cute little thing

Note this cute little field mouse. Now, none of us really like mice, I understand that. But if you know me, you know my love of all animals and this little guy is pretty darn cute, right? I don't even mind the tail. Now let me tell you how he came into my life.

This is Max: (hold on, temporarily outside somewhere and late for the photo shoot).....

Okay, here is Max. Not a great picture, but he works hard and is taking a nap.

The other day as I was walking through my family room when I see Max coming up the stairs, officially called "the cat stairs" (since as you can see...

there is no way a human can easily use them, unless they are very, very thin, about 3" thin to be exact), so here comes Max with some grass hanging out his mouth. Now, grass I say?, that is strange. Upon further examination I notice he is bringing me a gift, I scream NOOOOOOO as he heads for the cat door. He turns around and runs away. Dead rodent in my house averted. Yeah!! Do you hear the cheers?

An hour or so later, now madly knitting to get a gift finished, I look up to see Max coming through the cat door...

with the rodent still in his mouth (I assume the same one as he probably just went out and played with it for awhile, which they are wont to do). As I scream NOOOOOOOO again, instead of just backing out the door, he freaks out, drops the rodent and ...... it scurries away beneath my furniture. IT WAS STILL ALIVE!!!!! He tries to follow it as it looks for different places to hide, then, looses interest. Yes, that is right, he lost interest in this gift to me, it was successfully delivered I suppose. I run to catch Mimi, not easy to catch a cat when you are running towards them, they tend to run the other way, especially Mimi. This is Mimi

(she is NOT cooperating with the photo shoot so it doesn't show her full beauty) Anyway, I finally get her, grab hold of her, turn her face to the last place this "CLG - cute little guy" was seen (much more cute when they are outside by the way and I'm going to assume it is a boy since I don't want visions of a mouse having 100's of babies in my house), try to get her to take the scent and... she does. She tries to get it, but of course can't fit under the arm chair or couch, or where ever. So, off I go for a broom, a mop, anything with a long handle to slide under the chair so it will run right into Mimi's mouth, perfect plan, right? Max is still not interested by the way. So, as Mimi waits patiently where she saw CLG last, (Cat's are so patient when waiting for little things that move), when to my surprise, slowly the CLG exits the under part of the chair and sneaks around the corner, Mimi still patiently waiting. Cats!!! When did their keen sense of smell and movement, let alone their hearing go? Can't she hear or at least smell it getting away! As I jump up to see where it has gone, I notice it running and trying to leap up each stair into our bedroom. Not an easy thing for a very small CLG. No way CLG, you aren't going up there and I throw the broom ahead of it, like a broom with a long skinny handle is going to block the way, right! Now, some of you might ask, why throw it above the mouse instead of trying to smash the mouse? Do you know me? It was too cute to kill. I couldn't do that!!! However, it startles CLG enough that he turns and runs, only to find me standing there, the only out...down the stairs into the quagmire of Bill's shoes. (It's a scary place, it has every pair of shoes he has down there in that abyss, I'll even spare you the picture, it is too horrifying). I go running before it gets into our storage never to be found again, he's jumping, I'm jumping (I don't want him on my feet, however CLG's fear of that might be a bit more than mine, but not by much) Finally I think. Hey, If I can get him into one of Bill's shoes CLG will feel safe, I'll feel safe, neither of us will keep jumping, afraid the other is going to land on the other, good idea. What a great idea actually. It worked, I held a shoe over him, he jumped into it (I'm sure just so this giant would stop chasing him), went into the garage, opened the garage door and shook him out onto the driveway and shooed him off, reminding him of what a lucky CLG he was.

The rest of the story? The next day I come home from errands and find barf, specifically, cat barf. In the cat barf? One CLG tail. I hope it wasn't the one I chased. We kind of bonded.

Oh, one more thing. Don't tell Bill I caught a mouse in his shoe...he might not be too happy about it!

Catch Up....Again

I can't believe this summer is already half over. I have been so busy it's crazy. It's all been good stuff, you know how it is. I can't remember a weekend that we didn't have obligations, mostly church stuff, except on a weekend in The Dalles, OR visiting our DIL and granddaughter. Now that was fun!! We also got to enjoy Amanda's sister Marie's, wedding. Milan was the flower girl and so adorable. Check this out. This was on the dance floor. This girl loves to dance! She had a hard time keeping the dress up, but that didn't stop her. She would just pick it up, since it was too long, and keep dancing.

Isn't this just the cutest picture of her!
Because the dress was a little big for her, it was pretty long, she would pick it up just like a little princess and go running with the kids. Could it have been any cuter? I don't think so. Every once in awhile the dress would get the better of her and down she would go. As you can see, it didn't bother her much.

While at the reception I spoke to the grooms grandmother who had made these wonderful pretzels. They were so yummy! She adds spices to them.

It's hard to tell they have spices, but they do. All you do is combine a bottle of Orville Redenbacher (sp?) butter flavor popcorn oil, 1 package of Ranch Dressing mix and a heaping T. of Lemon Pepper. Mix that all together and pour it over 2 bags of pretzels and stir until it is all coated. Keep it out on your counter and keep stirring every time you walk by for a day or two, until it all gets absorbed. You don't bake it or anything, yummy. If you like pretzels, you'll love these.

On Friday before the wedding we took Milan for the day so the girls could do some final prep. We took her to the park . I think one of her favorite things to say is "cheese".

I love this picture. I have it as my wallpaper on my computer. Every time I turn it on, there she is swinging and smiling at me. It makes my heart sing!

Look at these adorable freckles! I'm not sure you can see them very well, but they are there and as cute as can be.

This was the view from the park of the Columbia River Gorge. Actually much prettier in real life, of course. Besides, I don't have a great camera.

We also took her to McDonalds for lunch and sometime during the weekend we took her swimming.

We just had a great weekend with her. Each night we got to take her with us to stay in the camper. It was such fun. We went for walks in the park and did lots of swinging and she just liked to be out walking. She even just loved staying close to camp and playing with the camp kitty and just talking and keeping busy. This has to be my most favorite picture for the whole weekend. I absolutely just love it. This is how happy she was each morning.

How do you beat waking up to this every morning. Did I mention how much fun we had with her?

We have had a busy weeks since then as well. More on that tomorrow (??). As for now, I'm going to go sit and talk with Bill about our schedule coming up. We just got home from a Youth Temple Trip and I'm tired. It was also my Temple weekend so I've been gone all weekend, I love the weekends I get to work at the temple, but I started working a 4 am on Friday and haven't stopped yet, (well I did get a few hours of sleep last night but it was so stinking hot in the house I stayed at that, well, it was just so hot it was hard to sleep. Beautiful old farm house with no insulation and 104* weather, must have cooled though, to at least 90*. So ...I'll be right back to share what a wonderful weekend we had last weekend on a Stake Trek. Totally amazing!