Newest member of the family...

Saturday night, I got a message from a friend that there was a chihuahua breeder that was being shut down down in San Marcos because of a city ordinance that said she couldn't raise dogs anymore. I'm not really sure of the whole situation, but basically the rescue group was coming to take what they could on Sunday and the rest would go to animal control on Monday. We've had Julie for 2.5 years now and had talked about getting a 2nd chihuahua, but never really sat down and looked up where/when/etc...

So, yeah, Tom jumped in the car Saturday night, drove to San Marcos and checked the place out. He came home with 7 month-old Leonardo Rojo-Boy (Leo for short). He's pretty nervous, I take it the past week has been rough. The best part is that every time Tom picks him up to take him outside, he pees on Tom. It's infinitely funny to me for some reason. Leo goes to the vet tomorrow for a check-up and to talk about getting him fixed. We are thinking he'll be a long-hair too.

In the meantime...

Here he is trying to hide under the edge of the cabinet in the kitchen. He does okay as long as you don't move or if he can follow Julie around (who has decided that if she ignores him, he will go away).



I guess he then decided to try to blend in among the colors....



... and here's Julie looking decidedly annoyed with the whole situation (actually we are glad she seems to be okay with it, they sniffed each other and she stalked off and that was that, we were worried she'd go ape like she does sometimes around other dogs)...

Cassie taking charge.

The big kids would not clean. So I put Cassie in charge of them. Here they are with 10 minutes till their cleaning deadline.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre (Tom)

Another beach visit... tough life, but someone had to do it!

I found some more photos from the vacation... this is a visit to the beach we made with Tom's sister, her 2 kids and his mother.

There were tons of marine hermit crabs. The kids wanted to bring them home because we have land hermit crabs, but I had to explain that they really aren't the same thing (and even if they were, um... no). Anyway, they collected 9 or so and then we released them before we left. We had to play with this little guy quite a bit to get him to stick his head out...



Jamie was busy being a bit of beach bum. He's also going through a little emo-esque phase. You'll see we managed to not only find a black swim shirt, but it has a hoodie. SCORE!





Marie loved the beach and would have gone every single day if we had let her!



Cassie was just a cheese-girl!



My sister-in-law and her youngest...



... and her oldest...

The Tale of the Dust Ruffle

Tom and I are goofs sometimes...

The two weeks we were at the vacation house (home now, sadly), there was a weird hump running down the middle of our king bed. We figured the mattress was just shot and they'd replace it. It wasn't a huge deal so we just ignored it.

The last night we were there, I was in the kitchen cleaning up and Tom was in the bedroom unplugging stuff and getting the first of the packing going. I hear a big THUD... followed by Tom sticking his head out of the door and telling me, "Um. I broke the bed." This, of course, caused peals of laughter from me telling him that I'm SO NOT telling these people that we broke their bed (and yes, we are 12).

So, we started taking the bed apart and it was up on risers. Thankfully, Tom just knocked it over, but not down. AND one of the lower box springs were up on the side rail and THAT is what was causing the hump. We felt a little like idiots, but hey, at least I don't owe these folks a new bed!

It was a 3 person job taking this thing apart and putting it back together so it didn't slide off the risers again, so we had quite a fun time actually putting it back together... but then, we noticed that we forgot to put the dust ruffle back on. Crap! It was late and we were tired, we figured we would deal with it later...

... but we forgot... so I got a reply email from the homeowner today saying "Just curious – but why did you take the bed ruffle off the master bed. Really just curious (its no great crime!!Ha)" -- surely she thinks we are crazy house people that come and take apart beds for no good reason.

*laugh* I bet they are scratching their heads trying to come up with a good reason as to why in the world we took the dust ruffle off *laugh*

I was thinking I'd not respond for a few days and let them come up with all these interesting ideas as to why in the world someone would take apart a bed and remove the dust ruffle.

Nah, I'm not that cruel.

But they will surely think we're crazy - at least we got rid of the hump in the bed!

... the things Tom and I get ourselves into, I tell you! But we had a really great laugh and will forever remember the night we broke the vacation home's bed!

:)

Heard From The Backseat

Cassie: Are the windows in my bedroom missile proof?

Tom: Um. No.

Field trip to Crowe's Nest Farm

Found some more pictures from earlier this year... this is the Kinder trip to Crowe's Nest Farm... the kids had a great time!

Pool photos

The kids are loving the pool. We like to take them when it starts to get dark so it's not so hot and there's less chance of getting fried out there in the sun. The kids are having a blast!

Rockport Beach trip #1

The first beach we went to was Rockport Beach. Tom and I really like this beach. There are just gentle waves, the sand is real sand (with a little gravel mixed in). There are little "tiki hut umbrella" things to sit in the shade and the kids have to walk through grass to get back to the car (no sand in the car!). What a great little beach park for kids!

This trip is from last week, we went with our housemates - you'll see J and Marie (our niece) playing as well...

Canal creatures in Key Allegro - Rockport, TX

One of the kid's favorite things to do is feed the ducks and birds in the canal... the ducks we have seen a few times, this one always comes with a mate - then we have a bachelor that has visited us a few times as well. The birds are the birds, but it's really cool how close they will get to you!

How to empty the kiddie pool.... Tom's way...

We needed to replace the water in the kid's pool last month (finding old photos here folks!)... Tom had a unique way of doing that...