The last days of summer!

Doug sent me a cute little outfit from Afghanistan.  Don't you think the blue matches my eyes? My glasses would not fit under it.  I wonder if they come in sizes or if my noggin is too huge cause the top it tight.  I wonder if heat stroke is a common ailment for the ladies that wear these?  It is hot in that thing.  It is a beautiful color and the workmanship in the making is beautiful.  
Gwen decided that she wanted to take some pictures.  So I gave her my camera and she was really quite good.  She just went up to this girl and said "I want to take your picture!"  

Photos by Gwen.  She has an eye for beauty!
Waiting for the Rodeo to start.  What a great tradition.  Each year we go to the Kootenai County Fair.  The Rodeo is always my favorite part.  Especially the beginning.  This year they had some soldiers and sailors march out before the National Anthem and the crowd went wild cheering.  It made me cry.  Anyone who doubts that the American people do not love their country or stand by their military ought to come to a Rodeo.  Those are the REAL Americans, proud and loud!
Gwen walked right up to this cow and announced "Nonna this is a nice one."  I yelled, "Gwen, No you can't touch them, they might kick you!"  Then a young man said "Oh no, she is fine, he is a nice one"  Well I guess Gwen can sense kind beasts.  Is that a gift of the Spirit?  
We saw pigs too.  They stunk, but not this cute little piggy.
Taylor's annual "happy time" in the horse barn.  This year they did not have the horse raffle though.  They were raffling a Mule!!!!!!! Oh disappointment... who would want a MULE??????
Gwen loved the duck and chicken barn.  She went to each cage and said "HI DUCK" to each chicken and laughed so hard she almost fell over.  Then when she finally got to a duck she paused and said "HI CHICKEN!!!"  and we all laughed.  I've never enjoyed those birds as much as I did this year.
This goose would talk back to you if you spoke to it.
Nonna always makes sure the kids are eating good and healthy food.  Fruit is very important in the diet.  You can tell Gwen appreciates a healthy snack too.
Ahhhh the traditional food of my ancestors.  The Italian Sausage sandwich.   Good to the last bite.  
This year we had a bumper crop of huckleberries.  Good for the bears and good for us!  They sure are good.  Taylor and Zooey are finding the good ones in the shade!  We go up mid-day so we are not competing with the bears!!!!
The last day at the lake.  Skipping stones should be a summer Olympic event!
Gracie was not too sure about the waves.   She is such a princess.  Well summer has flown by and for once I am glad.  I have started to winterize the house and look forward to fall.  I don't usually want time to fly but this year I do, then after my sweetheart gets home time can creep by as slowly as it can.  I miss you Doug.  I love you.  

Our very special pets.

                                                                                  LOJACK    

 Yesterday I had Kobe, Gracie, and Taylor over to help me with some yard chores.  Our goal was to pick up all the apples that had fallen off the tree.  Not a small job because the tree was loaded to the point I thought it would break from all the weight.  So Kobe was given the job to pick up the apples on the inside of the fence in the flower garden. I noticed a big hole and it was not the first big hole I had found in my flower garden.  In fact when I saw the first one I thought someone had stolen a plant!  I finally figured it out to be one of Jack's, Ellies dog, favorite past times was to dig in my garden.  So as we were all busy working hard to get every apple picked up I looked into Kobe's assigned area and saw that the hole was filled with apples and dirt had been thrown on top.  As I was going to get on Kobe for doing that I see Jack running across the yard with a pear in his mouth to add to his cache he had made.   I wonder if I could teach him to dig up the weeds?  I love when he comes over and hides his rawhide treats under my pillow or in my shoe.  He does help out with one of Doug's chores.  He loves "kitty rocha" so I don't have to clean out Zion's box as much......    Jack has a bed time and complains if he is out past 8:30PM.   

So as I was telling Doug about Jack's latest cute trick I mentioned that all our pet's seem to be very extraordinary and maybe a little eccentric.  I wondered if they came to us that way or we made them that way?  So here are a few of my favorites, though not all, we have had a plethora of animals in our home.

                                                                            MAXINE 

Maxine, we did not have her for very long but she was a wonderful dog.  She was a former MP dog and when her owner got transferred he had to leave her.  She was starving herself to death, she missed him so much so the vet asked if we could take her.  She bonded to me immediately and was my guard dog.  She could open doors if you did not lock them so sometimes when I was leaving I would get to the car and there she would be waiting for me because she had climbed out the window or opened another door to get out.  She never let the cleaning lady into the same room with me.  Once the plumber reached to shake my hand and she about castrated him.  She loved the family and really was a sweet dog. She was even protective of the cat, Shrimp.  One day I heard the dogs out back just growling and sounding awful so I called Shrimp and Maxine ran back and got him from the dogs.  They had torn Shrimp up pretty bad.  We had to leave Maxine in Italy when we got transferred to Hawaii because she would never have survived the quarantine there.  I was very sad when I heard that the family who took our house and had promised to keep her did not keep their word and gave her away.
                                                                             SHRIMP

