3 Little Lost Kittens

Our neighbors have recently had some pet deaths (bunnies) in which my girls were present for the funerals. They insisted we had to have a special service for the baby kittens that had died. So, Britt found a spot in the yard where the grave won't be disturbed if we change the landscaping at some point in the future. We laid the shoe box with the baby kitties into the hole Britt had dug, and each of the girls helped to refill the grave.

Then they all sang a special song in honor of the kittens:

Three Little Kittens,

They lost their mittens,

And they began to cry,

"Oh, Mother Dear,

We sadly fear,

Our mittens we have lost!"

"What! Lost your mittens!

You naughty kittens!

Now you shall have no pie!"

Meow! Meow!

"No, you shall have no pie!"

And then the girls took several minutes decorating the grave for the sweet baby kitties. It turned out pretty nice. The flowers were borrowed from neighbors.

We Love Olivia!

Seven years ago, this pretty little girl redefined what 9/11 means at our house. She is our precious Olivia Hope, our sweet reminder to live our lives with hope. Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for more love, more joy, more peace. She sure brings plenty of that into our lives now, except maybe the peace part! ;)

Today, we celebrated this darling daughter's birthday. Today, we experienced full force the drama of having three little girls. Three little girls who had a hard time sharing. Little girls who were jealous. Little girls who were bossy, name-calling, hurtful. And little girls who were sweet, sharing, loving. Coming full circle over and over again. My mother is just nodding and smiling. She remembers those days quite well. Talk about coming full circle. I still think it is funny that I had my girls in July, April, and September, just like my mother's daughters--red, white and blue birthstones.

We love Olivia. We are so grateful she joined our family and so happy to celebrate the many blessings she brings to us. Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Hiking Down to the Dollhouse

It was Labor Day. Labor Day Weekend used to be the weekend I was a motocross widow, spending the time without a husband while he helped run the WORCS National off-road event up at Bull Hollow Raceway, his parents' motocross track south of Monticello. I remember one of those weekends I was home alone waiting to go into labor with the baby girl who was "due" about two weeks previous. In the years since, Britt and I have made more of an effort to make Labor Day a mini-vacation sort of a day. Since Britt has often had church responsibilities on Sunday, we don't take off for the whole weekend, but we do try to do something fun close to our neighborhood on Labor Day itself.

This year, Britt made plans to drive up on the mountain, in the Bears Ears/Elk Ridge area and make the short hike down into the Dollhouse Ruin. Of course, the day nearly got away from us, and it was about 3:30 p.m. when we finally left town. At that point, two of my girls were in the throes of a desperate kitten rescue attempt. My youngest daughter was actually off celebrating her friend Aysia's birthday, so she wasn't with us at that point, anyway. We convinced Tyler and Rachel that they could take the baby kittens with us. And so we were off.

We drove, and drove, and drove. On bumpy, bumpy roads. Not that our truck has any kind of suspension to speak of, anyway. And we drove and drove, and hoped we were going the right way (luckily, we were). It was beautiful scenery, some stuff we didn't even realize was in our backyard.

But, it was also a lot further than what we had been planning on. About an hour longer each way than what we had thought. Absolutely worth it, though:

The view from the trail of the Dollhouse, an amazingly intact Ancient Ruin

The kids quickly checked it out

I had forgotten Rachel was making those goofy faces

That jacket Tyler is holding has the last baby kitten in it. She couldn't bear to leave it. The other baby passed away on the drive up.

Britt and I are thinking of downsizing again (not really). Do you think we could fit our family in here?

Britt checks out the interior

Is that the original corn, he wonders.

Hiking back out, with the ruin in the background.

Rachel found the perfect spot to eat.

The clouds were threatening rain, but we stayed dry during our picnic.

My guys.

Cole's dog Smokey alerted us to an intruder. We could see the bushes moving, but we never knew if it was a deer or a bear.

Cole hates it when I take pictures of him eating.

