Operation Relocation UPDATE

It has been a long, bloody battle but milestones have been made in the relocation department recently.  After a long hiatus, the trappings have resumed and to date, 31 (thirty-one) cats have been relocated and today's capture of yet another possum makes 10.

Pretty sure if I lose my job again I will be doing this full-time.  Until then, remember "You never know what's lurking in your yard until you catch one in a trap."  And for all you who think these things look 'cute', they smell of elderberries, bite, hiss, and growl.

The Farm and Never Ending Projects

Today we had playgroup out at Murray Family Farms, and the kids loved it. We took a hay ride to different parts of the farm and picked blackberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, and my new favorite fruit, donut peaches. Amazing. Sammy could not get enough of the blackberries and I'm not sure how long it is going to take to get the red stain off his face.
Here is the group(minus Sam who won't stand still long enough for pictures) right before the hayride.

And Sams favorite part of the ride, the stairs.

They also had a flower maze, and haystacks and other toys for the kids to play on at the end.

King of the Mountain

In Jail, or the castle as they kept calling it. 

Last Friday Thad and I came to a decision about our room extension and due to several different reasons we have given up the project. We gave up one, but that has created a dozen other projects in it's place. Like this one that Thad spent all day Saturday installing.

Yes, that is a new flat screen, and the bottom half of our old entertainment center. It's not done though, Thad is going to install a door with glass on the left side so we can put our DVD and surround sound and all their buttons behind a latched door, away from little fingers. And yes, we need to center that sign, and that stack off to the right goes where the DVD/SS currently are, so we are still in transition. We had to re-do the whole arrangement of the front room to accommodate the new toy, so when it's done for reals I'll post a picture of the room.
Then, since I never really did anything with our bathroom when we moved in(why fix it up if we would be re-doing it anyway), I have painted the walls and vanity, and picked out a new faucet, mirrored cabinet, and storage cabinet for Thad to install. Lucky guy. Again, when it's done I'll post pictures. I also painted half of the back patio with the new cement paint we discovered, and I'm hoping to finish the other half tonight. That's one of those projects that can only be done after the kids go to bed. "The floor is went, don't walk on it!" doesn't really sink in with Sammy. And we got new plants for the flower bed under our bedroom window.
Then we decided to re-do the closet organization in our room. Okay, maybe it's more like put in closet organization since there is none at this point. And since we are re-organizing that, I decided to move everything in our room around. I like the new layout better I think.
I don't know what happened, It's just this itch I get sometimes and I have to pull everything out and put it back together in a different way. Maybe it's the fact that we've been in this house for 3 years now, which is much much longer than our first several places. It's summer again and I'm not moving so I've got to move the house around instead.

"Dainty"

So I have been thinking about new bedroom furniture for the kids lately. Not that we are getting any tomorrow, but Sammy will not be in his crib too much longer, so I've been thinking about the re-arranging of things. Basically we are moving the bed and dresser that are currently in Andi's room to Sammy's and I'm crossing my fingers I can talk Thad into making this really cute/simple bed for Andi. In the meantime I have been itching to replace the blue fold up table that has been in the corner, and we've had this perfect size piece of "leftover" wood sitting around that was begging to have some legs attached. I just want the furniture in the room to be a little daintier that what she has now. The room is not very big, so I think lighter furniture will help. So here is the cute dainty table we put together with cut stair banisters for legs.

And now that I'm looking closely at this picture, my next project is to touch up the baseboards in her room. Gross.

We have been having some fabulous weather lately. We hit my parents pool last Friday for the first time, and while the water was still a bit chilly it was a perfect day to be playing outside. By Monday however we had rain. I was inside putting laundry away, or something equally as fun, when I heard all kinds of squealing from the backyard. I didn't even know they were outside, but they were both just standing in the rain hoping up and down and squealing. Apparently they really don't care if the water is in the pool or falling from the sky, they love it.

