Call us crazy...

I had talked to a lady awhile ago from Great Lakes Bengal Rescue. I told her we had a full house but could probably help in an emergency.

Well, on Wednesday we found out that there was a bengal at Jackson County Animal Control that could be picked up Thursday but would be put to sleep Friday if nobody came for her. The woman from the bengal rescue lives in Illinois and couldn't find anyone else to go. So, Thursday afternoon, I went out to Jackson. Jackson, at least the part I was in, was not a nice place. It looked kind of dumpy, rundown homes and businesses and old junky cars. The road to the Animal Control building was even worse. It was the only building at the end of a dusty road...it had a very gloomy feeling. Inside, it was very dirt and smelled horrible, and there were animals whining in the background...it made me want to cry. Luckily they kept the animals in a separate room or I would have brought them all home!

I had made an appointment with our vet to check her out before I brought her home. She had really dirty ears, they said she may have had ear mites before, so they were inflamed, so we have drops we have to give her, and she had some sort of worm so we have to give her pills too. But, she doesn't have fleas, which they were concerned about, and she tested negative for Feline Leukemia and some other bad disease, so she's good and healthy. She was so good at the vet too, when she put her hand into the crate, she started purring right away. 

She is such a little love! She has never shown fear, she explored every inch of the vet's office, and took over the walk in closet in our room, and this afternoon decided she also owns the bedroom. And she loves belly rubs! The vet said she may have come from a backyard breeder where she was kept in a cage, because she doesn't jump very well and has no idea what to do with toys. She is just starved for attention, when we go into the room, she runs to us, purring. 

She's so cute and so small, only 6.2 pounds at the vet (our boys are 10) but she's been eating well here so we'll plump her up.

She doesn't have a name yet...she has a very wild look about her, especially in her face. We're having trouble coming up with a name that suits her.

So, we'll be a 5 cat family...which in the case of bengals doesn't seem like a lot...the woman who helped rescue her has 7 bengals, and most of the other people I've talked to have at least 3. They're like potato chips!

Update on the kitties

We've been getting emails and pictures from Kaylene, our breeder, at least once a week, usually more. In her most recent email yesterday, she said they had figured out how to get onto the couch by themselves. They play together really well, and made a game of running back and forth on the couch together. She said Kya is jumps in her lap whenever she sits on the floor, and Zoe can play on the floor by herself but when she wants attention, she wants it NOW. 

This is the girls during their races on Kaylene's couch. Kya on the left, Zoe on the right.

Zoe is so photogenic. 

Kya is so active its hard to get a picture of her face

Recipes!

I finally got around to putting up a couple of our latest recipes!

All the other ones are on the other computer, which I haven't used since I got the laptop, and we unhooked it to get it out of the way, so we'll get to those later.

I also added a 'healthy' section on the right side, that lists all the healthy recipes I've made.

See what we've been eating!

I found some free time!

Hey everybody!

Jasmine has been bugging me about updating, and apparently I haven't posted in a month.

Things have been going great!  In fact, I just had some amazing Cabbage Chicken Mushroom soup ala Jasmine.  Hiller's is the best store!  We like to take our time picking out our favorites and a few new and interesting foods.  We got a red pear and some gouda cheese.  The olive bar is great, Jasmine recommends the feta (yuk) stuffed olives.

I started my last semester at Walsh and at OCC.  I am excited to start the grad program in 10 weeks!  Work has been keeping me very busy, I have had a lot of opportunities to work overtime which is always nice.

I made it to Pro level in Wii bowling and tennis.  Golf and baseball pro status are not far away.  Four player tennis with Jasmine's parents is a riot.  We are still trying to keep up with Jasmine's Dad in bowling, and Jasmine's Mom is the reigning queen of Brain Age.  I am afraid to go back to actually bowling and tennis after this...

I had the day off for the Saturday rotation at work so I packed up my Wii and headed over to OCC Auburn Hills.  I had fun hanging out with the old gang at OCC.

It is nice to have Vlad in one of my classes again.   After class Vlad came over to work on the homework with me.  Jasmine picked us up Tostito's Scoops (only the best kind of chip in the world) and hot salsa.  While feasting on chips and salsa we started the pile of homework.  Homework goes by much faster with cold beer and chips and salsa.  Ironically, the optional text book had the answers written for half of the questions ;)

After 6+ months of marriage, my yearly physical revealed that I am in the best shape of my life.  I was complemented on my diet (thank you Jasmine) and my exercise habits (thank you New Year's resolution).  Now, it is only three weeks into the new year, but Jasmine and I are going to keep each other going to the gym.  Plus all of the exercise we get from playing the Wii!

I am looking forward to a great 2008!

a few small updates

I'm trying to update more often, per the request of many family members and friends.

