Despite the worst drought I have ever seen, God blessed us with a great garden. We had some crazy zucchini, and lots and lots of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, and beans. Evie had playdates and fun playing outside. She and SiSi went outside a lot together. This is what happens when I am not watching them play...
Speaking of Miss Evie, she is getting quite talented at picture taking. I think she did a great self portrait. She looks so grown up!
My sister Julie and brother-in-law Steve flew in from Texas to visit us, and to surprise my parents for my Dad's 70th birthday. I hadn't seen my sister in 4 years, so there were a lot of tears when we first saw each other! My parents came over for what they thought was a dinner with just the 5 of us. They were so surprised when they saw Julie and Steve, that my Dad seemed dazed the rest of the night :).
We had such a nice time with Julie and Steve! They stayed a week with us, and we were so sad when they left. They are coming back into town tonight, and staying with us for 2 more weeks! I can't wait!!
A highlight of these past 4 months was a date weekend that Jeff surprised me with. We have very rarely gone somewhere without Evie, so it felt super foreign to me at first. We stayed at a really nice motel, then the next day we went to see my favorite comedian, Tim Hawkins! Jeff had gotten special tickets, so we were able to sit 3 rows from the stage. When he first came out on stage, he walked in the crowd and laid down in the laps of the people in front of us! It was pretty insane being that close to the stage, and so fun!
There were 3 comedians total, so it was a night full of lots of laughs. It was awesome, and I laughed so hard that my face hurt afterwards!
Back on the home front. We have a new superhero. Wait! It's a bird! It's a plane! No it's...
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SuperZeke!!
He is trying to catch a toy in midair in this picture. My crazy cat has a jumping range of about 5 feet. It is insane how high he can jump! He is a little maniac cat. He runs around the house with his tail foofed, and he will run too fast and slide into the wall. He cracks us up on a daily basis. He and Daisy have become fast friends, and sometimes it is downright comical how they are with each other. One minute, they are fighting like crazy, and the next minute it is a kitty lovefest with them licking each other's faces. We find them laying together all the time. As you can tell, Zeke is far bigger than Daisy already. We think he may have some Norwegian Forest Cat in him. The breed gets to be about 20 pounds or more, so we think he is going to be a big guy!
We had quite a scare about a month ago, as Daisy got out of the house and was gone for 3 days during very cold nights with rain. Evie was crying hard every day, and we all missed Daisy so much. Zeke kept walking around the house yowling for her. We went to the shelter, and Jeff made flyers to pass out. She ended up showing up on our front porch late one night, and we were praising God for bringing her back safely! It ended up being a blessing in disguise. The night she came home, we kept her with us, and didn't put her and Zeke in the basement like we normally do. The following night, we put them both in the basement again, and in the morning Daisy was gone again. I went out back onto our deck and shook a can of food, and I heard Daisy crying under the deck! Daisy loves to go into the rafters of the basement, and she found a way out. Jeff found a huge gap between the basement wall and the house. It had had a flimsy board covering it, and the board had fallen off. We had a chipmunk in the basement a few weeks earlier, and I couldn't figure out how it got there. I'm so glad we found out! If a cat could get through the hole, so could a rat, possum, raccoon, etc. Jeff sealed the gap very securely. I had to laugh a few days later after I had put the cats to bed. Jeff was out of town on business, so I was staying up late (I don't sleep much when he is gone). I heard Daisy whamming her body against the board, trying to get out of the basement again. She quickly figured out that it wasn't going to happen :).
Evie went to one of our neighbors and picked out her pumpkin for Halloween, then carved it on the front porch.
For our church's Trunk or Treat, she went as Queen Esther. I thought she looked super beautiful.
Her new fun thing is tea parties...with SiSi. SiSi will just lay there and wait for her tea and crumpets :).
That is pretty much our 4 months in a nutshell, not counting going to the beach, Evie playing flag football, and canning season. Too much to write in one blog post!
