Mittens Kittens, Flower and Pablo

Did you know we had kittens?  We had been taking care of Mitten’s Kittens.  Mittens is the Siamese kitten we had found in August of 07 in our yard.  We never had been able to pet her much, and didn’t even know if she was a girl or boy until she went into heat in January 08.  She had babies in our garage in April of ‘08 and we had intended to get them homes in June before we went to see Dave and Jen and Max.

It turned out to be harder than I had imagined to find them homes.  By October, I was starting to get worried (and sick, since allergies I’d never experienced from cats before were getting really bad!!!)   I had finally found a shelter organization to help me find them homes, but even that was taking a really long time!  Finally, they were adopted, both of the boys by the same person / family, so they didn’t have to be separated. We were all very happy about that.

I had told the boys we couldn’t get a new dog until after the kittens had been found homes.

This is Boston, our new Border Collie Mix

So once that was taken care of, we soon found ourselves out looking for a new shelter dog.  And, once again, we found the perfect dog for us at the League City Animal Shelter.

We call him Boston.  He is a great dog so far.  He gets along well with Katy, and is about the same size.  Boston seems to have had no training before we found him, but luckily, he’s a fast learner.  He’s pretty good at sit and lay down already.  He understands “on the bed” and sort of understands “hush” and “stay.”  He needs more training on “stay”.  Boston has tons of energy and paces all day long!  LOL.  He’s wearing paths in our backyard where he runs to get different views to the front of the house, and of the cat, at whom he loves to bark…

He’s also a fast runner.  Boston has escaped 4 times, once going so far as to trek through the construction at the Lowe’s and the gas station in Wal-Mart’s parking lot before a barefoot Wes finally caught up to him.  Thank goodness our neighbor, Carrie, was there, too, to give Wes a ride home.  LOL.  He was exhausted after that run.  I had set out in the car to find them, but I lost them and had no idea where they were at!  Poor Wes.

Anyway, Boston is a great addition to our family. Over time, as he learns to walk on a leash, or to look at a cat, or to come close to another dog without freaking out, he’ll be even better. 

The boys, Wes and I are doing great.  We had a quiet Thanksgiving here at home, with Wes doing all the cooking.  Dave, Jen and the baby are all great, too.  I hear my little grandbaby isn’t exactly little anymore.  At just over 6 months old, he’s up to 18 1/2 pounds, has at least 2 teeth already and I’ve seen pictures of him sitting up all by himself.  Dave says he can almost crawl, too. So obviously, he’s a genius, like his grandma!  Ha ha ha!!!

That’s about all for now!  Thanks for reading.

Sherri

PS.

Mittens.

This is Mittens.  We did get her spayed after she had the kittens.  She had the misfortune of going into heat when her kittens were only 2 weeks old, and with the vacation looming and the short gestation period for cats, we had her fixed before we left for vacation.

Ally

This is Ally. She’s a tad evil.  She never liked Mittens in the first place, and even though she’s my baby girl and I love her dearly, I’m not all that happy with her right now.  She’s set her foot down and won’t let Mittens in our yard anymore.  She chases her away when she sees her now…  Poor Mitty.  I have to keep my eyes peeled for her to come around so I can rush outside with a bowl of food and we hide in the neighbor’s yard or anywhere Ally can’t see us.

Ok, I admit, I did ask him, but he wasn’t interested.  And since I had already told her that I’d get him to write something, she was sort of pressuring me, and I felt like I had to give her something.  So I rewrote Jake’s report into a readable something and sent it to her.  It did appear in the last newsletter and I reprint it here for your reading enjoyment.

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Can You Teach An Old Dog New Tricks?

This is Katy

By Jake Bush

I have been home schooled since I was in second grade. Having school at home can be a lot of fun, but we still have to do hard work.

Last year, when I was in fifth grade, and I had to do a big project about animals (kind of like a science fair project). I decided to see if I could teach my 4 year old dog, Katy, how to roll over. Everyone thinks Katy is very dumb but I know she is smart and I wanted to prove it by teaching her how to roll over.

