Goodbye runts!

Last Thursday I had to return the runts to the SPCA. My time of fostering was over. It went good. I didn't cry or get attached and drag one back out the door with me. Our family is complete right now with our 2 dogs and 3 cats (and 4 people) all in one house. I did take some fun pictures of them. And, I actually got to see them sleep for the first time in 3 weeks! It is hard to believe, but they would never lay down and sleep with us around. So while they were in the crate (both in my car and in my office at work) they decided to rest. They couldn't run and jump and fight so they might as well. Here are some pictures of the little ones--not so little anymore!


No kittens were harmed in the making of this picture: I thought it would be cute to stick them in the entertainment center. That's one of Chelsea's favorite hangouts! They were confused.
They are too cute. They were eagerly waiting for me to open the bathroom door to let them out into our room in order to destroy everything one last time! (I can tell you also that the big boy is on the left, then little girl, then little boy. I got to know them pretty well even though they looked so much alike.)

So I released the hounds....or kittens......

They always want on the counter when I am getting ready in the morning and at night. So I thought I'd leave the water on to see what happens. We had another water-out-of-the-tap lover, like Pebbles.

He's checking out the tub. Another favorite hangout for them.

When we are climbing into bed they love to jump around and chase our feet. They gave John a run for his money. He couldn't understand how the little guy was still chasing his legs/feet after 20 minutes. They have never ending energy... (Note the one one on the left is trying to bite John's knee and the other is going for his foot!) They also used his legs to hide behind and wait on another unsuspecting cat to come along and then they would pounce. Too cute!

The little girl was often just hanging out with the brothers while they wrestled. She would try to wrestle too but they would be really gentle as if knowing she was so much smaller and fragile.

The little girl was just so precious.

Here is the evidence showing that they do sleep! See the paw in the face of the one with his head hear the door! Too funny.

It was hard to tell who was who in the carrier, but I think this was the smaller boy. He was feisty and wanted to play in the car on the way to work.

The 2 on the left are spooning and the feisty little guy finally conked out! This is one of my favorite pictures of them.

We had an SPCA dinner get-together on Friday night and the foster coordinator said that they had already fixed them and they were now up for adoption!!! I am so happy that they are now safe from being euthanized!

I just wanted to post a few updates from my gardens. All my plants are doing really well.

(my first blossom on the Black eyed Susan's!

There are over a dozen healthy roses blooming on this one in this picture! (sorry about the dead ones, they were done blooming)

I really love gardening and I hope to get to fun new plants in the gardens again next year. Some changes I will make to the garden before next spring will be:

1) pull out all the plants and layer a sheet of the stuff that keeps the weeds out.

2) make it a little bigger so that I don't have to plant the plants so close to the edge of the grass.

3) I want to add a rock/stone border to make it easier on John when he mows.

I love the experiment of it all.

uneventful weekend...

I had a fairly uneventful weekend. I cleaned house Friday night and I worked Saturday. I didn't get much sleep Saturday night because of the dog. Brinks wouldn't stop barking and she sleeps on the porch right outside my window. She is a good guard dog unless there is nothing visibly wrong to us and it is 4:30-5:30 in the morning and she wont stop. But I got to see the sunrise for the first time at our house (never really payed any attention to it before). So Sunday I relaxed and caught up on some reading. John and Jeff went to visit John's brother, Dan, in York, Pennsylvania. We also had Rachel's two younger brothers, Chris and Tyler, come in with their friend James. (sorry no pictures of them.) The guys also had some training last Thursday night for FF. I have some fun pictures from that.

They had to practice with the hoses and the trucks. (see the 2 guys sitting on top, moments after I took this picture, the nozzle broke and they happened to notice, so it was good that were testing it and not having to use it right then.)
John and Jeff turning on the thing-a-ma-bob and shutting off the whatcya-ma-call-it! The guys rolling out the hoses.

Rachel says this picture reminds her of top gun.

My muscular husband hard at work...

Jeff is rolling the hose back up...

My cute husband (I made him stop for a picture)

Jeff using his muscles...

John and Jeff are fully certified and covered by the insurance to drive the trucks... John was enjoying this opportunity...

Jeff was his eyes on the ground. They did the training at the marina and there were a lot of vehicles with boat trailers attached, so there was a lot to maneuver around.

Cody and Clark attached the engine to the waterline that feeds from the lake. (That's Cody's fiance watching them.

One more pose. Isn't he cute..All in all it was a productive training class for the guys.

This coming weekend is the Eddy's Ice Cream Block Party! It is a FREE ice cream party that I won in honor of the fire hall and the rescue hall. I will have lots of pictures of that I'm sure.

Summer time...

We have had a great summer. I haven't been cooking too much because we have been busy and grilling out a lot. Pretty boring I know. I do have a couple of recipes to show off later, but for now I wanted to share a couple of fun photos from this summer.

