Lots of Reasons to be Happy

Last night my little niece Leah came over with her mom and her grandma, and her great grandmas to paint pottery with some ladies from the church. But she didn't have any interest in painting pottery, she wanted to be with her uncle instead. So Leah and Adam hung out together and played golf on xbox and watched the Pistons game. (Adam had a little help from the grandmas when she finally got board of her chair.) She is so cute in her chair, I had to try really hard not to laugh while I was recording this video.

The rest of us had a good time painting pottery. It was a lot of fun to have people over. With all the remodeling we've been doing we haven't been able to have people over (except family, they never shun a messy house.) Speaking of a messy house, I had an awesome surprise when I got home from work tonight. My mother-in-law has a key to my house...that could be a bad thing for some, but for me it means surprise house cleanings, homemade meals and clean laundry. All the laundry on the spare bed that I have been avoiding was folded and put into laundry baskets. All the beds were made, even mine and all the stuff I had left on the floor was put away. And when I got home from work yesterday, she had been to the pottery store and stocked my shelves so full of paint, it looked like I was running a store out of my house. Before I was married, I was under the impression that mother-in-laws were a bad thing, I guess I got lucky.

We have a really great group of ladies at our church. We had one person in particular who was especially entertaining... thanks to Jackie we all had several good laughs. And thanks to Dawn and again my mother-in-law we had lots of help prepping green ware/bisque. We will have to do this again sooner than later.

Spring in Michigan

While I was going through some of my pictures on my computer, I noticed that one of the folders was titled "Easter Weekend Surfing 2007." I thought that was quite a coincidence because I was planning on today's blog being about just that, only for 2008. Yes, Adam is that crazy. He and his friend Justin drove an hour and a half yesterday so that they could surf. You have to realize this is Michigan, and it was (thankfully) in the 30's, and spring this year brought about 7 inches of fresh snow. We are less then 15 miles from Lake Michigan, yet they had to go an hour and a half to find perfect waves. When surfing the lake, apparently, the good spots move up and down the (lake) coast depending on the wind patterns and pier positioning. I didn't go with the guys this year to take pictures. Unless it's close to our beach here, I stay home. They don't take surfing for granted, they spend the entire day in the water and then come home and pass out. It's nothing like the ocean. You might only have good waves for a few hours before they die out or get too blown out. So you have to get as much of them as you can when they are good. I'm anticipating the warmer weather so that I can join them. I like the smaller waves and warmer water that late spring offers.Adam waxing his new surfboard he bought Friday. (I wonder how Adam's mom will feel about him doing this on her living room floor?)
This picture was taken last year on Easter weekend. (Justin and Adam)

Walter seemed thrilled about the new snow. He ran, jumping and sprinting through the yard, he was even eating the snow.

Notice the snow all over his face from throwing snow up while he ran around.

He looks like he wants to pounce on something. I steered clear. He has a tendency to jump on people when he's really happy.

Here is a picture of the shoveled sidewalk, you can see how deep the snow was even after it had a day to settle down.

Happy Birthday PJ

Today is my friend Carolyn's birthday, she is 30 something I think, I can't remember. I used to work with her at my sister's office just less than a year ago. On my first day of work there, I said to her..."do you know who screened me when I came for a physical a couple years ago?" I was just curious if that person still worked there, so I described that person to her... "older, grayish hair, short." Carolyn was like..."There is no one who works here that fits that description." But her curiosity got to her, so she went to my chart to see who it was... it was HER who screened my that day! When she told me, I was so embarrassed. I felt so bad that I described her as an old lady. You would think she'd hate me forever, but we hit it off that very day and have been friends ever since. I still call her an old lady, but she thinks I'm kidding...lol..:) I call her a lot of things, but PJ stuck the best. I started calling her that because she went on a diet one time and lost so much weight that her scrubs looked like pajamas. I had so much fun working at my sister's office, I think a little too much fun sometimes. I made up Indian names for everyone. PJ's was "Dies-Gray-Hair." I won't say what they came up with for me, it's too embarrassing to post. I had 2 though, one of them was "Sneaks-A-Side-Of-Beef" I'm vegetarian, always have been, I don't even like meat, but I guess they thought that was something I secretly did or wished I could do. I was always doing something mean to PJ to make her laugh. She always took the insults like a champ. I think she almost enjoyed it when I pasted her photo to the incontinence flier and passed it around the office.

PJ makes the best cherry dessert. Whenever she comes this way she always brings me a container of it. I really lucked out too, because Carolyn has a twin sister that lives on this side of the state, so whenever I need a "Carolyn fix" I just go visit or call Marilyn. I promised her if I ever got two pets at the same time, I was going to name them Carolyn and Marilyn. Catchy don't you think?

I hope that they were good to her today at work, since it's her birthday. I miss you PJ, hope you had a really great day! Wish I could have been there. I bet I could have really embarrassed you some how. Have a very happy birthday!

Those are some sexy undies PJ! Who's are those?

