I can't believe I gave this cat back and kept Bentley instead

Once upon a time I went to my sister's house and came home with two kittens. After a few months it was decided (not by me, but probably for the better) that 3 cats was two much. So another trip was made back to Idaho to bring one of the kittens back. Lou, my first cat, seemed to hate Bentley less than GingerBelle so I kept Bentley and gave back Ginger. If you've been to my house, especially with kids, you've heard me say, "Watch out he bites, especially kids." or "Watch out he'll smack your kid with his claws out..." the list goes on. My niece Samantha rarely sees me without reminding me of the time, "Bentley slapped me on my face." I liked Ginger better at first so whenever I'm in Idaho I love visiting with her and even though I love Bentley more than anything and would never trade him now, sometimes when I see this I wish he'd been the one I gave back instead.

Larderhoarding - No groceries for a month

Recently my niece Sarah looked in my pantry while playing hide and seek and said, "Wow that's a full pantry, it looks like a store!" and she's right. I have too much food for just one person. I've also had the conversation while eating dinner camping, "This is good where did you get this?" "Out of your pantry" "Really?" Also there's a lot of stuff in here that's expired, but I usually still use it.

Apparently when squirrels do this it's called "larderhoarding" I don't have a designated food storage, but then, maybe I do, or maybe I'm a Pika and you'll find me some winter living under a pile of all my hoarded food. Last year I heard of some of my cousins doing a food storage challenge where they went a month without grocery shopping without any notice first but I wasn't really so impressed because I knew I could have done it. Granted, I don't have kids so kudos for them and their kids. I made it a New Years goal to live for a month on the food I have in my house. The farmers' market is starting up in Utah on June 12th so I decided I should go for it now so I wouldn't miss out on getting all that fresh produce. May 12-June 12 I won't be grocery shopping. I did stop by the store the night before and picked up some eggs and flour and carrots for the horses. I don't really see this being a difficult challenge for me, I should have made it 3 months. Maybe I'll do it again later in the year. I think I could go 6 months if I wasn't such a food snob and could be content to eat bean soup for a few weeks and not bake cookies every Sunday. Lou is going to miss her milk every morning once my last gallon is gone though. One of the problems with having such a full pantry though is sometimes things get forgotten…like this potato. Doesn't it look like something you'd find in the ocean?

I walked for The Cure (…to breast cancer not the band)

I'm trying to think of the right word to use to describe a large crowd of people… mob, horde, drove, mass, legion, throng, swarm, multitude, host…none of these seem to really convey how many people there were today at the Race For The Cure walk. Maybe if I could use all of these words together simultaneously it would work. As in there was a legion of mobs and a multitude of swarms and a mass of crowds. All for a good cause though and it's nice to see a community united for something positive. I just had no idea how big our community is. The first picture if looking forward at the crowd and the one below is looking behind me. It's like a river of pink. It took us a good 10 minutes after it started to even cross the starting line and we were in the front half of the crowd. That pink balloon arch is the starting line. It was fun and I'm glad I did it. We had a lot of Myriad people turn out, it didn't hurt that the company paid our registration fee. I ended up walking with Heathyr and Casey the whole way. I knew lots of other people walking but didn't run into any of them. I guess I'm lucky because when I was there I was trying to think of who I know that's had breast cancer. I know there has to be more but the only ones I could think of were my French teacher's mother, who I never actually knew but my teacher missed a couple weeks of school when she died, and Susan Walton. How is it that I can link almost every story of mine back to the Waltons? They're like the Kevin Bacons of my life.

The Evolution of Dancing

I took these two videos of my nephew Simon dancing. The first one is when he turned two and the seond one is just after he turned three, after he got the drums. These aren't the only two styles of dancing he does. They're just the only ones I've caught on video.

Who needs babies if you have Bakugan?

I learned about Bakugan today. Xavier wanted to have a Bakugan battle so he gave me this demonstration. I had stopped by Alicia's for a little of this... little did I know what other exciting adventures I'd be having. Monday is usually the day I go climbing but I just wasn't feeling like going. I did spot the boys while they climbed though. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to do this, but who am I to discourage climbing? I tried showing Quinn what plants were weeds that he could pull out, but he didn't want to pull up the dandelions claiming they weren't weeds because they looked like sunshine. So then I just took this lovely picture in her sideyard and went in to hold the baby some more.