Britt and I joined Rachel on the log while we ate our own picnic dinners.

And Tyler stayed in the truck, caring for the baby kitten and eating a little bit, I hope.

Finally, we started the trek back. You can see it was starting to get dark. There was still a lot to see, though. On the way over, we witnessed deer, a coyote, squirrels and chipmunks, and a mama and baby black bear. On the way back, we saw another coyote, a beautiful large buck deer, some bats, and several crazy birds--the kind that sit on the road and then suddenly fly up at you when you drive up to them. We even actually hit one, but when Britt tried to remove the seemingly dead bird from his windshield it suddenly flew away.

The baby kitten rallied and survived the trip home. The pathetic little creature was even crying whenever we hit a nasty bump--they were harder to predict in the dark. Unfortunately, it did not survive the night after Tyler went to sleep. Tyler was heartbroken.

But we all still managed to have a fun Labor Day as a family.

Mustang Football Season Begins. . . with a loss

It was a loss, and it was sooo sad, but we think these guys are going to figure the game out and then they are going to have a lot of fun. Britt and our good friend Paul Macdonald have coached most of these boys (and the team now includes three girls, but they were never on a city rec team) at some point over the previous five years when they coached city league football. We were all looking forward to the day these boys would get to play together instead of against each other, as in the past they combined with boys in the grades above or below and competed on opposing teams. Well, this was that day, and it started a little rough.

"Where did you want me, Coach?"

I am pretty sure Dove Creek's number 70 weighed at least twice as much as Cole, but that didn't stop Cole from doing his job.

Block!

He's in the chase

Ready

After the kickoff

Lining up

Ahh, didn't get there in time!

We were down by 3 touchdowns at one point in the game.

But lucky for us, Bronz managed to break away at just the right times and scored 3 touchdowns for us. . .

. . .almost 4! Heartbreak! We just needed a few more minutes to figure out our game.

Cole brings the play in.

Defense!

That's the game!

I have to say, it was fun to get to see Bronz Eldredge actually get to play during this game. And boy, did he play! He was kicking really well. And it was great to see him carrying the ball. In the city recreation program the rules don't allow boys who weigh over 100 pounds to carry the ball or play certain positions. He has been too big every year since the boys started playing in third grade. And for someone who knows and loves the game so much, that must have been really difficult.

I just hope the other boys don't rely on Bronz so much that they don't work as hard as they should to do what they need to do. We have heard there are some players on that team that come home from practice and all they want to do is eat and go to bed. I wouldn't put Cole in that category. He and I are usually up doing Algebra homework late into the night after dinner. Maybe he would prefer to be in bed, but he is still up anyway.

I have to say we have been without T.V. since the school year ended in May and I don't know how we would ever have time to watch it if we still had it here. I feel like I am doing homework from the moment my kids walk in the door from school, and several of us are still way behind.

I am listening to the San Juan Football game as I am posting this; the video of the game is even being aired. I have to say I sort of miss the days when Lisa Macdonald stood on the sidelines and video our boys' city league games. Later, we would all get together and watch the video and discuss the things the boys did right and what they needed to work on. Although, I have to admit, I do not miss giving up my husband to the practices. And last year, he was coaching the middle school Cross Country team besides. He is a good man. But I am happy to have him to myself a little more.

I look forward to watching the ARL Mustangs Football team improve as their season continues. This game was last Thursday, just so you know. Oh, I forgot to tell you what they final score ended up. I think it was 22 to 30. Is that right, Lisa? I went to take a picture of the final score while there were still a few seconds left in the game, but they had turned it off. I guess someone just wanted to go home. We actually stayed for several minutes after the game and the teams each ran 10 different plays against each other for extra practice. Go, Mustangs!

