Hunting

Kacy has caught a few mice this past week.  It was quite entertaining to watch her bat and play with them.  Trudy even got in on the fun, too.

 Poor Hamlet has essentially served as a teddy bear for Megan.  He is very tolerant of her.

 She wraps him up in her blankie, and he just stays there.

 She squeezes him so hard his eyes squish shut

 "Finally, a pet that actually likes me"

Hamlet also likes to hunt.  This our our elephant mini-webkin.  He carries it around the house with him and plays with it. We often find him cuddling up with it when he's sleeping.

First Day Fun

 Megan with Mrs. Stockert, her 2nd Grade teacher.  This was open house night.

It was cool and windy the first day!  Much different from the 100 degrees we had last year.  The kids all ride the bus home.  The bus drives right by our house on the way to our stop.  The bus driver just stops at the end of the driveway to drop them off!  There will be some adjusting, but things are going well.

'Twas the Night Before the First Day of School.....

There are some nervous kids in our house tonight.  Middle School tomorrow for the boys. And 2nd grade for Megan.  At bedtime, Megan commented on how it's her first year without Eric to protect her.  All 3 kids will ride the bus home this year.  Jonathan , Megan and I walked to their drop off point after supper to help her be familiar with it.

Excited for the first day.  Even more excited for the kids to get home to hear all about the first day.

progress???

Kacy is still adapting to Hamlet/Dirtball/Dopey/Cuddles (Megan's new name for the cat, since I told her I got a white kitten for my birthday one year that I named Cuddles.  I think I was even 7???  Cuddles lived a short life-I found her dead in the ditch one day while biking home from our neighbors'.  Not sure she even lived a year, but I digress.....)

 This is Kacy's face when she sees  Hamlet/Dirtball/Dopey/Cuddles

Who, Me?  He is completing ignorant to Kacy's emotion.

Guns

I took a gun class yesterday.  Awesome.  I was able to shoot 5 different guns ( a 22, 2 different 9 mm, a 380, and a 38 special.  Part of our training included shooting one handed, which I used the 22 for since it's the easiest to shoot.  The 38 special was the hardest for me to shoot, and was the only one I missed the target with.  The 9 mm had the strongest kick, and my shot pattern reflect my anticipation of that!

Hamlet

Today is the day we got to pick up Hamlet.  The first thing we did when we got home was let Trudy and Kacy outside.  We let Hamlet explore for a bit before slowly bringing the other 2 in.

 When we let Trudy in, she walked up to Hamlet, they sniffed, then she walked away.

 And gave us the "You brought another one home?"

 Even at 4 months, Hamlet is a vicious red dot hunter.

 Kacy was completely unaware that Hamlet was sniffing her.  She must have thought it was Trudy.  But then she turned and was face to face with him

 It was not well received!  You can't quite make out her angry aggressive face.

It might take awhile for Kacy to 'accept' Hamlet.
Hamlet is the perfect cat for Megan.  He not only tolerates Megan's affection, he seems to enjoy it.  He is completely mellow.

Humane Society

 Our tour guide was Chris.  Her daughter is a member of our club.

 Eric is petting one of many, many, many cats roaming around the shelter.  If you are freaked out by cats, the Humane Society is not the place for you.  They were everywhere.

 Hee hee.  I thought this was funny.  The cat in this kennel does not do well with catnip.

 If I had the choice of cats to bring home, it would be this one.  So gentle.  I pet his head, and he just rolled over for his tummy to be rubbed.

 The dog shelter was quite noisy

 Chris teaching the kids how evil dog breeders are.

Here's the crew!

Cats, a history

On June 24. 2011, Trudy the Cat "temporarily" moved in with us when Gma and Gpa LaFleur were evacuated to our house due to the flood in Minot.    When they were able to move into their temporary apartment a month later, Trudy stayed with, just a little bit, until they could get to a more permanent home.  When that finally happened in September.....there were tears.  Many tears and sobs from the innocent children.  They decided they were not going to give Trudy back to Grandma.

She was well loved.  Well, well loved.  Perhaps loved more than she wanted to be loved.

July 26, 2012.  The LaFleurs take a trip to PetSmart to replace Megan's dead goldfish and buy more cat litter for Trudy.  We came home with this:

Turn head sideways to see this pic

 Trudy was thrilled with our spontaneous decision to bring a less than 2# ball of energy home.

They eventually became friends...mostly.  Trudy was very accepting of Kacy, and was quite motherly to her.

Aug 6, 2015.  The kids' 4H club tours the Central Dakota Humane Society.  Bad things happen when you take 3 kids to tour the Humane Society.

This is Hamlet.  He is approximately 4 months old.  He took a strong liking to Eric.  We will bring him home on Friday.  Good golly.

Lego Dreams

This past weekend, Eric was able to make his long anticipated mecca to the Lego Store at the Mall of America..  This trip has been in the makings since Sept of 2013.  We dropped Megan off with Jason and Holly in Fargo.  Eric has saved his money from allowance, mowing lawn, and birthday presents all summer, and had several Lego sets in mind that he planned to buy.  He left the Lego Store a happy boy.  And broke.  He showed a lot of will power not opening the sets up until we got back home.  He started building the first one at 4 pm, and was still up at 11 building.  He was up at 7, and I made him come up for air around 10:30.  By lunch time, all 3 sets were complete, and he spent the rest of the afternoon admiring his work.