We got a cat from my parents. We lost her the first day, but then in the morning she was in our garage. The boys had a lot of fun playing with her, but I forgot a few things about having a cat. Such as they like to scratch furniture and sometimes little boys or even grown ups for no apparent reason. They also like to jump on the table when you are trying to eat, or if you didn't finish clearing the table after lunch. You have to train them to use the littler box or make sure they get outside when they need to. And sometimes they have fleas or worms. And they scratch your screens. I wasn't so sure I was ready for a cat after all.The poor cute thing never got a name. (Lily, Tiger Lily, Tiger Rose, Wild Rose -because she scratched, and Roxanne after Ben's old cat Rocky were all suggested.) I let her outside to go potty the Saturday Ben flew to Boston and she disappeared. After we dropped Ben off at the airport we bought something for her to scratch, de-wormer, flea drops and a collar, but when we got home she wasn't there.

She didn't magically show up in our garage the next morning like the first time. I put out food and water for her and left our side garage door open while we went to church. She wasn't there when we got home. I packed our bags for our trip. I considered not going to Tracy and waiting for her to show up again, but I didn't know if that would ever happen. So I put out a bucket of water and all the food we have and a gazebo for shade (sadly I forgot to stake that down). And we left for Tracy without her. She was a good cat. She wasn't too scardey or wild and she never went to the bathroom in our house. She would have learned better manners in time. I don't like the thought of her lost or dead somewhere. I hope she ran in someone's house and they decided to keep her.

The boys all loved her and wanted to bring home another cat, but I think we'll wait awhile.

I gave all the boys haircuts while we were in Tracy. You can see from the above picture that their hair was getting a bit shaggy. It wasn't too bad, but my brother Steven is getting married in August and I wanted to cut it now to give it a chance to grow back before the wedding.

You can see their haircuts here. This is the Saturday Ben got back from Boston. We expected to have someone bringing over a playset, but it was in storage and they couldn't get it out, so we never did get it. But Ben enjoyed having half a Saturday off to play with the boys.

Here is a picture of the boys from today. Yes, that is homemade strawberry jam on their faces. It was quite yummy too.

I love Cannon's smile. Unfortunately I have to trick him into giving it when I have the camera now because he has learned to say cheese instead of really smiling.