CLOUDS

Much to everyone's dismay, the end of the Saturday at the Zoo ended with a Mother Nature Cloud Phenomenon, so the entire way home, I was having to stop and shoot. The little girls in my back seat were saying things like, "It's CLOUDS, Gramma!!! Let's go home!" And, "She's staring at me again!" And "Make her stop breathing so loud!!" But still, I had to have these pictures to remember the day with.

Sometimes clouds and their formations trigger more emotions in me than even the whining grandkids do! :-)

"The Peaflock is approaching! The Peaflock is approaching!" A princess at the zoo.















This is a giraffe...duh.
















Caleb, Mercedes and Kaylee waiting for the python to eat a rabbit...sigh. It was the happeist they looked all day.












A mama goose and her goslings out for a late afternoon swim.















Giraffe showing off his profile.
















A family at the zoo. Abigail, Ian, Caleb, Ashley, Merceds and Kaylee. (And a zebra trying to get in his 15 minutes of fame).














This is the way the three older kids acted when a wasp flew around our tablet while we were having a snack. They could watch a python eat a rabbit, but presented with a wasp...well...chaos ensued.











Gramma and her babies.
















We had a great time and couldn't believe it when someone actually had to track us down and tell us it was time for the zoo to close. As you can see, it was a fantastic first birthday celebration the entire week for Abigail, and her cousins benefitted, too!

FIRST BIRTHDAY - FIRST STEPS

"This is the new bench I got for my birthday! I LOVE it!"
















"Oh, did I mention I also decided to walk today??"

"Cool, more gifts! I LOVE this!"















"This is the last one?? Oh, man, I hope I have another birthday tomorrow!!"

Of course the highlights to Abigail's first birthday was the fact that she decided she would walk. Note, I'm not saying that she noted she COULD walk, but that she WOULD walk. I guess she was just saving it for the big day so when everyone got bored with the gifts, cake, ooohs, ahhhs, park, new wagon, etc., etc., she'd have something to keep the party going.

The fact that she ate so much cake she threw up at the end of the evening was also a highlight, for her, not us. She seemed to delight in it, I cleaned it up and didn't find it really all that cool.

But our Abigail is 1 now and well on her way to her teenage years when I have a feeling she will still be delighting in throwing up and keeping us all on our toes.

When I walk out my front door, this is what I see. Well, this is what I see if I look to my left. If I look to my right I see another house. And if I look straight ahead, I see the remnants of a block-long, four-story building that is in the process of being demolished.

It used to be a middle school, and there were kids and cars and parents and problems...but not too many problems. Both of my kids graduated right across the street. They never missed any school because, well, come on now. What excuse could they have ever come up with? "I overslept?" Literally it took them five seconds to walk to school.

Anyway, I missed it after all the kids left and expected it to become something else, but instead, it just sat over there and fell apart, and finally I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper and that started a series of events that have culminated in the wrecking ball being just moments away.

Sentimental? Not exactly. ADIOS YOU AWFUL LOOKING BUILDING!

But then I just glance to my left and see the beautiful Court House right down the street and can almost forget the scene of destruction right in front of me and my agitation abates. If you look closely, there's even a blackbird sitting on the wire admiring the view.

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND - ALL ABOUT GRANDKIDS

Abigail and Kaylee enjoying the outside. Abigail 1 year old,
Kaylee age 8.


Kaylee.



Kaylee and Tori, age 3 months.

Missy and Don could hardly wait for me to come back in
the house. Missy wanted to be fed and...well...Don wanted
to be fed, too. "Hurry, Mom, hurry! We're starved!" Now
Missy has a reason for this staring out the door and begging
thing, Don knows where the fridge is and can reach it just fine.
The begging part is just unbecoming, let's face it.


Annie won't lower herself to the begging thing. Here she is
sporting her "Speedy Ears." Usually when her speedy ears are
on like this, she's either done something she shouldn't have or
one of the neighborhood cats has gotten a good chasing. She's
proud of that. She chases them to the other side of the fence
in their own yard, quite satisfied she has corralled a ferocious
three-pound feline.


This is Missy enjoying rolling in the grass, and if she's lucky,
there just might be a nice pile of aromatic poop in it, too!





I just really don't have to say anything about these three photos.
"Ahhhh..." comes to mind. Or, "God is Great" comes to mind.
Or, "Mother Nature rocks!" comes to mind. These are just some
sunset photos I took from my own yard tonight, Memorial Day
Saturday, 2009.