May Day!

May Day! I used to fill those green strawberry baskets up with flowers and weave ribbon around the edges then leave them on my neighbors porch. On May Day here in Utah it was a little snowy still. It cleared by the afternoon but it was still pretty lame. I spent the first half of the day inside. Then, because I'm kind of dorky I just had to go to one of the many 10 years of geocaching anniversary events. I went. I signed the board. I was in the group picture and I left. The one I attended was at Smashburger downtown and as soon as I left I wanted to go back for a burger. That was an easy fix. I stopped by Nate and Carrie's on my way home to see if they wanted to go try Smashburger. I've rarely known them to not be in the mood for burgers so as soon as Simon woke up from his nap we went. I liked mine ok but the fries were the best part. They put rosemary and olive oil on them …oh and they have malts! Afterwards I spent the evening playing in the backyard with Simon. He is so much fun. He couldn't hold this smile for very long...I put him in the Apple tree but he wasn't too impressed...I climbed the plum tree and he told me, "Watch out you're gonna bonk your head!"This is my favorite. It shows off his hair.

My New Friend Zoe

Alicia went solo from our cooking duo and baked herself up a cute little bun and it's out of the oven! (out of the oven thanks to James who delivered her in their front room!) I prefer to think of her as a tamale since that's what we were supposed to make next. Either way, I have a new friend, and her name is Zoe. She's a new new friend (nu-nu? ha ha..old mission joke) I got to see her just a few days old. (I thought I'd write a blog post on her since we can all use a break from climbing posts right?) She is so cute and soft and sweet to hold. I like how much she looks around and seems to make eye contact with everyone. When she cries she looks like Quinn and when she pouts she looks like Xavier and when she's happy she looks like…Zoe, who else? My favorite part is all her dark silky brown hair, especially in the front where it flips up like a little 80's surfer. The 80's are so in style right now too! How did she know? I already predict good things from this little cookie and I don't think I'm the only one who's already taken in by her...

We Climbed The Day Away

Another nice spring Monday begging to be filled with climbing. Mark and I headed up to The Dihedrals Area in Little Cottonwood Canyon in the morning with Ben, had some tacos for dinner at Lone Star then headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon in the evening with Jennilyn. As we were driving home he said, "Well Katie we climbed the day away..." It was such a satisfying thing to hear. In the Dihedrals I practiced a few multi pitch techniques I wanted to learn and we all ended up doing 5 pitches of climbing. My favorite of the day was Half-A-Finger. I think I'll make this a project. I really liked it. There you can see the "half a finger" formation at the top of the route.This last little move may not look so graceful, but I thought it was the funnest part. Jam your entire arm in the overhanging crack by the finger and pull yourself up. I can't wait to go back already.Ben is one of my co-workers and he's an awesome boulderer. We talk climbing at work a lot, and we've climbed at the gym a couple times, but he'd never climbed on a rope outside. This was his first trip up the canyon for some real climbing. He did awesome and even made it halfway up the 5.11 Mark climbed. I was impressed. He's already asking me when he can come with us again.Mark belaying us up...he may look casual about it, but I trust him with my life.

Adventures in yard work

Last Saturday was such a nice gorgeous spring day! The dandelions were out in full force so I decided it was about time to mow and fertilize the lawn for the first time this spring. Doing this kind of yard work and not just the "tend the tomatoes and herb garden" stuff sure makes me feel independent and self sufficient. The thrill of that won't last long I'm sure and by mid summer I'll be once again, hopefully, accepting charity mowing from my neighbor that butchered my herb garden last year. The dandelions seemed to be onto me, they were so short the mower just went right over them. As a side note, I've had those shoes since high school, in fact they're my old badminton shoes. I keep some stuff way too long... After my yard work was done I sat in the driveway and enjoyed the company of Edam, my neighbors cat. I don't know his real name, but it's the prettiest friendliest cat ever. I love his eyes! They're really light blue-green and remind me of sea glass you find in Monterey. Why can't my inside cats be as friendly as the outside cats!? Then Charlie rode her scooter past my tulips and pointed out a snake hiding in them. I caught him and named him Slim Willy. He was the biggest snake I'd caught in my own yard and he wasn't too happy to be in my hands so I set him free in the horse pasture and wished him good hunting. You really don't need to go further than your front yard sometimes for an adventure.