Goodbye Pippen

My cat, Pippen, has been missing for the last week.

Yesterday we got a call from a gentleman saying that he saw one of the posters that I put up and that he had seen a cat that might be her. Unfortunately, the cat that he saw had been hit by a car. Paul and I went to look, and we are fairly certain that it was Pip.

The terrible thing is that it was my fault that she was outside in the first place. Both of our cats are usually inside cats only, but I let them roam around the front yard every so often as long as I am there to supervise.

Last Friday a salesman came to our door while I was in the middle of making dinner. While I had the door open Pip slipped outside. I figured that she would be okay to be out there for a few minutes while I finished up dinner, but then Will woke up from his nap, Paul came home, Will needed a bath, etc. It wasn't until Saturday night around midnight that I remembered that she was outside. By that time she was long gone.

I will miss her so very much. She was the first pet that I could truly say was mine. All of the previous pets that I've had have always been family pets, and most of them preferred Erin over me. Pip latched onto me the minute that we brought her home. I was the one that she would snuggle up to when it was time to go to bed, and it was my lap that she sought out whenever I sat down.

I pray that she didn't suffer. At least now she can be at peace.

New Bouncer

Okay, Will is officially the most spoiled child on the planet.

Grandma Rhonda and Grandpa Bob bought Will his own personal Moon Bouncer. It's just a smaller version of the ones that you can play in at the carnival or the ones that you can rent for picnics.

Aunt Erin helped get him into it. She liked to bounce him around, and he was laughing really hard. She even crawled in it with him for a while.

It was hard to get a picture of him because he was moving around so much. I did manage to get some video of it. Hopefully it isn't too shaky!

Ice Cream Cones

Will had his first ice cream cone the other night when we had dinner at Arctic Circle. He's had ice cream before but it was always from a spoon. They give you free little taster cones and since it was his size I let him hold it.
He did pretty good. There was only a small amount of dripping.

He didn't really understand what the cone was all about at first, but once he tasted the ice cream he liked it. He stuck the entire thing into his mouth and ended up pushing all of the ice cream down into the cone. It was fun watching him try and figure it all out.

Pool Party

On Saturday we had a pool party at Rhonda's house with our friends Merrill, Maria, and Kensie.
Will and Kensie had fun playing together, but we kept having to remind Will to be gentle because he's bigger than her. He would get excited and just plow right around her.


Here are some pics at the pool.

Will in Grandma's float.

Kensie having Daddy help her to jump in and out of the pool.

Will smiling at Grandpa Bob.

Kensie and Merrill sitting poolside.

Two moms trying to keep eveyone in the shallow water.

Will trying to walk without being dunked.

Will kept wanting to go and play with the big kids in the deeper water, and he was really mad at me for keeping him in the shallow end. I have a feeling that I need to get him enrolled in swimming lessons as soon as possible. He loves the water.

"I'm Batman..."

Here's the last of the superhero PJ's that we bought for Will.

I like to refer to this as "The Diapered Crusader"!

Well, we decided that there was too much going on in our lives right now to try and sell our house. So, we just get to enjoy all of the upgrades that we put in recently. ReBath is coming on today to finish up our bathroom, and once that's done all of the major stuff (except for the roof and siding) will have been dealt with.
We got an estimate on the siding and roof for when we are ready. The roof will only cost about $2900, but to re-side the entire house will be more like $20,000. So, that's obviously not going to happen any time soon.
In the meantime Grandpa Bob came over to help with some more small projects last night. He took a break from caulking to read Will a bedtime story.

Willy likes books and being read to, but I think that having Grandpa do it makes it extra special.

It made me remember having Dad read to me and Erin when we were little. He used to do funny voices and make us laugh. I'm glad to see that he hasn't forgotten how to do it. :-)

Spiderman and Park Silly

Here is the next in the super hero series of PJ's. We call this "Spider Baby"!

It's hard to get a good shot anymore because he refuses to stay still for very long.

The dark spots under the arms on his top are actually little webs. They look like wings when he holds out his arms!

We had a good 4th of July holiday. We went up to Grandma Nina's house and watched the fireworks from her back porch. She's got a really good view of the big display that the country club sets off.

Will liked the sparklers that we set off for him, but he was scared by the fireworks that crackled. He went to bed around 8 pm, but he woke up when the big fireworks were going off. He wasn't scared of the big fireworks as long as Uncle David held him.

On Sunday we decided to go up to Park City for the Park Silly Farmers Market. It was nice to be up in the mountains where it was about 10 degrees cooler. We took a break to have a snack and listen to the local musicians and I took these shots of Will playing with his binky. He likes to twist it around in circles while it's in his mouth.

Super Baby!

Sometimes it's really hard not to just buy everything cute that we see for Will.

Paul and I, being huge comic book geeks, tend to want to buy all of the great super hero stuff that they have for little boys. On a recent trip to Walmart we found some cute PJ's for Will that are themed after some of our favorite heros. Some of them even have capes that you can remove at bedtime.

Here's Will as Superman.

Come on, how was I gonna pass this up!!

I also got some great footage of him walking. He's working on his balance, but he's getting better really quickly. I expect that he will be running around the house before long. Which basically means that me and the cats will also be running around, either to get away or to keep up!

I also have one last thing to show everyone. It's proof that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Dad came over to help us with some home improvement stuff a couple of weeks ago. When he walked into the house I did a double take because for a second I thought that it was Grandpa Bill.

I so had to have a picture of this!!!