I hope yours is this peaceful.

IN MEMORY

If life could be a little
Different for you and me
We'd be standing in Venice
Laughing at the sea.

If we had a do-over
We'd make more time to sit
Fish a little, look at the stars
Or travel a little bit.

But instead we've been dealt
Sort of an unsavory hand
And we're dealing with it,
you and me, the best way that we can.

We fought together, struggling,
Holding hands, one day at a time
With hope and love and knowing
Tomorrow the sun will shine.

My father, my mother, my friends, my heroes
You meant the world to me.
I'll love you now and forever and ever, amen
And thank you so much for all you let me be.

K. McWhirt
2009

I LEFT ON A JET PLANE

This scene was standing on the Ohio River (well, the banks
of the Ohio River, anyway) at Station Square about 9:30
PM on a Friday night. Pittsburgh surprised me with its
beauty. I see why my kids love living there!


Caption: "You can't MAKE me look at you!" And he wouldn't.
That banana was all he cared about. I think he was a little
ticked off with his wife over something.


And this was his wife, glaring him down. I'd say she had just
about had it with having to take care of the kids all day while
he sat around doing nothing!


This polar bear was having a real blast playing in the water,
which was really fine, because we were having a real blast
watching her!


Suspended animation? Or under water? I'll stop the suspense...
Under water. We were walking in a huge tube and the polars
were showing off.


Here, kitty, kitty!


I think this lion and lioness were making up after a fight.
Eventually, though, like most men, Mr. L. got a little tired
of the affection and walked away from Mrs. L. She didn't
seem to care...one less person to cook for that night!


I think he was getting really tired of me standing there with
a camera in his face!

And tomorrow, I'll show you some giraffes and bears and
elephants, oh, my!

For his 4th birthday, while I was visiting him in Pittsburgh,
David wanted to go to the zoo. Thinking I was way ahead of
the game, I ordered tickets online before ever leaving Indiana!
"What a brilliant idea!" I thought as I entered my information
and hit, PRINT ONLINE! "I love technology! Now we won't
have to stand in line to buy tickets!"

I never once thought, "I wonder what happens if it rains?"

I did find out, though. We awoke to downpours. Undaunted,
we stopped at a Target store and bought two umbrellas and
headed out. When we arrived, it promised to be a soggy day.
On the upside, my pre-purchased tickets got us right in the
gate with no waiting. Of course, it was pouring, so nobody
was there waiting, which kind of bummed me out.

Within 15 minutes, though, the clouds pushed back and the
sun came out and we ended up having a perfect zoo day. We
put the umbrellas away and never thought about them again
until we left. As we were leaving the gates, the skies opened
up again and the rain all ran out. Are we lucky or what?





I took something in the range of 400 photos in two days.
I'll be posting more later, however, this was one of the
cutest scenes I've ever witnessed.



And this was one of the scariest scenes I've ever witnessed,
especially when this guy got up after this display of teeth,
tongue and BIG MOUTH and ambled toward us.

And that is just a few of the photos of Kathy's Great Zoo
Adventure!

PITTSBURGH IN MAY

This was from inside a car on the Monogahela Incline.
Going UP?



I went to Pittsburgh to celebrate my grandson's 4th birthday
this past weekend and we had such a great time. This is me
after we had just had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in Station Square.



This is the gorgeous sunset we saw on Friday night.



There was a "dancing fountain" that was perfect for a 4-year-old
and his dad to enjoy...especially when it "danced" out all over them!



This is the birthday boy waiting to go to the zoo,
his choice for Gramma's visit! (Zoo pictures to
follow later).



My grandson, David, his daddy, Shane and his mommy,
Jamie at the observation deck after a ride up there on the
Monogahela Incline.


Another view from the Monogahela Incline. This is, of course,
the Monogahela River.

WARNING! NOT FOR EVERYBODY - BIRD DEATH INVOLVED!

First a little background which you have to know to understand why this is such a proud moment for Annie.

She's slow. Very slow. I have had her since she was 6 weeks old and she's now almost 8 years old, and her entire life she has had one mission, and that was to catch a bird.

One time a neighborhood cat caught one and allowed her to play with it, but definitely not the same thing. It was fun but not her conquest.