Not a whole lot has been going on, we had our little group of friends over for a party, since a couple of them go to school far away, we try to take advantage of the times they are here. It was fun, I'm glad my 2 best friends and Eric's 2 best friends get along. We have nice parties.

We are having a hard time waiting until February 9th to go get the kittens. Luckily Kaylene, our breeder, is really really nice. We've already gotten 2 email updates since we were there on Saturday, and the one she sent on Wednesday had a few new pictures! She asked us to let her know when we had picked names for them, and she's already calling them by their names so they'll be used to them (which sounds a little silly but bengals are known for knowing their names. Our boys come when we call their names) 

We've been really happy with Kaylene so far, and are of course completely sold on the bengal breed, so if anyone is looking for a new cat or two, her website is www.artistrycats.com.

Eric started his last semester at Walsh, which is exciting because he's almost done, but, he's gone a couple of nights a week again. I'm used to it, he's been taking tons of classes since high school, and he plans on going right into his Master's. People ask me how I handle him being gone so much, but my friend Leah's boyfriend is in the marines and she never sees him at all. It really puts a couple of nights a week into perspective.

 This semester is really fun for Eric because his friend Vlad is in one of his classes. 

We have been playing Eric's wii a lot (did he ever write that thats what I got him for Christmas?) Janelle, Ryan, Eric, and I also got a wii for my dad so we take our controllers when we go over there and have big family bowl-offs. Its really fun! I don't like the boxing, it confuses me but I like all of the other sports. There is also a game called 'Cooking Mama' where you do different things with the controller to go through all the steps of cooking a meal. Its a hard one to get used to but I think its really funny!

My friend Alex is coming over tonight to have dinner and drinks before she goes back to Iowa. It was a hard adjustment to make after seeing her every day in high school (and having known her since preschool!) to only seeing her a few times a year, so we have to cram a whole lot of girl talk into our last night together before she leaves.

Well, thats about it for now, I've tried a lot of new dishes, I just haven't gotten the recipes and pictures into my recipe blog yet, that is my goal for next week.

Eric's birthday/graduation present

With Eric's graduation from Walsh in March and his 21st birthday in April, I thought we should do something extra special. I told him he could have anything he wanted, and this is what he decided...

Click me!

da bird

We heard about 'da bird' from a lady at a cat show. She told us how crazy her cats went for it, and we checked out the website, but thought $10 was a lot for a couple of feathers on a string. But, the Petco in West Oaks is closing and everything was on sale. We got 'da bird' for $7 (still a lot but I was curious) and brought it home. We had barely gotten it out of the package and they went CRAZY! It kind of spins so it looks like a bird flying around, which we all know they love. I had read before that bengals can jump higher than most cat breeds, and we discovered today that this is very true!

Christmas, part 1

We decided to have our own little Christmas yesterday. Eric had the day off and I got out of work early and we realized that if we waited to exchange our gifts until the actual Christmas day, we would have to abandon them for all of the family things we have to attend, and Eric has to go back to work the next day (this working for hospitals thing is a lot different than working for a college like he used to) so we wouldn't really have time to spend playing with our new toys. So yesterday when I got home from work, we shut off our phones,  I put my pajamas back on, we made some tea, and exchanged gifts. It was really fun! Eric got me: some new socks, raspberries, swiss cake rolls, a pomegranate, lounge pants and a hoodie from Pink, pajamas with matching slippers from Victoria's Secret, and, a LAPTOP!!!! Its so cute, I also got a printer/scanner/copier to go with it, and a cute pink case to keep it in. Its a MacBook, neither of us have ever had a Mac before so we have a lot of learning to do. Luckily, Eric also got me a training thing where I can go in once a week for a whole year to the Apple store in the mall and have a 1 hour training session on anything I want to do with my computer. We went in yesterday and had our first session, and they even gave me a book of all the command code things and it has spaces for notes and questions we come up with for next time. I was impressed with how friendly everyone was...who knows, maybe we're becoming Mac people!
The laptop has a built in webcam, so we were able to talk to and see Eric's brother Brandon last night. We also got to meet a few of his friends. That was fun, we haven't seen him in a long time.

It also has all kinds of fun photo editing things, so we've had a lot of fun playing around with it, as I'm sure you'll see as we post our weird pictures in the next couple of days.

Hanukkah Pictures

Before it gets too late, I have to post about the amazing Hanukkah celebration we had! The ladies started the afternoon with lovely conversation and delightful appetizers while the men got to work in the kitchen. The latkes were better than they had ever been! Grandpa said Eric must have helped that because this was the first year he fried, and that he'll have to make sure he does it again next year. They were so so good. I have a couple of pictures but have yet to get them up yet. It was a really fun Hanukkah! 

Picture time

Janelle's Wedding Pictures

The wedding was fun, we had a good turn out despite the weather. It was a very busy and crazy weekend but I think everyone had a good time.