Day with Grammy and Grandpop

The day that I went down to Kanab, my parents very kindly watched the girls. Nora and Evie had a wonderful time, and didn't want to leave! These are some pictures my mom took that day.

Grandpop swings the girls in a blanket, and they love it! This is one of their very favorite things to do here. Evie will go find the blanket, bring it to my Dad, and then lie down in it. Hehe.

The swings are great. Nora loves this fairy costume at Grammy's house. She puts it on every time we go over there.

Evie loves the beads!

My Dad got this little fairy statue that they put in their yard, and Nora thinks it is very magical.

Posing on the fountain

Having fun in the playhouse

Evie picked these green tomatoes from their yard and tried to be sneaky and eat them

Looks like the fairy got tired.

Thanks Mom and Dad! We really appreciate your help, and the girls have so much fun with you!

Simon Goes to Best Friends

Well, my last post about Simon was about how he went to go live with Mike's brother, Jon. He loved Simon, and Simon loved living with him, but unfortunately a little over month ago we found out that one of the aunts was vehemently opposed a cat living in Grandma's house, so with the help of family, and my friend Michelle, we went to work trying to find him a new home. We tried hard, but were not successful, so our last hope was Best Friends. They are an animal sanctuary in Kanab, and they usually don't take animals from the general public, but since we had tried really hard to find him a home, and he was special needs, we had run out of options and they agreed to accept him.

Yesterday, Jon, my great friend Michelle, and I made the trip down there. It was about 6 hours each way. Simon was a good sport in the car. At first we had him in the carrier, but after about 30 minutes he was meowing like crazy and was very upset. We tried letting him out of the carrier to see how he would do, and he was a good boy and sat on Jon's lap, or on the floor by Jon's feet and was much happier. 

Best Friends is located in a canyon in Southern Utah, surrounded by beautiful red rock 

This is Jon in front of the welcome center. We stopped there to ask for directions to Cat World - the area of the sanctuary with all the cat buildings. 

They had a pretty little garden and fish pool out in the front

This is the Happy Landings building, where all the cats that are new to the sanctuary go. They keep them there in their own cage for 2 weeks to make sure they are healthy and adjusting well, and then they can go to the building that they will stay in with all the other cats. This is where we took Simon.

I filled out Simon's paper work, and we were able to say goodbye to him. We all wanted to get one last picture with our sweet little dude.

Afterwards, we visited Casa de CalMar, the building that is for cats who test positive for Feline Leukemia. Since they all have the virus, they are able to be around each other. This is where Simon will go when he is done at Happy Landings.

It was an incredible building. All the people there were so nice, and they kept the building so clean. We learned about the couple that had funded this building. They loved cats, and took in many homeless cats, and the wife loved collecting cat memorabilia. They planned to build a house in Southern Utah after they retired so they could live close to Best Friends and she could volunteer there. Unfortunately, the wife got cancer, and passed away, but the husband decided that he could still fulfill their dream and had this building built at Best Friends for the Feline Leukemia cats.

There is a wonderful sitting room dedicated to the wife, that houses some of her cat collection. There are several cats who live in this area also.

Here is the story in more detail. If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you might be able to read it. I thought it was sad, but very sweet.

In the building, there are three other areas where the cats live. Each area has an indoor room, and an enclosed outdoor room that are connected. This sign was on the door to one of the areas, and it cracked me up.

This is one of the indoor areas. As you can see it is full of wonderful little cubbies, toys, scratching posts, beds, etc. It was a beautiful sunny day, so most of the cats were outside.

This is one of the outdoor areas, and it had all kinds of fun places for the cats to climb, and some special places where they could climb and hide in the ceiling.

Here are some of the cats that might be Simon's future friends. There were so many sweet cats here.

napping in the sun

Jon found a little buddy napping in a basket

These little cubbies were really neat. The cats can go inside of them...

Or sit on top of them

This was the most popular cat toy. I had never seen one before. Under that yellow circle is a little arm that spins around, and there is a little feather-like thing attached to the end that sticks out from under the yellow circle. The cats loved pouncing on it.

I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Best Friends. They take such good care of the animals, and get many special needs and abused animals. They were really nice to us. It made all of us feel better about this sad situation with Simon, knowing that he was going to such a great place, and being able to see it all first hand. I think he'll like being able to be around other cats again, since he is so social. 

If you want to learn more about Best Friends, here is their website:  http://www.bestfriends.org/

They do tours here, so if you're ever in Southern Utah, it would be a fun place to check out. They have many different kinds of animals here, including cats, dogs, horses, rabbits, pigs, and birds.

Woah Mommy! Step Away from the Scissors!

Oh man, I lose when it comes to haircut skills. I was planning on just giving Nora a little trim today after her bath, but she moved when I was doing some cutting and it cut a lot shorter, so I attempted to even out the rest of it. The end result was a very short haircut. Ahhhhhh. 

Good thing she's so cute - and it will be easier to do in the mornings. Oh well.

Here are a few pictures from a trip to the dinosaur museum we took yesterday, so you can compare her hair pre-haircut.

Building a dinosaur

Uncovering bones in the sand

If you haven't seen the Evie videos I posted earlier today, keep scrolling down!

Evie Videos

These are some funny little videos I took of Evie a few days ago. She is showing off some of the words she likes to say, and her "cheesy face". If her hair looks a little funny, it's because Nora had put some Lansinoh in it earlier. Boy, that was fun to get out. Anyway, I always get a kick out of my cute little Evie Bug.

Wow, September already?!

It's hard to believe the summer is over - since our kids are not in school yet, we kind of missed the big back to school transition.  Anyway, here are some assorted pictures from the rest of August and beginning of September of what we've been up to.

The girls really love the farm country at TP. Nora was especially fond of these cows.

There was a mama bunny with some babies

This was the little rebel baby over in the corner by itself. Awwww, so cute.

Evie had her first pony ride. I walked along next to her and held her on. 

Nora was in heaven - she just loves pony rides.

Sadie and Sabrina seem to be getting along quite well, although they are not best friends or anything. Here they are "hanging out" or as my friend Michelle put it "ignoring each other at closer proximity". Hehe.

Evie and Nora wanted to try out Aunt Kate's wheelchair

We made some pine cone bird feeders. We used Sunbutter instead of peanut butter so it would be safe for Nora. Nora got very into it, and was excited to hang them outside on the tree. Since I would probably still be cleaning birdseed out of every nook and cranny in my house if Evie had helped, we decided to let her supervise instead.

Nora has been doing a lot of drawings lately. She did all of these, and then hung them up on the refrigerator all by herself! She said that they are all pictures of Harold (the yeti in the Matterhorn in Disneyland). 

This is a picture she drew of a kitty cat. It's pretty much one of the cutest things I have ever seen in my life.

One afternoon we went up to spend some time with Grammy. She had gotten some new necklaces for the girls to play with. Nora had a hard time sharing, but eventually helped Evie put some on too.

Then we did some super-fun crafts downstairs - decorating little wooden bird (or fairy) houses.

One morning I was getting Evie dressed, when Nora came in and said "My eyes pretty". She had gotten into my mascara. Oh boy.

Here is Evie with her first time wearing pig-tails. It makes her look even more like her nickname - Evie Bug. I think they are so cute!

Here she is talking on the phone - one of her favorite words to say is "Hello!"

This is Evie looking out the window for Daddy to come home

Brina turned evil

Just kidding. She is still super-sweet (and will probably think twice about yawning when I have the camera in my hand).

Here are a couple pictures of Sades. 

I have been trying to remember to pull up the blinds a little on our front window because the cats absolutely love to sit in the sun and look out.