Expensive Pets

Remember THIS look? It's the look of a sick puppy. When Walter got up this morning his foot was hurting so bad that he wouldn't walk on it. I have never seen him limp before. Not even after his episode a couple weeks ago on the ice. His sore was doing better, but there was apparently an infection brewing underneath. He's on an anti-inflammatory and stronger antibiotics. The vet said he could even loose a toe nail if the swelling doesn't come down. I know our wood floors would appreciate that, but he would still have 19 others, so it wouldn't really make a difference. I hope he's feeling better by tomorrow. He was really pathetic at work. Everyone was feeling sorry for him. Me especially! I'm a sucker for a hurt animal. We are frequent visitors of several local vets. The lady at the front asked us if we were the ones that had the miracle cat. "Yes, that's us, and she's doing just fine." For those of you who don't know, Adam found Dea under his parents porch barely alive when she was maybe a week or two old. He took her to the emergency vet, who told him it didn't have a heart beat and to go home and bury it. On the way home however, it made a noise, so he took it back to the vet, $700 bucks later Walter had a baby sister. Dea lived with David and Sarah who bottle fed it until we got back from our wedding travels. While we were gone, she fell off the balcony and went into a seizure. Of coarse she had to be rushed to the vet again. She has been one other time that I'm aware of, other than when she was fixed. I think that time she was ok, she just wasn't eating alot. She was staying with Adam's grandma, and she gets really nervous about animals not getting enough food. I think it was more of a precaution type situation. I'm glad to have found a vet that care enough about our pets to remember them. I hope we don't have to go back any time soon. Perhaps we should look into health coverage for our pets...

Irresistably Ugly

Our cat Dea is so ugly she's cute. I always grab her when she's running by. I love to squeeze and kiss her. Walter loves her too. Dea and Walter were the best of friends this summer when Dea was just a little kitten, as you can see, they are still best friends. The other day Walter was eating his dog food, Dea must have wandered over to him, because she was all wet on her head from being licked, and there were chunks of dog food in her fur. It was gross. I guess he just could not resist her. She's too big now, but not too long ago, she was small enough that Walter would carefully put her in his mouth and run around the house, like she was a toy. She would be soaking wet when he would put her down. I think she's so ugly she's cute, Adam thinks she looks exotic, and our guests usually think she's ugly, some of them think she's pretty (but not very many).

Walter with his favorite kitty.

Walter and Dea this summer:

Walter is Doing Much Better

Well, there's hasn't been much going on around here lately. Walter is feeling much better. He still has to get a new bandage every day. He gets a lot of attention at work. Last week Adam stayed home with the flu; there were many people at work who came looking for Walter to say hello to him, who were very disappointed when he was not there. Last Sunday Sarah and David came back over to help shovel snow off the lake so that we would have a skating area or our own. It took a couple of hours of hard work, only to have 45 degree weather the following day which melted all the snow. It has been so warm this week that our lake is nearly thawed out. I guess we will have to wait until next winter to skate again. Mom, you can be relieved of your worrying about us drowning in ice water for another year. Unless we get another cold spell, which would be really cool. But I'm actually looking forward to tubing again. Kristen and Katya, you guys better get some good wet suits, because I'm not waiting until the lake is 80 degrees.

The Lake Melting from the Middle Out:(


Walter Feeling Much Better... (He wants to go tubing again too!)

Skating on Our Lake

Well, I have been wanting to write about how cool it is that you can skate on our lake in the winter, but I didn't want to give mom another thing to worry about. But I think she found out, so now I have to convince her of how safe it really is. It's hard to keep secrets for very long in a big family, you can't keep straight who's supposed to know what, and who's not supposed to know something. Eventually, everyone finds out from someone. If you have a big family, you understand what I'm talking about.

This Saturday was action packed for us. After church Adam, myself, David, Sarah and Walter left Leah with Adam's mom and went out to our lake to skate. Our neighbors around the bend have a huge section of the lake cleared off for skating. They have chairs, skates, a snow blower, and all kinds of stuff out there. I guess they aren't planning for the ice to melt any time soon because they leave everything out there over night. We were having a good time on the lake until Walter got hurt. He kept chasing after the hockey puck and got caught under a skate. We had to walk him home, when we got there, we realized the cut was pretty deep. Adam's mom and I took him to the animal ER for a few stitches. I left Walter there with his grandma because we had company coming over. When I got back home, Leah's great grandma had left, so we didn't have a baby sitter anymore so we took Leah with us back to the ice. She slept quietly in her car seat wrapped up in a ton of blankets and coats. She was an angel, no one even knew she was out there because she was covered up and so quite. Don't worry mom, the lake was at least 10 inches thick. The neighbors cut a hole in the ice to check it. I couldn't get my hand deep enough without getting my jacket wet. The Farmers Almanac says you can drive a truck on ice that thick.

When we came back inside, it was sundown, so we played a little rock band and then Walter and his Grandma came home, Walter was so drunk he couldn't keep his back legs from crossing and giving out from underneath him. It was very sad but he was happy to see us. We had already made plans to go snowboarding with some friends, even though we had had plenty of fun for the day. Walter's Grandma stayed and watched Leah and Walter until we got home. We stayed at the ski slopes until midnight before heading home. We had so much fun on the ice, we played a game of hockey, 4 girls against 3 guys and the girls won, believe it or not! There were a few wipe outs, Adam took several spills, managing to run into other people, taking them down too. But no one got hurt too seriously, even Walter is doing good this morning now that he's sobered up.