All Together Now

I'm going to jam a lot into this post. And it will not be in chronological order.

Thing #1: FOREESTO RETURNS

He asked us not to be ostentatious. (So, of course, we dressed up.)

Yeah, Forest! (And Stormie)


And my mother insisted that we take a matching-shirts picture while everyone was in town.

We got to hang out with Sunshine and her kids.

I'm going to have to put my foot down now, and insist that none of my family members go anywhere for a while!

Thing #2: Uinta Camping Trip

We took a quick, over-night camping trip up in the Uinta Mountains near the summer camp where I used to work. We stopped at PROVO FALLS.
(If you haven't been there, it's totally worth it!)

While we were there, a group of kayakers were running the falls. Crazy!

We like to go camping.

Thing #3: DUSTY MADE IT INTO THE BUSINESS PROGRAM

Congratulations, Durd!

Thing #4: 4th of July

We made cherry pie with the cherries off the tree in the backyard. It was d-e-licious.

Kelly took some interesting pictures with her super-awesome camera.

Okay. That's enough for now.

Carnage

So, I am now joining the ranks of people who write entire blog posts about their pets.

These are the cats.

There's Dannon, the two-face ninja cat.

And Morgan, almost-black pirate cat.

Right up until a few weeks ago I would have filled this post with stories of their idiosyncrasies (cuz man, they've got them), but now I find that the most prominent characteristic that comes to mind when I think about my cats has changed.

Now I think about death.

The cats have declared war.

On mice.

The whole problem began several months ago. Russ found the cats throwing a dead mouse through the air in the living room. (Brings to mind killer whales and baby seals.)

We've had our problems off and on, but I'm sad to report that it has escalated.

I've been home from Idaho for less than a week. In that time, the cats have brought in 9 LIVE mice. They no longer are interested in killing them. They carry them in unscathed and then chase them through the house. One evening last week, the mouse escaped! It hid under the couches until all of the furniture in the living room was turned on end, and we were patrolling with a broom, dust pan, and leather gloves.

We've learned that the quickest way to get rid of the mice is to actually pick them up! We keep a pair of leather gloves in the living room, and I've become quite adept at snagging the mouse, pinning it between my hands, and hauling it outside to dump it someplace where the cats aren't just going to turn around and bring it back in.

You're probably wondering why we kept letting them go outside if this was such a problem. Honestly, I kept thinking, "Well, how many mice can live in one back yard?"

Russ has started locking them out of the house at night.

Now, these same cats are capable of being nice, calm, relatively quiet creatures.

They don't seem like blood-thirsty serial killers.

But we're getting a little tired finding mouse heads on the garage floor.