Father & Son '10

Not to be confused with the "Fathers and Sons", this weekend my dad and I spent a wonderful time flyfishing the Tule River near Springville.  Rated in the top ten streams in the coutry to flyfish (Field&Stream), it is one of our favorite spots to fish.  This post will be full of pictures because I like to take them.

 

Although the 3' snow drifts prevented us from our typical 4x4 cross country excursion, we camped at Wishon Campground and hiked up to where we typically fish (8 Miles round trip) - Needless to say, it was a long day but we enjoyed ourselves.

Once we dug around through a few boulders and found the underwater bugs, we matched the hatch and began fishing.

Fishing Trip Statistics 

Total Fish Caught: 85

Largest fish: 16" German Brown

 

Once the time came to leave, we made camp, ate our lunch/dinner and headed out.  Upon passing through Springville, I just had to stop and take a photo of dad in front of the retirement apartments there.  I have always "joked" with him about renting a unit for him there when he retires; which is next year.  He will make some good friends there I'm sure.

Until next year.

Dear Journal,

I apologize for the picture-less post. I have taken none this week. And now as I have gone back and proof read this post, I apologize for the length as well, feel free to skim, or skip, or stop all together.
We had a relaxing Mothers Day weekend. Friday Thad brought home flowers and an entire flat of strawberries that someone brought to work. Instead of making jam, we ate them. It took all week, but we ate an entire flat of strawberries. Thad and I also went to see Iron Man 2 that night, and while I am usually not a fan of comic book movies, I love the Iron Man movies. All 12 of the Spidermans were lame, X-men, eh, only the new Batmans are any good and that might have something to do with Christian Bale, fabulous 4 or whatever they are, blah. But Iron Man was awesome.
Saturday, for my Mothers day gift, Thad offered to watch the kids while I did some shopping by myself. The novelty of that idea, by myself! I did end up taking Andi because she kept telling me she needed to help me find a bathing suit. It needed to be pink and have flowers just like hers. So I drug her all around town and she did really well. We spent the afternoon puttering around the house and cleaning because we hosted the Mothers Day shindig with Thad's family on Sunday. We BBQ'd, but right before it was time to eat some nasty clouds were rolling in, so we moved the party inside just in the nick of time. It poured while we were eating. But it was a really nice day. Andi kept bringing me random toys and saying Happy Mothers Day! And Sammy kept trying to get on the table and smell the flowers. He points at them and sniffs, and if you tell him to say flower, he sniffs.
Speaking of the children. I mentioned last week how Andi decided to get a puppy when I die. Well that's her new favorite phrase. "Mommy, when you die I'm going to. . . (fill in the blank)" Seriously, it's starting to get really irritating. Yesterday she had been asking for a milk shake all day and I kept telling her she had to wait till after dinner. So after dinner she got the milk shake and said, "Mommy, when you die I'm going to have milk shakes all the time!" A pet I understand, but wishing my death for ice cream is offensive!
Sammy is becoming a pest in his own right, a silent pest, but pesty indeed. His favorite way to bug Andi is to wait till she's totally zoned on some show and then he climbs on the couch, get's behind her and sits down. He then proceeds to push and wiggle and kick until he's knocked her off the couch, and then tries to block her from getting back on. Nice. He climbs everything, and twice has been pulled off a ladder right before he actually gets on the roof! He loves to be outside all day long. The yard is really his happy place. He loves to read books, and brings them to me all day long to read to him. A few nights ago I had read him a story and then was reading Andi her story and he decided we weren't done with his book yet. He kept shoving it in my face, and when I tossed it across the room he tried with all his might to close the book I was reading to Andi. When that didn't work, he sat on it so we couldn't see. Sam is also getting "sneaky smart." When you tell him no, or not to do something he stops, but you can see the wheels turning as he tries to find a way around the command, and he often does.
This weekend is Thad's annual camp out with his dad, and they left yesterday morning. So I went and had a girls night and saw Letters to Juliet. It was fabulous. There are chick flicks, and then there are timeless romantic movies like Pride and Prejudice. I could watch P&P over and over and never get tired of it and still get that fluttery happily ever after feeling at the end of it. Letters to Juliet is on the P&P level and will be living in my media cabinet when it comes out on DVD.
So we have been having a bit of a struggle lately coming to a decision about something. Okay, maybe I'm having the internal struggle and Thad is rolling his eyes at me, but whatever. We have been talking about adding on to our bedroom/bathroom since we bought the house almost 3 years ago. Last year we were talking about it seriously and then Thad lost his job. Once he got his new job we started making plans and were just waiting till the spring for better weather and tax returns. Now that the funds are in place and we could really jump in to the project, I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, I've dreamed of this mater suite complete with walk in closet and jacuzzi tub, and built in book shelves under arches on either side of my window seat for some time now. But do you know how many other things we could do with the money we've saved?(Take a Real trip, pay off my car) Or how much time Thad is going to have to put in to this, that he really doesn't have? All of a sudden my bigger bedroom fund seems like much more of a want than I really thought and I'm trying to think of ways to make our current bedroom/bathroom function better. Not that there is much to be done with our miniature bathroom. There will always be a house project in the works no matter where we live, because that's just the way we are, I just don't know if we should do this one now or not. Ugh! And now you can all see Thad's eyes rolling at me can't you?