Shrimp, the cat who really did have nine lives.  Shrimp just showed up on our porch one day.  His tail reminded the girls of a shrimp so that was what we called him.  We knew he was Italian because he came to "Moochie" which is the way Italians call their cats.  I told the girls I did not want a cat and he was not to come into the house.  I did let them feed him.  Then one Sunday we went out and he had snapped his back leg.  It was awful, just hanging there.  He looked so pitiful so we rushed him to an Italian emergency vet.  Well they had to pin the leg and $300.00 later Shrimp was in the house being hand fed and hand carried to the litter box.  His leg got infected and they thought they would have to amputate it but we got him through it and did not have to change his name to tripod.  Well, now that we had an investment we decided to keep him.  That was the first life, then he got struck by lightening and was blinded by that but the vet got him through it and his eyesight came back.  Then the dog got him and he had to have his butt shaved and got stitches.   He was really indignant about that.  Then we paid to ship him to Savannah so Lea could keep him for us while we were in Hawaii but some friends of hers ended up with him.  I called them to tell them he was my cat but they were so in love with him I didn't have the heart to take him back.
                                                                            ZION

Now Shrimp was so loved by the girls that when Ellie was working at a pet store she was keeping an eye out for another cat like him. One day a lady brought in a tiny kitten that was left of her front porch and Ellie picked him up and he put a paw on either side of her face and nibbled on her nose.  She called me and said she found the perfect cat for me.  I took one look and he was mine. We named him Zion, so he would be pure in heart.  He slept on my neck.  He is still sleeping on me, 12 years later, only now he weighs about 17 lbs.  He is my cat and really freaks Doug out when he talks.  He will say Hello and Mom.  He is very vocal.  When the alarm clock goes off, if I do not get up he comes and sits on my head and nudges me to get up. He is always at my feet or on my lap when I am home.  The only time he is not by my side is when the grandkids are here.  He always stays close to them.  If they bug him too much he just grabs hold of them and yowls but he won't leave their side.  He has no claws at all so it is pretty harmless. When he was a kitten I tried to trim his nails and could not keep a hold of him so I took him to the vet and said I might have to get him declawed because he loved to climb me and sit on my shoulder and the bigger he got, well it was hurting.  The vet assured me he could trim the nails but he and the assistant came out bleeding.  He then decided to declaw all four paws and fixed him and pulled all the baby teeth because the big teeth were coming in behind them.  So Zion does not like vets at all.  His ear filled with blood one day and the vet had to drain it and put stitches into it and they told me they had to sedate him to take the stitches out.  I just set him on my lap and he sat there and let me take all 8 stitches out and only shook his head after each one and never even tried to get away.  He swallowed a needle once.  He kept throwing up his food so I took him in and the vet assumed it was just a hairball so he was showing me how to give Zion the Tuna flavored gunk to get the hairball out and of course Zion was fighting like a tiger.  At home he takes it fine from me but he does hate vets.  So he was hissing and spitting it out when I could see the needle stuck into the top of his mouth.  The vet looked horrified!  He was not about to put his fingers into that cat's mouth.  I took Zion from him and reached in and plucked it out, no problem.  The didn't even charge me, he was just thankful to get Zion out of there.  That vet is retired now, and he wasn't that old.   Zion broke his leg once, we are not sure how, and we all signed his cast.  He hates strange men in our house and will bite their feet.  He acts all friendly and then when they are least expecting it he bites, not too hard to break the skin, just enough to make them jump and be on edge. He really hates anyone who smells like cigarettes and does his bear walk after them.  One poor guy fell down our basement stairs the cat scared him so bad.   He doesn't bite Doug, he will sit on Doug lap some nights when we are watching TV, he will go back and forth between us.  Doug is convinced the cat does not like him but he has lost a lot of weight since Doug left.  I believe he misses him a lot.   
                                                                                      REBEL

Rebel was a real sweetheart.  He loved Ellie and Sarah.  He was big and fat and just purred like a fine race car when they dressed him in their doll clothes and pushed him around in the baby buggy.  He would jump up on our bedroom window sill each morning to be let into the house.  I had it down to a routine.  He would jump up to let me know he was there then jump down so I could open the window and in he would jump.  Well Doug was kind enough one morning to let him in and did not know about the jumping down part and when Rebel jumped down Doug put his face out to see where he went just as Rebel was jumping back up and Doug stood up and cracked his eyebrow on the window and had to get stitches!!!!  I confess I did laugh a little.  I am truly sorry now but it just hit my funny bone to see that big grey cat come flying in the way he did.  Sorry babe.
                                                                                        DIXIE

We did not have Dixie very long because the breeder had inbred her and her hips were so bad we had to have her put down at a year and a half.  She was so sweet and smart.  She never had an accident in the house.  She was well mannered and loved her walks with me each morning.  She knew if I had my green sweater on we were going out.  Then when we came in we would share a cup of hot chocolate and a bagel with peanutbutter on.  She always had her half.  Now you say, "Dogs should not eat that".  Well Dixie was best known for her iron stomach.  It was always a surprise what we would see on her walks.  She ate things.  Things that no one would eat.  Once it was a pink plastic disposable razor!   One Christmas I had made chocolate truffles for all the kids teachers,  two cookie sheets covered with about 5 lbs of very rich chocolate.  We had to run Sarah up to the pool for swim practice and when I got home I looked everywhere for the truffles.  The cookie sheets were still on the table, nothing was out of place but the chocolate was no where to be seen.  It did not phase her at all.  I will never forget her last night at home, the whole neighborhood came in to say good bye.  The next day the vet stood by me, a big burly guy, and cried as much as I did as she was put to sleep.  I had her buried on a farm.
                                                                              ANGEL