This morning I let Annie and Missy outside and came in to get a cup of coffee. Within a minute I heard the most awful screeching you can imagine, and I thought the worst. I thought someone was hurting my dogs. Dropping the cup of coffee and picking up my canister of mace I flew out the back door, only to find two really, really pissed off blue jays swooping down and attacking Annie while she batted their baby around. I yelled at her to drop the bird, to get far, far away, to no avail, and because she had "caught" this jay, she was never giving it up, ever! Not even when those jays landed on her back and pecked at her! She stood guard over that bird and ignored mom and dad jays and finally, of course, killed the baby.

But this was HERS and there was no dropping it, not even to come into the house. She was keeping it. Baby Jay was a trophy, something she could put on a plaque on the wall of her kennel and tell stories about.

Annie stood at my back door for about 20 minutes, thinking that sometime I might lose what little sanity I had left and allow her to bring that bird inside for safekeeping and gnawing on, until I finally took a piece of actual food out there and held it in front of her nose. She hesitated and thought about it for about five seconds but finally dropped the trophy bird and went for the better deal, the snack. Annie will eat every hour if I let her, and she cannot turn down a free, unscheduled meal, even for a mauled up dead blue jay kid that she caught herself!

MOTHER'S DAY

First of all, I want to say Happy Mother's Day to Aunt Alice! I love you.

Then, I want to tell you all what I'm doing to celebrate Mother's Day: Going fishing. Yes, I'm going fishing. I'm preparing right now. And Redneck Me is heading out to the bait shop to invest in a new cane pole and some bobbers and hooks and all that stuff that is necessary when going on a fishing adventure.

And tick spray. Shudder. Those little blood suckers make me crazy!

Oh, and a cooler full of...drinks.

And a lawn chair.

As well as some suntan lotion, a sweatshirt (it's cold here today) and an extra pair of white socks so I can see the ticks as they try to make their way up my legs in case they decide to try to survive the DEET, or have mutated so that the DEET means nothing to them. Shudder.

Worms, too.

And some gloves. I can't stand to actually touch the fish to get them off the hook.

FUN FUN FUN FUN!

I'll take my camera so when I catch "the big one" I can post a photo.

NEW MEMBER OF THE FAMILY

For about three years, I've been wanting to get one of these battery-powered mowers from Neuton. Every year I order the brochure, the CD and the catalog and every year I won't actually break down and buy it.

Don has started to complain bitterly about having to drag his big, gas-hog, poisonous-emissions, oil-guzzling, loud gas mower over to cut my grass.

I was mostly taken by the fact that this makes no noise when it runs, but the neat-looking, Alien Earth Rover appearance was a plus. The convenience is just unbelievable. That little cover lifts up and your battery sits right in there and voila! No muss, no fuss, no oil, no gas, no noise, NO POLLUTION! And for a lightweight like me, the fact that it weighs 48 pounds and folds up to store was a selling point.

So, welcome to your new home, little Neuton CE-6 mower. I love you! I will always love you!
Maybe it will stop raining tonight so tomorrow we can go out and play!

By the way, you can see Annie giving Neut the once over. She wasn't too sure of him, but they're going to be best friends, I think.

THE FIRE PIT

I had a chimenea, once. You can see one of its little legs sticking out at the right upper corner of this picture.

Living in a humidity and hail/sleet/tornado/wind/mucho rain region, made the clay weak and when Don tapped it with the lawn mower last weekend, it crumbled. I think it was just standing there out of willpower, just wishing for one more fire. We were sort of afraid to use it with the chimney broken off, though, and it gave Tracy and me a really good excuse to go out shopping for something a little more suited for our weather patterns here. This is what we came home with.

That evening, the two of us, despite Don's warnings that we were doing things incorrectly (and yes, we were, but hey, we did manage) put the pit together so we could have the inaugural fire. It probably took us about two times as long as it would have taken Don, considering we were pretty much confused by the pictoral directions we were dealt. Each of those little decorative pieces down there has to be screwed on separately.

But ta-da! There he is! Doesn't he look totally regal? We sat around it regally, too, wrapped up in a quilt as it got later and colder and the fire burned lower. Eventually I brought out speakers and we connected an iPod and had music. I didn't really realize how loud I had turned it up until I noticed neighbors coming out their doors and glaring at my patio. It sounded like we were reliving the Seventies over here, I think.

That's me, Don and Missy, the Old Woman Doxie enjoying the fire. Maybe I'll have a Pit Party sometime for everyone! If it ever stops raining again.