A Funny Thing Happened.....

while I was mowing the yard this evening. I looked over to the house and watched Nathaniel walk outside and start down the steps of the deck. I glanced away and when I looked back I see him standing on the bottom step, peeing into the yard. There was a nice arc to the stream and at that moment I wished I had my camera. It was so funny! And cute!

Stormy has been stealing ripe tomatoes off the plants. I caught her eating one this afternoon. Goofy dog! Now I know where the one almost ripe tomato went that was on one of our hanging plants. And I was going to pick it today! It was gone this morning when I went outside to get it.

Tomorrow ends the first week of school. Its been a busy week but fun for the most part.

Softball and that Darn Cat! and Dog!

Nathaniel is also very excited to see his daddy when he finally gets home from work. So much so that he usually is the first one to him when he walks in. In the picture below, he climbed up onto the back of the couch and was hugging him and patting him on the back. Also notice the haircut. His daddy did that. At mommy's request, since Nathaniel won't sit still for me.

I took this one this morning; because the boys went to bed so late cause of the softball game, David didn't get up until 9:30 am. He came downstairs and cuddled with Nathaniel while he was waiting for me to get his breakfast.


Richard's softball game didn't go as planned. His team lost 13-6. Which was considerably better than the previous team's loss (there are back to back games) which was 26-5. They would probably play better if they did a couple of things. One is practice. Two is not start drinking until AFTER the game is over. Because it was basically dark when the game started & I was taking pictures through a chain link fence, they didn't come out all that great. We sat in front of 3rd base, which is the position Richard played, and I did get a few, but they aren't all that decent. But for your viewing pleasure....

Here's David being a ham as usual.

Richard through the chain link fence.

Right after lunch I opened the front door to let Stormy (my dog) outside and what do I see? A dead mouse. Morgan the cat brought us a present. And Stormy apparently thought the gift was for her, cause she grabbed it. Luckily I got her to drop it before she ate it (yuck!!) and I scooped it up in a dustpan and took it out to the burn barrel. We've seen her catch mice and let them go & play with them, but this is the first time she's brought one to the front door. Lets hope she doesn't make a habit of it.

An outside tour

So here's the grand tour of the outside of the house. I'm hoping to get lots of cleaning/sorting done next week while the boys are at VBS during the day. If that happens, then you'll get the inside tour.

As I mentioned yesterday, I did take pictures last night. However, I downloaded them onto the laptop last night, and they weren't there this morning. Which makes me ill, cause I just realized that the pictures of David's summer school musical/play were downloaded as well last night. And they aren't on the laptop either. Oh well.

And now, the tour (drum roll, please).....

Here's our house; this is taken from the road. There is pasture to the east, west and north of us. Our closest neighbors are cows. They are pretty quiet unless a calf wanders too far from mom.

Here are some wild blackberries that are about halfway down our driveway. If you look in the picture above, its the big bush on the right side about halfway down. Yummy!

Here is the front of our house, from about half way down our driveway. The garage was an addition to the house, probably done in the late '70 to early '80s. The living room above the garage is about 24' x 24'. Its where we spend most of our time.

This is the pasture behind our house, this picture was taken from the back west corner of the house so it angles to the east.

This is the pasture at the back of the house, the picture angles to the west, as I took it from the back east corner of the house. We usually have cows in this pasture, but they are father east in the mornings, they come over this way in the evenings.

This is the back of the house. We don't use this door. Haven't even ever tried to open it. It opens into our laundry/utility room. If you were to walk out this door, you've have about a 45 degree incline to walk up if you wanted to go to the fence line (which would be about 15 feet away).

This is the east side of the house. You can't really tell from the picture, but its a gradual incline to about where the back addition is (its the part that doesn't have a first floor window), then it increases to about a 40-45 degree angle. It doesn't look like it, but it is a pain to mow!

This is the west side of the house, and the main door. See the chimney at the very top of the house? Yeah, we don't have a fireplace. I'm just guessing, but the house was probably originally heated by the fireplace, then got upgraded to coal (maybe), then heating oil & now it has an lp (liquid propane) furnace and water heater. See the propane tank to the left?

Here's Richard's dog, Midnight. He has had her since before we met. She was about 5 months old when I met Richard. That makes her 12. She's very active for a 12 year old lab.

And here's my dog, Stormy. Midnight is Stormy's mom. She came from Midnight's one and only litter. She's not much of a hunting dog like Midnight, but she's a great family pet. Both of the dogs are great with the kids. They can climb on them, try to ride them, whatever and it doesn't bother them. When they've had enough, they just get up and leave.