Kishacoquillas

The newest member of our household, age 6 weeks:

This is how big he is (note the wedding ring!)

Eating some yummy kitty food.

He's deciding if he's the kind of hedgehog who eats kale...

Back to the safe and tasty kitty food.

Point of order: Though his name has the word 'quills' in it, hedgehogs actually have spikes.  :)

Our Day

Here a few snapshots from the photo booth at our wedding. Check it out!

Pennsylvania

J and I went to Pennsylvania recently to join with family to celebrate the life of my uncle.  My aunt and many family and friends who learned from him and with him gathered to celebrate his life and dynamic faith.  But here in this space I'll share photos of our road trip instead.

Rambler's Roost Truck Stop/Restaurant in Ohio where we stopped to rest our weary bladders.

Inside of this lovely establishment are wonders beyond imagination. By this I mean J said inside of the men's restroom there was a vending machine that held "horny goat weed" and condoms with a variety of creepy names, one being "Rough Rider." We left rather quickly.

The shower at the hotel was too short for Joseph, which for some reason we thought was hilarious.

There is a huge cow in the valley-so we stopped for a photo op.

Here she is presiding over her farm.

Our cats

According to the American Humane Society data from 2012: 31% of American's own two cats-just like us. There are 2.11 owned cats per American household. (That means that those of you without a cat aren't pulling your weight...just kidding.) So here are a few stories about our two best feline friends.
First things' first, introductions:

Meet Catlock

And The Chairman Meow

The puzzle
In February J mentioned in passing that he had never completed a puzzle before. Well.
Clearly, logically, we needed to do a puzzle together.  So we found a brand new 1,000 piece puzzle at my parents' house and promptly took it home.The first picture is starting the puzzle. The second picture we're almost done.  The picture that's missing is the one taken after the cats realized that they were being neglected because of our hours spent puzzling and decided to exact revenge by scattering the pieces all over the floor and covering them in cat vomit. We had to throw away the whole thing without finishing it.  Boo...cats.

The day after we threw out the puzzle these same two cats uprooted our one remaining live plant and left it as a warning in our bed.

It was around this time that J. decided it was a good idea to shave them. You know, so there would be less cat hair flying around our small house. The problem was that they would only tolerate a small amount of time being shaved each day, so after about a week of daily shavings they were each about half bald.  And at that time I panicked because they looked ridiculous. And I begged him to stop shaving them. So he did. And they looked like this:

Catlock

The Chairman Meow

But now their fur has all grown in again and they look happy sleeping on our pillows, I think.

Birthday

It was my birthday. We went hiking/camping. It was really fun, but it was cold. We accidentally hiked to the 'wrong' campsite. I think the experience may have changed our lives...good conversation happened. That's all.  :)

We started hiking in the dark and cold and rain. Here's J being an adorably good sport.

I'm not sure why J slept in his glasses. Maybe for extra warmth?

Notice our expertly hung food bag!

J still looking cute, but in the daylight this time.

Camp out!

This weekend Joseph and I went up to Michigan City with my parents where they have a sail boat. There was a storm brewing, so the four of us went out to dinner, and then had a sleep over on the boat.  It was fun.

The Boat!

Breakfast on the boat

Some cool para sailing dude.

 Bench at Washington Park

Joseph and I in front of the lighthouse

View from the pier

In between smooches

A failed experiment!

So, a few things coalesced to inspire an experiment in my kitchen Saturday morning.  Joseph has been working from 5AM - 3:30PM, which make for really long days, and he has to work 8 hours on Saturday also; I bought a breakfast smoothie at a restaurant this week and it was completely delicious; I wanted to do something to support Joseph's early mornings.
So...Friday I bought all the ingredients that seemed good for smoothies, which I've never made before. And after I went to bed on Friday night I realized I hadn't seen any ice in the freezer, so I got out of bed, used some lids as make-shift ice makers because we don't own ice trays, weird. And then I spent 15 minutes finding the blender in our kitchen (can you tell I haven't used it since I moved into this house?). Saturday morning I got up with Joseph's alarm and put the ingredients in the blender. Three seconds after I turned on the blender it smelled like terrible chemical fire and stopped working. Not to be outdone I poured all of the ingredients into a bowl and grabbed the stick blender we use to make soap. But a piece of ice got stuck in the blade before I realized it and I totally, completely, shredded the stick blender and it's destroyed. Boo. As I stood in the kitchen lamenting the failure of the smoothie Joseph was very kind and funny. He grabbed a mug and started to eat the chunky smoothie with a spoon, complimenting it all the while.
It was a good start to the weekend after all. And for the record, it tasted good.

See the blue and red lids that made ice? And the broken blender and the broken stick blender? Oops. But the chunky smoothie was tasty.

