We are NOT cat people!!

Last spring, we made a trip to a local greenhouse to get some plants for the garden. One of our great friends Hali, works there and they had found a stray kitten hanging around the greenhouse. Of course, she had to show my kids, and of course, they fell in love with him, and of course, I gave Brian "that" look. And some how we ended up with a cat! :) We have tried having cats before and not had the best of luck--they never seem to hang around very long--after looking at the pics of my kids mauling the cat, I can't seem to understand why they run away!! The cat was named Alex, but within a couple of days Porter started calling him Black Jack--not sure where that came from, but it stuck. He was definitely a wild cat, he would hiss and scratch at us when we tried to pick him up-but he eventually warmed up to us. We looked on craigslist to get him some friends and went and picked up two sister kittens. We kept them all in our garage for a couple months with the hopes that they would stick around--unfortunately the first day we let them out, the two sisters disappeared. But, Blackjack has stuck around! And we love him! He brings us dead mice all the time, the kids thought that was pretty cool. Brylee was so excited he was eating the whole mouse and she watched the whole thing. She came running in to tell me "Blackjack ate the WHOLE mouse, even the mush that came out of him--and I heard the bones crunch!!" Now he is part of the family, Brian even really likes him. He didn't like the dogs at first, but now they all hang out on the back porch together like old friends. As soon as we come home he comes running to greet us, he lets the kids carry him all over--they love it!! I hope he sticks around with us for a long time-we love our Blackjack!

This was when we first got him, he is huge now--I will post some new pics later!

In the beginning when he was scared of the dogs he crawled up into the car to hide, we had to pull him out, because he couldn't/wouldn't get out by himself!

Lake Powell 2010

Last summer Brian's parents got a houseboat for all of the fam-to go and celebrate Karen's 60th birthday!! We had a great time! We played games, ate, played in the sand, played volleyball, cliff jumped, ate, swam, wakeboarded, tubed, ate, rode the water weenie, fell off the water weenie, attempted to pull our big bums back on the water weenie, failed and had to be dragged back on by Brian and his brothers (OK so that was just me-but I promise it is HARD to get back on that thing!) And did I mention EAT!! Gee I wonder why I couldn't pull my big bum back on the water weenie!! The kids loved it-Aspen's favorite part was the slide on the back of the boat-on one of her many rides down she yelled "BEST VACATION EVER!" (that became our theme for the rest of the trip) She couldn't get enough of that slide! The kids loved swimming in the water-I would just sit on the beach, saok in the sun and watch my kids little heads bob in the water. I think they spent about 8-9 hours submerged in water and sand! The loved it--we all did--Thanks Hugh and Karen!!