Part of my project included researching how to teach dogs tricks. I looked at lots of websites, and read lots of books. I even watched dog training videos on YouTube. Once I figured out the methods I wanted to use, I started working with Katy every day.

To train her, I had to get her to sit, then to lie down, and then I told her to roll over as I passed the treat I had hidden in my hand sort of behind her head and over her back. As soon as she did the trick, I gave her the treat (see below). If she didn’t do the trick, I started over. It was hard at first, but she started to get the hang of it after a few days, and by the end of three weeks, she could do the trick on command.

I accomplished my purpose, which was to teach my dog a trick that she hadn’t learned before. I also accomplished my goal because Katy will now roll over even if she does not receive a treat.

This experiment taught me that you can teach an old dog a new trick, and that you can have fun while you do it.

Dave and Jen

Gosh, I know I say this a lot, but my how time flies.  Seems like I was just kicking out that April update.

LOTS of stuff has been going on.  So, lets get on with this update.

At the end of May, Dave and Jen finally had Max!  He arrived on May 28, 2008 at 1:15 pm and weighed 8 lb, 7 oz.  He was a week late, so Jen had been induced.  But he was healthy and Jen pulled through like a trooper. (If you want to see pics of Max, email me directly and if I know you, I’ll send them to you privately.)

Early June brought the end of the school year.  Jake graduated from 5th grade and Camden made it (barely) through 7th grade.  The week after that, Wes got down-sized out of his job at Silestone.  Since we were supposed to leave on vacation (to go see Dave, Jen and Max) that weekend, he decided to stay home and start his job search.

Cam and Jake in front of the White House in DC

The boys and I went on ahead with our vacation plans and got to spend tons of time with D, J & M, as well as Wes’ parents, John and Pat, and Jen’s parents, Ken and Jocelyn.  We even spent a day in Washington DC, rode a tour trolley all day and saw all the sights.  We had a great time.  There are more pictures of our vacation, including a really cute shot of Cam and Jake with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup buddy (a mascot from Hershey Park in PA) in our Photo Gallery.

Shortly after we got back from vacation, it was Camden’s 13th birthday!  He got a birthday pool party with about 10 friends.  He received lots of money, so he used it (along with donations from each of our immediately family) to buy Rock Band for the Wii.  The boy is now taller than me and as tall as Wes, and wears a size 12 shoe!  Can you believe it????

More good news that week included Wes starting his new job.  He’s a job hunting pro by now, and he really knows his stuff!  He had 5 interviews by the end of the first week and an offer by the end of the second.  He’s working here in Houston, as VP of Sales, for a local kitchen remodeling / window replacing / door supplier company.

Our sweet Cherry, or Bear-Bear

The bad news about that week was that our Beagle, Cherry, died.  She had been diagnosed with congestive heart disease in February or March, and we had been warned that she could linger on and suffer, or just drop from a heart attack, which is basically what happened.  She had a bad day, went to bed, then didnt’ wake up the next morning.  We are sad, of course, but after having to watch Basil suffer for almost a year, this was almost easy.

We had a fun 4th of July block party with friends here in the neighborhood.  Poppers, bottle rockets and sparklers made it even more fun for the kids.  We all BBQ’d and drank and ate and had a great time.  We have some great neighbors here and we really love hanging out with them every chance we get.

I’m doing well, too.  My business is doing pretty well, selling mostly crochet toy patterns (the link is over there on the right if you are interested.) but I also do some secret shopping stuff.  I’ve pretty much taken off the month of June, and maybe even July, but will probably do more again in August.

We start school again at the end of August.  This year Jake and I will be studying the Far East, including China, Australia, India, and will be doing math, Spanish, and language arts.  Camden will be in 8th grade (gosh, how’d he get so old???)

That’s all for now,
Sherri