Angel was our first pet.  Doug picked her out.  I was afraid to be alone with the kids when Doug was gone TDY so Angel was our guard dog.  She looked very intimidating for sure.  She was the biggest chicken in the world!  The weiner dog next door would chase her back into the house and she would pee the whole way!  Angel was Doug's baby and she loved him.  She was also a free spirit and although she loved him she was not about to listen.  He would chase her and chase her and she just thought it was a game.  When she would get out even the MP's would call me and say "Mrs. Welch, Angel is out again, we can't catch her."  He took her to the MP's dog obedience school and they finally had to admit she was smarter than all of them. They all loved her though.   In the morning she knew if I was in my pajamas I could not chase her so she would run off.   If I was dressed she would come right back in like she was supposed to.  She was not allowed on the furniture but after she put us to bed she would go and sleep on the sofa.  We knew she was doing it, not because we caught her, but because of the hair and warmth we felt.  She knew when the alarm went off, to go and get into her bed.  So Doug got the idea to set some mouse traps on the sofa to deter her from getting up there.  She very gently moved them over with her nose and continued to sleep where she wanted.  She loved all children and you could not spank a child when she was around.  One lady who was staying at our house raised her hand to smack her child and Angel jumped up and grabbed her hand.  She did not bite or hurt the woman, she just held her hand.  The lady asked me what she was doing and I told her, Angel does not allow children to be hit.  Poor Doug would wrestle with the four kids and they would be trouncing on him and Angel would nip at his feet.  There is a reason they are called Pinchsers.  
                                                                             BILBO

Now most would think a rodent is a rodent and that is that.  Not so, Ellie brought home this tiny little baby hamster.  He had hair like Albert Einstein and in the mornings he had real bed head.  One time his butt hair got caught in his wheel and we found him hanging upside down.  I was watching him one time crawl up on top of his very stylish mushroom house and he would sway back and forth about three times and then leap, trying to reach the door to his cage.  It was almost like he was counting ONE,  TWO,  THREE,  JUMP!!!!  He really was a sweet little creature.  Ellie told me she could not bear to go on her mission and have Bilbo die while she was gone.  (Hamsters only live about three years and he very likely would have expired while she was gone)  Well we were out of town and she called crying that Bilbo had died in his sleep and he had a smile on his face.  I was doubtful but gave my condolences.  When I go home Ellie was not there and when I opened the freezer out fell a box with Bilbo in it and there was a smile on his face!!!  Ellie explained that he was in there so we did not miss the funeral.  He is buried under the livingroom window.  The funeral was beautiful.

So are they?  or did we create them?  

There are others but I am pretty tired right now.  Zion is nagging me to go to bed.  

It's not just GAS!

One of my favorite things is when a baby learns to smile ( and I never really believed it was GAS!) and then they learn to laugh.  Well little Nathan is pretty generous with his smiles.  In fact he seems to look pleased all the time.  Today Sarah asked me to hold him while she showered so I was playing with him and I was doing goofy things to try and get him to laugh.  He was almost there....he was giggling and just on the verge of laughing so I did the one thing that everyone who has ever had a child or grandchild knows not to do.  I layed down on the ground and held him up over my head and he let me have it right in the eye and in my ear and in my hair!!!!  I got slimed real good.  I still chuckle about the time Doug had Taylor on his shoulders in Sears and she covered his head!  So now Doug, you can laugh at me.  Jared almost got it on film but when I yelled for Sarah to come and help me he dropped the Flip!  So maybe that laugh was a little more than Gas.......hmmmmm.

More adventures of the Welch Ohana

Look at our posterity Doug!  Wow.  It really is amazing how fast a family grows.  Aren't they just plain beautiful!
The family that digs garnets together...........?
Really this is not child slave labor.  She really is having a good time.
Ah the joys of finding one!  It gives you the fever!
Jason is loving it.
Sarah found the biggest gem of all.
The water trough was the best part.  Playing in muddy water is just invigorating.
A day at Silverwood with my peeps.
Gwen is always willing to smile so sweetly when I take her picture!
Kirsten out climbed Auntie Ellie!  You go girl!
And that is the last of the vacation pictures.  I think we were all feeling this way by the end.  We sure know how to fill a week to the brim and more.  We saw and did just about everything there was to do.  I didn't get photos from the day of jet skiing but it was fun filled too.  All in all it was a great week and was great having the kids together again.  Hope to see you all around the holidays.  Hopefully when Doug is home!  We miss you babe.  That is the one blank spot in our photos.  Can't wait till you are home again.