Roommates

So...this morning I had to fish Simba (the cat) out of the back of my roommates closet so that he wouldn't be locked in the bedroom all day long. As stood up with Simba in my hands, my head had barely popped back out of the clothes when I was pounced on by both dogs trying to get a good sniff of the cat! After having to catch myself from falling back into the cottony abyss while at the same time trying to protect Simba from a couple of overzealous slobber mouths...I decided the pups needed a lesson in getting along and controlling their urges to poke and prod at Simba. I took all three of them into what we call the "cat's room" (simply because his food is in there and the room isn't really used for anything other than random storage)...I sat them all down together and forced them to just sit there and enjoy each other's company while behaving like ladies! Luckily Simba is very easy going and nothing really gets to him. On many occasions I have come home to find the three of them all laying in the hallway together but if Simba runs or jumps...the chase is ON! Not really sure if this lesson will do any good
(probably not), but it was fun for me and a good photo opportunity too!

New addition to the Young family!!!

So I'm happy to announce that I am a proud "honorary aunt" as of June 27th at 7:00 am sharp! Mindi Young gave birth to her first baby, a beautiful little girl named Morgan Elizabeth this past Wednesday and I'm happy to say that everyone is happy and healthy. Morgan was 7 pounds 14 ounces and 21 inches long. Although the doctors and nurses were set to discharge the new family at the routine 12 hour timeline (after 7pm), due to the fact that they live over an hour away from the hospital they decided it was better to be safe than sorry and keep them overnight for observation just in case. By Thursday morning they were back in their home, greeted by a large number of family members in town from Idaho. Congratulations to all of them on welcoming their 9th immediate grandchild (niece, cousin etc...)! A week later Mindi and Nick brought Morgan down for her one week old check-up and everything was great...she'd even gained about an ounce! It's hard to believe how much she has already changed and it's only been a week! It should be exciting to watch her grow and become more expressive...but as you can see...she is already becoming quite the comedian!

Just before pruning all the palm trees...

Baylie loves to swim and then rub off any excess water on anything holding still, a towel draped on a chair, your legs, or even a low lying branch on a tree. For the past few weeks she has really enjoyed hiding her toys under the broken palm tree branches and rubbing in and out of their long fanned out fingers for a nice back scratch. Although this ritual was quite comical to watch, the branches actually hung low enough to cause an obstruction to people trying to walk around the pool. To tackle this problem last Saturday Mom, Laurah, and I decided to put together a brand-new pole saw, get out some ladders and start chopping up the trees. The tree in the middle wasn't too bad because it was short enough that I could climb up on the small but sturdy yellow ladder. The two outside trees are significantly bigger and I was forced to use the 12ft shaky brown creaking ladder...not so fun, especially because up above my head I was holding the pole saw at full extension! The tree limbs seemed fairly safe to cut because the blade could knaw throuth them fast, before my arms got to tired and they fell slowly. The big heavy torpedo shaped seed pods were a much different story...they took forever for the saw to slice through and then it was any body's guess where they were to fall! The smallest weighed probably 5-10 pounds and was 3 feet tall and the scariest must have weighed 40 pounds and stood as tall as my shoulders! I was afraid that it would fall on my head knocking me off the 12 foot ladder and into the pool with the electric saw to electrocute myself with...that didn't sound too appetizing so we came up with the bright idea to lasso the top of the pod with a rope so that we could try and guide the pod to fall away from me. As I stood on top of the ladder sawing, Laurah was holding the legs of the ladder trying to keep it from wobbling and Mom kept tension on the rope. I couldn't quite "go-go-Gadget" myself tall enough to completely saw off the pod so I ended up down the ladder yanking on the rope until the last portion of the pod cracked and broke itself out of the tree and luckily it missed all of us! So now Mom's back yard is cleaned up, nobody got injured, and the only one disappointed was Baylie because her low lying limbs are now in the garbage!