**POST EDIT: I had the score wrong when I first published this post. It was 22 to 30, not 27 to 30, with Bronz scoring 3 not 4 touchdowns. Thanks, Kayela. Even if we had scored another touchdown, we would have needed to score the 2-point conversion to tie, not to win. So the game wouldn't have been over if we had scored that other touchdown.**

It was a sad day at our house

Labor Day was supposed to be a fun day. We were going to get a lot of work done in the morning and then spend the afternoon playing, doing something fun as a family on the mountain. But the day before, the cat who has claimed our home since we moved in (and scared off our own cats) had three baby kittens. Three tiny baby kittens that she abandoned. Tyler tried desperately to get the mama cat to take care of them, but she just hissed at the babies and ran away.

So, all day Labor Day we had a hard time convincing Tyler to do anything, because she was so concerned about those baby kitties. One kitten passed away in the morning. Tyler called anyone she could think of that had a mama cat to adopt the baby kitties, but she couldn't reach anyone. Finally, she decided to feed the kittens with paper towels soaked in milk. She seemed to think it was working.

But when it was time to go on our mountain outing, Tyler did not want to leave those poor tiny babies. So we took them with us. Sweet Facebook friends of ours gave us the advice of getting bottles and kitten formula from Alco, but we were out of cell phone data range when the comments started coming in, and of course, we didn't make it back to town in time to go to Alco.

Tyler and Rachel did their best with those tiny kittens, but one passed away on the drive up the mountain. Tyler refused to give up on the last kitten. It certainly seemed to be a fighter. We could hear it crying whenever we hit a bump on the way home. The fact that is was moving and making noise seemed to be a hopeful sign. She was still caring for it that night when she went to bed.

But in the morning it was cold and stiff. Tyler was devastated. We had even said a prayer for her poor baby kitten, even though it had seemed like a losing fight. Now I just think those poor kittens were born too soon and even the mother knew it. It still took me a couple days to forgive that mother cat. I was going to throw rocks and other things at her if she showed up here again.

Later I will post the pictures of our mountain hike and picnic and also pictures from the grave the girls made for the three little kittens.

X-Country Time Again

It is that time of year again. It is still a little weird to me that the kids are back in school. Cole is busy with eighth grade football. Garrett has been going to cross country practice. We are already staying up until ridiculous hours of the night trying to stay caught up on homework. It is insanely hot outside (finally!) and I am just wishing I could have my lazy summer back, just chilling at the pool.

Garrett has not run very much this summer, so he is just figuring out this running thing all over again. Last year, as a freshman, he was actually right on the edge of making the varsity team. He was only a few seconds behind the kid who made the last varsity spot. And he was right up there with them in some of the races. He was definitely a key player in the success the Junior Varsity team enjoyed last year.

Britt and I drove down to Richfield Wednesday to watch Garrett and his teammates race. The girls team took first and the boys team took second. We hope Garrett will be able to enjoy this Cross Country season, even if he is not one of the fastest on the team. Run, Garrett, Run!!!

School Days, School Days. . .

I just thought I would break into the middle of my catch-up posts and show you some pictures of the girls on the first day of school, which was two weeks ago:

So it begins. . .

We are already having drama around here, and they are not even in high school yet. Tyler got herself grounded "until she turns 16" according to her mom. She has been moaning and whining about being grounded ever since, but she is still having a hard time learning how to behave so she can get her privileges back. You know, we parents kind of like it when our kids listen to us and do what we ask, and don't do what we tell them not to. It is also pretty necessary to let your parents know where you are, and ask permission usually, too.

Then we have Olivia who comes in the door after spending the afternoon at her "boyfriend", Brigham Nielson's house. She asks us if she can eat dinner and then go to the movie with his family. We told her if they had invited her, it was okay with us. Then, she said Brigham invited her. I guess we are going to have to have the talk with her about dating before your sixteen. Dinner and a movie? Silly girl.

Tonight, she is in tears because her boyfriend was more interested in playing with his guy friends than he was with her, at the football game we were watching. I can't believe we are already in this mode. . .