Joseph enjoying breakfast very early on Saturday morning.

Stevphen

There is a strange (no surprise!) movie starring Johhny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson (she's also plays Idgie, a main character in Fried Green Tomatoes) called Benny and Joon. Joseph and I watched this a few months ago. At the end of Benny and Joon, Joon gives her brother a gift of two goldfish. She tells him that the fish are named Steven and Stephen.  Since watching that I have been asking Joseph for a fish named Steven/Stephen.  Well, last weekend I left town and when I came home there was a surprise sitting on the kitchen counter!  I'm very excited to introduce you...meet our new Beta fish, Stevphen!

Drying Laundry

I don't know about you, but I love to hang up laundry to dry. Something about it draws me in. I like that I have to slow down, I like that no words/letters/reading is required, I like that it is tactile and I touch and smell the clean laundry, I like that no energy is used in the gas or electric dryer, I like that I have to stretch just a little.  Maybe what I like most is that if I'm lazy and don't want to fold the clothes for awhile, they'll keep hanging and won't get wrinkly.  Because of this, our house has four drying racks and two extensive clothes lines inside the house that I've been using for the last year since I moved into this house. But it's summer now, so I was excited to get some outdoor drying space. Joseph wonderfully indulged me and put up this four sided clothes line in our back yard.  I used it today for the first time. As I was thinking about how nice it was to be outside I noticed that a family of swans had come to visit. I mean, really, how does life get any better than this?

Laundry hanging to dry with swans in the background.

Family of swans-two adults and five ducklings-I took this picture while standing in our back yard.

 Swans under our Sycamore tree.

My weekend

Joseph and I went to Salamonie on Saturday and hiked on the Blood Root trail again. We bought a new pack for him, so this was the maiden voyage. Although it wasn't loaded to full weight I think it felt good for him.  But the big drama was that I forgot my wallet at the Park Office. We didn't realize it was missing until we were halfway home and it was 9:00 at night, so way too late to do anything about it at that point. So we drove the rest of the way home-hungry all the way because we had planned to eat dinner but didn't have any money in the car.  This morning at 9:01 we got a phone call from the Park Office. The woman said she'd found my wallet and I could pick it up anytime today! So we went to church and then drove the 90 minutes back to Salamonie to retrieve the wallet. Everything was still in it, even the $37 in cash!  And then we drove home and rode our bikes to watch the Fair Parade. We got there just in time to see Rock Run and their float.  Then we biked into the fair and walked around for the rest of the day.  I'm so glad that whoever was the camper who picked up my wallet was willing to hand it in.

Me with Joseph (self-portrait) eating our picnic on our hike on the Blood Root trail.

Signs on the Blood Root Trail.

Bicycle parking at the County Fair. I was surprised to see the bike racks and how many people were using them. We were glad that we rode our bikes because traffic was backed up all the way past our house during the parade.

June 5, 2014

Today we took a trip to Key West, Florida to see the sights and smell some smells.  We visited a maritime museum all about finding the treasure from the sunken ship the "Atocha".  We parked about a mile and a half away so we had the opportunity to see some amazing things on our walk to and from the car.  Afterward, walking had taken its toll so we decided to stop by the restaurant called "Blue Heaven" (recommended to us by friends in Indiana). The food was phenomenal.

We pulled over to get a picture of a weather balloon we saw while in the car.

Is it a weather balloon? Of course it is, just ask Norm, he'll tell you an interesting story all about the many times that it has crashed.

A beautiful cloudscape.

A hotel in Key West

An interesting Banyan Tree.

A few pots and pans from the Atocha museum.

This cannon was found under the sea in the Atocha wreck. It was on the sea floor for over 300 years before it was brought to the surface.

The funny thing about this necklace pendant is that it has the saint of lost things (for our non-Catholic readers, that's Saint Anthony) on the back of it-I guess that's why it was found and brought to the surface.

Those bricks are silver bars....

Two words:  lama gallstones   why on earth someone used it in a cup that neutralizes poison? no idea.  This beautiful gold chalice was originally ringed with emeralds.  On the interior it has a cage to hold a bezoar stone, the gallstone from a llama or goat.  Bezoar stones were believed to ward off poison.  Research reveals that the bezoar stone, made up of hair and calcium, contains a protein that bonds with arsenate, the toxic element in arsenic, proving the theory right.

The food from Blue Heaven was to die for. I had yellow snapper in a sort of sauce that I could feel clogging my arteries and Crystal had jerked chicken that was perfectly spiced. Thank you, John and Deb, for the suggestion.

If you didn't already know, Key West has a law protecting chickens as they are the national bird for the Conch Republic.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

We stopped on the top of a bridge for some sunset photos.