Apparently we are turning into a real Little Zoo here. We now have 2 indoor cats (Sadie and Emmy), 1 outdoor cat (Callie the calico), 15 six-week-old chicks (Violet, Lucky, Cleo, Charlotte, Goldie, Ariel, Sunshine, Daffodil, and 7 not-yet-named), and our newest addition - a Betta fish. We had talked about setting up our fish tank and getting a few goldfish but hadn’t yet reached that point. This afternoon a cute “little old lady” from church called and asked if my girls would want her fish - she’s just not able to care for it anymore. In fact, she couldn’t hang on to the bowl while she had the fish out to wash it, and broke it. I sent Charlie over to pick it up since she just lives 5 minutes away, and he is now sitting on our kitchen table.
We had quite the day today! Today was Sarah’s 5th birthday. We started out by getting up at the insane hour of sometime-after-6-a.m. (on a Sunday morning!!) to go back over to the Balloon Rally and get a hot air balloon ride. Tethered to the ground, of course, but still fun!
Then we went home for a pancake breakfast, and back out in the afternoon to go to the train park.
Lunch at Silver Dragon (yum!), swimming over at some friends’ house, making homemade ice cream, then finally back home just after dusk to end her birthday with a BANG! Fireworks!
The Balloon Rally is always neat - if you want to get up early enough to see them take off in the morning! I much prefer the evening events. Balloon Glow!
We brought our new kitten home yesterday. She’s the sweetest little thing. Her momma was a stray, but the people at church that we got her from had the kittens in the house since they were born. All the kittens were very well socialized to people, and children, too!
This is Emmy:
We’ve also been adopted by a kitty outside. She’s a very sweet calico that has been hanging around here pretty much full time for the past several months. I talked to the former owner and he said he used to have 2 calicos but gave them away when he moved. I think this is one of them, and she just found her way home. We’re letting her stay outside, and hopefully she’ll be a good mouser. I’ve seen evidence of a scrub jay that she caught, and she’s definitely not starving, so it seems to be a good deal.
She’s so friendly, I can barely get a decent picture of her - she keeps shoving her face right in the camera!
My high school alma mater was a Seventh-day Adventist boarding academy. I lived there in the dormitory for 2 years - my junior and senior years - and loved every minute. Well, maybe not *every* minute, but I would say my happy memories far, far exceed any bad ones, and those were usually related to personal relationships, not anything that had to do with the school itself. I graduated in 1990. In 1997, the school was closed, its final graduating class completed. The campus was sold to the San Diego County to become a boarding academy for foster teens.
At alumni weekend recently, the current administration shared a video with us that gave us a lot more information about just what they have done with the campus since taking it over. What an amazing program they’ve created! I don’t think there was anyone there who watched that video that wasn’t touched by this video.
Our homeschool group had the third (or was it second?) annual Talent & Display Night last night. I was so proud of my girls! All the kids did a great job! Hannah recited a short poem, and Sarah sang the song she learned in Little Lambs (Adventurers), a capella! Hannah just got right up there and said her piece. Sarah had a moment of stage fright and I was afraid she was going to chicken out. She stood in front of the microphone with her hands covering her face for about 10 seconds, then pulled them away, stood on her tippy-toes to reach the mic. She sang the verse, then stood back flat on the ground. Everybody hesitated for a second, wondering if she was done, but she popped back up onto her tiptoes and sang the second half. She did a wonderful job!
This weekend was our trip to SoCal. We drove all day Thursday, and made pretty good time, with enough stops to keep the kids from whining too much. We left home about 8:50 a.m. and arrived at my in-laws’ house at 10:15 p.m. It would have been a half hour earlier, but we had to stop at our favorite place - Baker’s Drive Thru! Yum!
It was a pretty busy weekend - spent time with Auntie Ruth and the girls’ cousin, Kailee, went down to San Pasqual Academy for my 20th reunion, spent the afternoon at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, spent time with other good friends, then drove back home on Monday. We made it back home by about 11:30 Monday night, so that really wasn’t bad for an 800 mile drive in one day!
We put the chicks out into their coop today. They really seemed to enjoy being out there. I can’t wait to get their full size run built though, they will really love that!
Happy Father’s Day! We had a very busy day. Our church was starting our week of Vacation Bible School this evening so Charlie was up and out the door early, to help finish setting up for Egypt: Joseph’s Journey from Prison to Palace.
I “borrowed” Charlie from the church for a while this afternoon to go pick up a small chicken coop I had been offered. The offer came in response to my request on Craigslist, looking for a small coop or even an old rabbit hutch. Just something that we could use to transition our chicks between the tote in the bathroom and outside while we build our coop. I was expecting to pay $25 for it, but ended up getting it for free! When we got there, the older gentleman who had contacted me said he had taken a better look at it and decided it wasn’t worth $25 and was willing to just give it to me if we still wanted it. Yay!
VBS was fun, the kids had a great time. Of course they liked the live animal booth best. Tonight we had ducklings, chicks, snakes, a rat, and kittens. And guess what… The kittens were looking for a home. We never did find Slinky, and Sadie is lonely. We (we meaning mostly me) decided to adopt one of the little kitties, and since it’s a friend from church that was offering them, they very kindly offered to keep her at their house until after we get back from our trip to California next weekend. I’ll post pictures of her after we get back!
