my computer :)

So, last Sunday, Maia and I headed to the Governor's mansion to help out with the Governor's Cup Awards Banquet. The Governor's Cup is a big year long fishing tournament that DNR runs, so that is how we were pawned into doing this. It turned out to actually be quite a lot of fun. Granted I doubt it would have been fun at all if Maia hadn't been there, so she gets credit for fun :) Anyway, we drove up and started unloading the van full of all the trophies. I met the Governor's dogs, which are two cute extremely well behaved black labs. I had forgotten that dogs could be excited for you to pet them and yet still not jump up on you :) (Kaylinn is not so good at the no jumping) As we were setting up a mini-van pulls in and the Governor, his wife, and their kids pile out. It was kinda funny seeing someone you always see in suits walk by and say hello wearing a t-shirt and jeans (I guess I kinda forget all these politicos are actually people sometimes). Once the little shindig got started, Maia and I were in charge of registering guests, which involved hanging out and saying hello while they filled out their own nametag - the actual registering was done down at the security gate, so we were glorified greeters. But it was a gorgeous day, so hanging out on the porch with the non-humidity and a lite breeze was certainly not torture. Once most everyone was checked in, Amy came out to hang out at our spot for a while and Maia and I headed in to get something to eat! Ah, it was delicious! There were shrimp and black bean wrap things, tiny crab cakes, crab claws, shrimp, roast beef, spinach dip...and the highlight of my evening...delicious chocolate covered strawberries - of which I got the last one! The awards started and we hung out on the porch for some more and walked around the little garden thing beside their house. And then once everyone started heading home we went inside and mingled around, then cleaned up and headed home. Not a bad 7 hours of work. I mean how many days at the office do I get shrimp and chocolate covered strawberries :)

Animal Circus

Well, not much has been going on in the household this week, so I figured I would post some cute pictures of the cats resting (the kitten resting is not a common occurrence, so I had to capture when I could)...

And then I thought I'd show off our animals' skills. Kaylinn is practicing for a gig as a circus dog...And Leia is considering joining the circus as well with her balancing act...

The Cockroach That Did Not Get Away

Sandor and I came home tonight after family dinner and movie - oh interruption of the story: we saw 3:10 to Yuma which I went into with absolutely no idea of what I was going to watch since I had not seen the trailer for the movie. I have (based on a number of experiences with this) decided I need to see a lot more movies without having watched the trailer - trailers ruin too much of the story line. So, anyway, 3:10 to Yuma is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard and apparently was made into a movie back in the 50s and this is a remake of it. It's the kind of movie that when it ends you sit there staring at the screen trying to determine what to say. It's awesome, and I think one of my favorite things is that it does not give any insight into the thoughts or past of any characters. I realized about half way through that I was annoyed I didn't know what the characters were thinking because I'm so used to movies explaining everything the whole way along, that to have major gaps in knowledge was annoying. At which point I realized that should not be annoying, isn't that what is so difficult about life? You meet people and want to judge them on how they act, but then you wonder what they are thinking and what their past was to lead them to act that way. So anyway, I don't want to spoil the plot because that's what I liked so much about seeing it, I'll just say, I personally would list it as a 'must see'.

So back to the cockroach story...when we walked in the house after our evening out we got our usual welcome home of Kaylinn jumping up to say hello and the cats walking out to look at us (cats are just generally not as excited about anything on earth as I have found Kaylinn to be about most things on earth). Shortly afterwards I notice Kaylinn staring at the ceiling and then look over and Mishu is doing the same thing, so I look up at the ceiling. And low and behold a rather large cockroach is crawling across it.

Now, for those southerns who are reading this you may assume cockroach to be palmetto bug. I however refuse to call them that, because palmetto bugs are just larger versions of cockroaches, they are all gross, and palmetto bug sounds nicer, so I go with the grosser word for the gross animal, well bug, but you know what I mean.

So (I am really having an issue staying on task tonight), I look up and there it is walking across the ceiling. Sandor being the hero he is walks over and knocks it down to the ground with my shoe. It however, being the gross animal (bug) it is flies down and lands somewhere in the vicinity of Kaylinn's crate. At this point Kaylinn and Mishu are on task - Mishu a little less so as I have already explained she is just not that excited about it. After a bit of searching Sandor finds said bug and after a bit of chasing steps on it in the kitchen and then walks away. I, however, have dissected a cockroach in the past and am aware that if those buggers can still be alive after a 2 hour dissection (yes, I screamed when I saw it still moving under the microscope) it can certainly be alive after a mere foot stomping. So I wait to make sure it will not be resurrecting.

