Kaiya and Ziggy

Another picture taken during our weekend. How cute is this? Ziggy is such a fun dog.

More weekend pictures

Earlier in the weekend, before the float, we visited a state park near Bekah's home. All of her patients have been telling her she to visit it. So we met Bekah on our way down to Rolla and spent a couple hours walking around. Here's pictures a couple pictures. The park is called Meramec Spring and you hike back to this huge spring that flows into a trout sanctuary and it also flows into a river that people fish from. Bekah's dog Ziggy had fun watching the trout swim around and he was just dying to take a huge leap into the spring.

Float trip

This past weekend we had our daughter/dad float trip. The first of it's kind... It was great weather! We took 2 canoes and went on a 7.5 mile float (took us about 3.5 hours). We can't wait to do it again. Hopefully we can get my mom to join us on the next one. My dad says he thinks the only way we will get her out on the water is if Greg and Anita come out and we all convince her to do it. :) So... we'll have to work on that one. We think next time we might opt for a 6 man raft so we don't have to do so much work and have more room to move around. The river we floated on is called the Big Piney River and it is about 45 minutes southwest of where Bekah lives in Rolla. Here's the link to it: www.richslastresort.com

A Rose is a Rose

Tony brought home roses Tuesday and they completely captivated Kaiya. She wanted to spend a few minutes just taking them in. She is definitely a girly girl.... at least for now. We have had fun catching little glimpses of personality from Kaiya. She is very social -- will give a smile to almost anyone who smiles at her (or makes farting noises at her). She also loves to be talked to. And she has started a lot of baby gibberish as well. We had lots of storms last night and were without power for several hours. Got home to a dark house and decided to join Ruthie at her apartment because of the heat. It was sweltering in our house and we knew we wouldn't sleep well at all if we stuck it out. This week has had several extreme heat warnings -- yesterday we hit 102. The heat index is 115. Same is scheduled today. So we are all feeling a bit tired from a restless night of sleep. About 400,000 people are still without power. We are counting our blessings that ours is back on. Tony got out of classes today because of it -- I'm at work though. And very jealous of him. He insists that he is working today though... :) Yeah... barely believable.

Pictures

Here's a cute picture of Kaiya. And then the other picture is of her hair yesterday. :) Sticking straight up... thought it was picture worthy! :)

Dinner with Friends

Here are pictures from a couple weeks ago. Kaiya and I went to the Bread Co. w/ friends from school. We had a great time catching up and playing with Kaiya.

Our weekend

We spent Friday night enjoying the Cardinals baseball game at Busch Stadium. Here's the view from our seats! It was a great game -- Cardinals shut the Dodgers out and it didn't get over too late, either. Kaiya had a great time with the babysitter, and of course, didn't miss us a bit! :) The rest of the weekend was good too. Went to a few garage sales on Saturday, enjoyed the sun on our back deck with the kiddie pool I found at a garage sale, & helped Ruthie get her apartment ready for a roommate. Sunday was a relaxing day. We went to church, out to lunch, grocery shopping at Trader Joe's and then home to get ready for small group.

Take me out to the Ball Game!

FYI -- Tony & I will be at the Cardinals game tonight (Friday). Esther says it is going to be broadcast on Fox Sports Midwest... so... if you get it, and have nothing better to do, look for us. We will be seated on the second row just slightly left of home plate. Our first date without Kaiya. :) It should be fun. Gametime is at 7:10 Central time.

Meow

My weekend came to quite an end, spending all of Sunday night dealing with Money Bags. It was something out of a movie scene! I'll give you the play-by-play. It all started with the nasty fruit flies that have been living in my kitchen. I thought it was just b/c of the summer and leaving the windows open. Yesterday I finally got fed up with them and went to Wal-Mart and bought several of those nasty sticky strips to catch the boogers. After I got home and hung them, Tony called me and mentioned that he was pretty sure that the flies were coming from a basket on top of the fridge. I check and sure enough there is an entire bunch of bananas from like 10 years ago. Gross. Tony must not have realized I bought them and I can't stand bananas, so they just began decomposing on top of our fridge. I have no idea why we didn't smell them... I'm trying not to think about it.


