New Digs

Once again, the Link family has passed something great on to us.  Sadly their cat passed away this week.  Rather than let this awesome cat tree that they made end up someplace unloved they passed it on to our cats.  I'd say it gets the paws up!!! 

First Day of School 2012

Now the kids are getting older and a little less willing to let me document these days but here it is - the first day of school!  Ben and Sam are both in Middle School now.  Sam is in sixth and Ben is in seventh Grade.  Maisie is in second grade now. 

KC Cougars

Company outing at the KC Cougars for Country Western Night - a great night for baseball, fun and fireworks!

Best Beach Trip!

We had a great LONG day in St Joseph's Beach, MI with the Vogts today.  We had some great waves and we had a blast getting pounded by them all afternoon.  After having a great dinner at Shu's and watching the sunset we finally headed home late into the night.  Poor Maisie - too much for her little self to handle :-)

Vacation

John took off the whole week to go to Cranberry Lake in Indiana for vacation with us.  My parents joined us for the week which was an awesome bonus.  We rented a beautiful house which had TV'S!!!  (This was a big bonus for our kids!)  The more memorable highlights for John and I included canoeing with the kids, swimming to a giant trampoline off shore, hiking, fishing, and spotting all kinds of animals on the property.  The kids found a mother cat and her litter of three kittens which they spent the week chasing and caring for.  Luckily we didn't see them on our last day or we would have four more cats (which we DON'T need!!)  Some of the animals we saw on a regular basis were deer, beavers, cranes, herons, and even an eagle.  Sam really perfected her fishing skills this week and caught an impressive amount of sunfish, bluegill, bass, and a ten inch bass that she landed on her own.  She is able to bait and release her fish without gloves which now moves her into the "real fisherman" category in everyone's eyes.  Ben is learning to fish without gloves as well and spent a huge amount of his time hiking in the woods.  Maisie has perfected her tracking skills and is now able to identify and figure out what way the deer are headed.  Who knows.... maybe someday we'll have a hunter among us.  Here are the pics in no special order....

More vacation pictures at the lake

 Here is the Mom Cat who the kids decided to name "Shadow" her babies were named "Mirda", Mustache, and Lewis.  The mom cat wasn't much more than six months old herself.  Definitely a lesson in difference in cultures for our kids who couldn't understand why the cats weren't all in the house in a little box being loved.  As the week wore on the kids' attachments to the cats grew which made John and I nervous.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon how you look at it) Mother Nature intervened the night before we left sending a terrible rain and windstorm which sent mom and her babies off packing.   We didn't see them the morning we left.