John and I were on one of our 'bookstore' dates when we stumbled across this.....
Mall Cops, hard at work.... (too funny)

We recently went to the drive-in to see a movie (pretty bad experience not deserving of its own blog post). This was a little while before they started the movie. (#29 complete, but I hope I get to redo this one and have a better go at it.)

Rachel and I have enjoyed spending a little time going to garage sales the past few weekends. It has also been very hot. This was after I mistakenly opened the fridge to get a water and realized how great it felt. I know, bad for the electric bill....

Last night we decided to give the dogs a bath. That was nothing short of entertaining for Jeff and Rachel, who took these pictures. Brinks was just nasty. John kept making terrible faces. And 'B' just kept shaking all over us! Too funny!

We see how John helps, he played most of the time while I scrubbed Spooky. She didn't mind the bath though because she loved the attention. (yes I decided to stand in the water for Spooky because she weights about 60 lbs. and I wanted to be close to her.)

I hope to get to blog some other fun stuff and recipes this week. Everyone have a great Wednesday night!

My guests....

So, I'm not talking about Rob & Ruth or Kim & Jamie. I'm talking about 'the big boy', 'the small boy' and 'little girl'! As you know I volunteer at the SPCA here in Roanoke. I get emails every week about what I can do to help. A lot of the emails are foster requests that they send out to everyone. Yes, we are fostering these 3 little rug-rats for 3 weeks!

They loved the empty waste basket. I think they like that it is wicker and they can scratch on it.


How can you not love this face....

I don't know if it is possible for there to be triplet kittens but other than the fact that each one one is a slightly different size, they are completely identical right now. They all have the same markings and fur. I will take more pictures of them to share over the next few weeks.

By letting these 3 runts hangout in my master bath/bedroom for 3 weeks I am insuring that they stayed alive; they get to move from the shelter (that euthanizes) to the SPCA (no kill). They will be old enough to be fixed and given their final shots when they return at the end of their three week stay with us. This isn't something that I imagine we will do often since we have some very angry cats of our own right now, and we go in and out of town a lot and to work. John and I just really wanted to get one litter off that list. 3 weeks is nothing in our lives and so much for these little ones.

I didn't spend much time researching, but I found these important and helpful links for anyone who needs help or knows someone who needs help finding an affordable place to take their pets to get them fixed. Please pass them on.

http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/spayneuter/

http://www.spayusa.org/

http://www.lovethatcat.com/spayneuter.html

Roses....

I have had some really beautiful roses in my garden the last few weeks. Here are some pictures of them....

Happy Independence Day!

I hope everyone had a great and safe weekend. John and I had a busy and fun weekend celebrating Independence Day. Before we even got out of the driveway on Friday we were celebrating with authentic Mexican food... I know, not traditional burgers and stuff, we had that plenty over the weekend too but, while we were waiting to leave our house we raided Jesus and Rocio's food stash. They had fresh made tortillas that were still warm. They also had amazing cheese so we made little cheese tortillas. It was amazing. Over the course of the weekend we also had cheese stuffed peppers, cheesy gorditata's, and grilled cheese quesadilla's with home made guacamole. It was all delicious.


We then headed to the lake and played on the water and had fun with all our friends.
Kim & John playing on the water...

Kim realizing she could have used the rescue whistle when her and John broke down on the water.... Luckily someone towed them back...
Eventually we made our way to the grill for some more food. The guys were busy repairing the jet ski from an incident with a plastic bag and stick, I went ahead and started the grill. So I was the grill master. It got dark so Jesus let me borrow his snazzy headlamp. I look like a goofball.
from right: me, John, Rocio, & Crystal...
The next day we found our way to the water fast. Jesus joined us...

here is Kim, me, and Kim's friend Jamie...

Jeff was fishing with Jessie, Crystal and Mike's little girl...Then Jeff had to show her how to undo your line if it is stuck in the water... (insert laughter)

back to fishing, Jesus, Rob (Rachel's dad), Jeff and Jessie hanging out in the boat...

then the guys settled in for a game of horseshoes... Jeff has a serious face...

John has a solid throw with a follow through... (Rob, John, and Jeff) Rachel and Jeff took a little ride on the paddle boat...

Rachel's parents took a little tour of the lake. (Rob & Ruth)

we decided to go ahead and start dinner at a decent hour so we could get to the fireworks... Here I am again helping out with the grill....

Then a bunch of us took off on a boat ride to the fireworks...Kim snapped this shot of us at the fireworks show...

They were absolutely beautiful....

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some of the ladies enjoying the fireworks show... Sarah, Alana, Kim, Jamie....

Me and John...

This was Jesus and Rocio's first Independence Day celebration... They LOVED the fireworks display...

We were on two boats and waited for the boat traffic to clear before heading back to Andy's house....

We had a great weekend and got to rest up on a rainy day on Sunday... it was great to have friends and family come visit and spend such a fun time together....

Check back soon for a glimpse at our current house guests....