So... back to the flies. Ruthie goes into the kitchen and finds Money Bags on the counter (naughty cat). She hollers at him to get down and in the process he manages to get one of the fly strips stuck to his tail. All of a sudden I hear Ruthie screaming and Money Bags screaming. Like the cat screams on cartoons... He was racing all over the house getting the nasty fly strip stuck to other parts of his body. Pretty soon he couldn't even walk because it had stuck to his back legs. I finally got to him and was able (with Ruthie's help) to get the strip off of him. I read on the box that the only way to get the glue out is to use vegetable oil. Gross. I had to douse him in canola oil. So the glue came out, but how do you get vegetable oil out of cat fur? You don't... Three baths later he is still a grease ball. By the end of the third bath he started getting patches of skin showing through his hair. Talk about traumatic. :)

These pictures were taken between the 2nd and 3rd bath. I had to do most of it myself because Ruthie had to hold Kaiya (who also decided to scream for about an hour straight during the whole episode). :) So much fun. My mom suggested using cornstarch as a degreaser -- her remedy book came up with that one. That's a great idea for clothing... personally, I wouldn't suggest it on a cat. I tested that out on a section of his fur on his back. Not so helpful... that's when his hair started falling out. :) I decided to call it quits around 10 p.m. After Money Bags realized we were done dousing him with shampoo and water he spent the rest of the night under our bed, licking himself. This morning wasn't much of an improvement... I may do another bath in a few days if he's still oily. It's pretty funny now. Not so funny Sunday night. I think Tony was secretly delighted. One more thing to add to his list of why we need to get rid of Money Bags... :) And... Money Bags has been on a diet for like 2 years... He may knock 5 years off his life and die of a heart attack from licking all of the vegetable oil off his fur.

Swim Fun

This weekend, with the help of Aunt Bekah, we spent two afternoons at the pool. Ruthie had gotten this adorable little suit for Kaiya at Old Navy and we are so excited that it fits! The bottoms still have room for her to grow in, but it pretty much fits her. She is truly a water baby. I was surprised at how comfortable she was in the water. No tears... and she just wanted to chill out in the kiddie pool. Much longer than even I wanted to be in the water. But I suppose that is how it will be for the next 15 years. I'll wear out much quicker than the little squirts.

Finishing School

This has been the question of the year. How will Rachel finish school while having to work full-time? As many of you know, I've been trying to get a job as a school counselor with provisional certification. A job as a school counselor would allow me to finish my 600 practicum hours (and get paid at the same time.) It's just not feasible w/ Tony in school for me to quit my current job and get those done w/out any sort of income. So... nothing has opened up job wise -- most of the school districts would rather not hire provisionally. Makes sense. So it's been kind of weighing on me that I might not finish this degree that I've been working on and paying for. I'm only 2 classes and the practicums away from the Master's degree. But we just couldn't seem to find a way to get it in before we would be ready to move next summer.

Last night I went to dinner with friends from school and all of a sudden it dawned on me. I've been working on a dual track degree that gives me both a Master's in school counseling and a master's in licensure counseling (professional counseling). The licensure track only requires 300 practicum hours... where the dual track requires 600 hours. So... the thought is that instead of getting both degrees I will just finish the licensure degree.

I called my advisor today and it isn't going to require any extra classes. I will have to take Multicultural Counseling this fall, Research Methods in the spring, and then get my 300 hours done in the spring. Of that 300 hrs, I can complete up to 100 of them early, this fall. So I will shoot for that. The only other thing I have to do is complete a portfolio class that I'm currently enrolled in. It is a class that I had to take for the school counseling, but they are able to count it in lieu of a graduate project. So... I scheduled an appointment on Monday to change my major and schedule my class for the fall.

I will have a Master's Degree after all!!

Spit Up...

At the request of Aunt Gayla, a story about Kaiya...

Last Wednesday I was having a bad day. Nothing was going quite right... Finally it is time to start winding down... almost 10 o'clock and Kaiya had her last feeding before bedtime, a diaper change, and had burped & spit up several times. So... I thought it would be safe to play a little airplane. Bad idea. To top off my already bad day, Kaiya decided to puke all over me and our bed while flying high in the sky. Closed my eyes just in time... Barf in my hair, clumped up in my eyelashes, running down my cheek and neck. Nice... Needless to say -- we both ended up in the shower after that one.

Happy 4th of July!

Our family had a nice long 4-day weekend together. We didn't have anything planned for our weekend, which was nice for a change. We had a garage sale on Saturday and cleared out some of the clutter in our home and basement. Superman Returns came out in the theaters so we went to see that Saturday evening. The rest of our weekend was spent at home, getting things done around the house. We enjoyed down time to read, water the flowers, mow, and catch up on needed sleep. (We've been needing to catch up on sleep since March 12.) Thanks to Kaiya! :) On Tuesday, the 4th, we walked over to the park behind our house to watch the fireworks. We weren't sure what Kaiya would think of them. She was reclining in her stroller and the minute they began, her arms and feet began kicking and she started talking. Cooing like crazy... and every now and then she would yelp. :) So we decided that she likes fireworks. The loud sonic booms didn't seem to phase her a bit. It was fun -- she was more entertaining than the fireworks. By the time we got home, she was konked out. See below for before and after pictures... The other picture is one from earlier in the weekend that Tony took during Kaiya's nap.