Nursery, Dentist and More

Last Sunday was Sammy's first week of nursery! Thad and I were definitely more excited about it than he was. I had to run and get things going in primary, so Thad dropped him off, and Sammy did not take that well at all. So after a few minutes they brought him to me and I had to go find Thad and hand him off because I was still busy in primary. So Thad took him back to nursery and stayed with him for a few minutes this time and that seemed to help because he didn't have to come back out. It was a shock for me though for them to bring him to me. Andi went in to nursery a few months early, had no problems, and never looked back. Sam has a totally different temperament, and I think it will be a few weeks before he stays in with no problems. Here is a picture of the BIG boy (that shirt is a size 3) on his first day of nursery.

Thad has been modifying nerf guns again lately, and the kids LOVE when he does this. Mostly because it means all the guns are out and there are parts and pieces and darts all over the place to play with.

Andi had her big dental appointment monday morning where they filled 4 teeth. They do "sedation" at this office, meaning they made her drink "yucky medicine that made me sleepy". It doesn't knock them totally out, just enough where they are relaxed and can't really tell what's going on. Relaxed and everything she still did not like the dentist after this trip. Her biggest complaint was that they "sucked up my lip!" which I assured her was only the spit sucker and they were just keeping her teeth dry. She also did not like that her lip was big, and even though I showed her in the mirror that it wasn't big, just felt like it, she was not happy. Once the drugs wore off though she was back to normal and only occasionally reminds me that she did not like them sucking up her lip.
We have had more interesting conversations with Andi lately. A few days ago she was watching 101 Dalmations and when it was over it went something like this.
A: "Mom, I really wish I could have a puppy."
M: "I know you do, but you know why you can't"
A: "Ya, cos you're allergic to puppys."
M: "That's right."
A: "Mom, when you die, I am going to get a puppy."
M: "That's fine, but you don't have to wait till I die, you can get one when you grow up and get married and have your own house."
A: "Ya, but won't you be dead then?"
M: "not quite."

We had another little project going on last weekend in the front of the house. The front porch has always been covered in blue outdoor carpet. I HATE it and always have, it just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list. So last weekend we finally tackled it. We ripped off the carpet and used concrete paint on the porch and I love it. We also added a cute little pot of plants which helped finish it off. It's not a huge transformation, but I feel like it made such a difference. The problem is I don't have a single before picture. I went back 3 years in my picture folders and found nothing of the front porch.  But here is the after. Ignore the hose.