Sure enough, it does, however Kaylinn is on the scene. She, not really being extremely sure of what she is doing attempts to play with it in the process maiming it further. But still not killing it. At this point the kitten has caught on that something interesting is going on in the kitchen and comes out for a look-see. Much to her delight there is something moving and she can paw at it along with that dog animal that seems to love pawing at her so much. So detective Kaylinn and detective Leia begin investigating just how much 'playing' this cockroach can take. I at this point, convinced they at least have the menace under control enough to run into the other room go and grab my camera.



The little beastie, tough though he is cannot take too much more of the animals abuse and at some point I do believe dies in the process. Leia, being of the less steadfast species decides that when it is no longer moving she is no longer interested and goes to play with something more entertaining, like a shoestring. Kaylinn however, will not let off the case until she is sure this problem has been solved. So she makes sure that the animal that just made mom scream a few times when it came too close is properly taken care of.

Even Kaylinn can get bored of a boring dead cockroach and eventually she gives up. I however, with the dissection still on my mind hand around making sure this thing is dead (I certainly am not going to pick it up and have it fly in my face). Mishu having watched the whole scene determines that she needs to make sure the two underlings have taken care of the situation and comes over for a final check.

Having decided the coast is clear, she heads off to sit on the windowsill leaving me to watch the cockroach alone. At this point I ask Sandor to flush it (just in case...don't laugh at me you didn't pull one of these things guts out and see it still breathing) and the case is closed. Allowing us all to sleep in peace without the fear that a maimed cockroach may land on our heads in the middle of the night.

Scientizing

So this is a bit of a break in the general genre of information found here on my handy blog, but my friend Ad sent me a link to this blog which I found well worth the reading today. I have often commented on the fact that some of these 'scientific studies' are nothing more than a statement about nothing new and nothing interesting, but I think his synopsis of it is much more entertaining.

Stop the Scientizing! by Xark
http://xark.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/stop-the-scient.html

Lazy Labor Day

Not much happening at our house on Labor Day, although we did convert the guest bedroom into a random activities room. This in turn frees up the dining room table, that has up until this point been looking rather like a bomb of paper went off due to scrapbooking...

into a more presentable actual dining room table looking area.

And thus, the new activities room... Now granted this makes it necessary for us to purchase ourselves an inflatable bed for our guests, but I think it will work quite nicely.

And, although we took away Mishu's favorite hiding place under the bed, she was rather in a good mood and let the kitten get this close to her with no hissing. Quite impressive!

Last on the list of things to do: take a nap. Kaylinn and Leia decided to join me :)

What do we have here?

For the past day we have witnessed the 'meet and greet' ritual between the pets. Mishu is still on her stand off - although she has ventured out to say hello to us a few times today rather than stay in the bedroom all day like she did yesterday (really she's acting a lot like a teenager who is pissed off at their parents). I'd say in another week she should be back to normal - normal being a relative term with her.

Kaylinn on the other hand is really rather intrigued by this new animal in her life which seems to be much less able to defend itself against her than the older, larger version in the bedroom. She has really decided she is quite in love actually. We have to keep telling her to be gentle - which I'm sure does not translate into dog, but we try anyway - and attempt to keep her from trying to carry Leia around the house. At first Leia was quite thrown off by it all, but she has realized that she can escape behind the handy gate that is put up to keep Kaylinn out of the litter box. So today's play time has been made up by Kaylinn and Leia playing with each other through the safety of the gate - it really was quite entertaining. All in all I think the two of them will become friends long before Mishu makes peace with either of them :)



Oh, and for those of you who were unsure if the little kitten could climb the fence (I being one of them), here's video proof... And a video of the two of them playing...

Oh and the wisdom teeth are healing quite nicely. I'm a little tired of my steady diet of mashed potatoes and noodle soup, but after attempting to chew small amounts of a meal last night I'll stick to my boring diet - my mouth was NOT happy about it. Stupid teeth!