Looks like someone is in the cat-house

Max has decided that this is a pretty cool place to hang out and survey the living area. It is also quite safe from little critters.... that like to grab tails. Many thanks again to Alan, for building this. And here is one of those little critters.... many thanks to Emily, who said: You need to buy some toys for your house, so the grandkids have decent stuff to play with.... and we did! Grace was totally delighted when she dicovered the dress-up box and quickly turned herself into a fairy... she loved it so much, she slept in the slippers, and the next morning insisted on wearing it over her jammies.

Who? me?

How about some food for the cute baby....Topher's belated birthday /Valentine's dinner.

Will do tricks for food

Looks like Sam is more excited about the birthday present than Topher.

Grace discovers that you can actually touch the kitty

And love the kitty....Somehow Max seemed to be fascinated by her. He kept following her around the house.

Grace came out of the shower, wrapped in a towel. She started playing with Max, but had trouble keeping the towel in place. Finally she had had it, and in typical "flasher mode" she opens the towel, holding it in each had, and yells"NAKED!!!!!!" Max, in total shock, dives under the bed.... he is probably scarred for life.

Alysia's birthday dinner at Costa Vida before we all went to see Fiddler on the Roof at Hale Center theater. One of the best Fiddler performances I have ever seen. Lucky Dacia got to come with us. Sam and I had the car packed and were ready to leave that morning, just finishing breakfast, when his secretary called. Her father had passed away during the night, and she was on her way to Canada to the funeral... so Sam had to unpack his stuff and I got to go to SLC by myself, taking Dacia with me to the performance, whilst poor Sammy got to slave away at the office.

Dacia brought birthday balloons.

She also brought a very cute and happy Ellie

The next day we all met at Ikea for some much overdue shopping... I mean, what is a girl's get-together without doing some major damage to the check book?

We also had an early birthday lunch for Dacia. Grace was quite hungry and enjoyed her french fries.

Ellie had her after-dinner-nap in the shopping cart. (or: look what cute babies they sell at Ikea)

Yes, we did fill 2 shopping carts. Yes, we had great fun, and yes, I did leave for home about 3 hours later than I had planned. But it was worth it.

Here is Max, waiting for your phone call. Actually, I attached a jingle ball to the end of an old phone cord and hung it on his favorite hang-out. He had a lot of fun playing with that today.

I took some video of it, and tried to add it to the blog, if it worked, you can enjoy it,if not, I have to figure out other options... wow, I am actually getting amazingly computer savvy, totally digitalized.
Okay, so it is sideways... but it does work.

Reservations at the Max Hilton, anyone?

I lured Alan up here this weekend. I wanted him to help me build a headboard for my bed. I had sent him a picture of what I wanted it to look like. But he wouldn't do it... said he needed plans... plans shans... I said, just start building, it will develop as we go, but he said that might work for Jared, but he needed plans.... So I settled for a cat tree. We looked at several on the internet and found what we liked, and thought would be doable. And we did it without plans, we just started and it developed as we went... I think it turned out great, see for yourselves: We started with a beam and fastened it to the ceiling beam, then added upholstered shelves.

Max did occasional building inspections... and made some suggestions.

He was very intrigue by step #4... it seemed to be his very favorite.... couldn't imagine why... I only poured catnip under the carpet... For a moment we were worried he might be afraid of heights, but he assured us that he was not.

He said there was something missing up here...

So I got busy with my trusty sewing kit and enclosed his lime-green cathouse in some more respectable colors and we attached it to the top perch....

... with a balcony of course. Max found that to be quite satisfactory.

All that was left, were some finishing touches, and we were done... only took us all day! But we sure had fun. I even made Alan cook dinner... he is quite the useful boy. I need to have him come more often.

Max made his final inspection and declared that it was nice and fit to live in.... and then decided to sleep in our bed anyways and to just ignore the entire thing.... so, since we invested so much time and money in it, we thought we'd rent it out....

The flowerpots were Alan's idea. I guess we could plant catnip in it, or something else to entice Max to come up and look at it. They are screwed in place, to avoid all unpleasantness.

On the road again....

I got to spend a fun week with Emily and her 4 boys. Besides the wonderful weather (anything is better than 10F and a blizzard) the cute kids and their sweet parents, I got treated to the usual gourmet cooking of Emily's. (Which means I came back several pounds heavier than I arrived!)
We had so much fun together. I got to massage all 4 boys.... yes, Caden insisted on a "ssage" on the table his dad had built just for me, and both Jaxon and Gavin appeared stripped down to their underpants on the table and waited patiently for the lotion....
Emily took me to the temple, which was a great treat, and she taught me how to use the genealogy website and I got so many hugs and kisses from the darling little ones, it was hard to leave. I even got to help her sew, something I always enjoy doing with my cute daughters. On the way home we got to stop at Dacia's again, where we played with cute Ellie, and I got to spend the night, making quiet book pages with Dacia. What fun. She is such an artist. Ellie better be real excited, I have never seen a cuter quiet book, than the one Dacia is working on. Since I was on sewing detail, Dacia-darling made my choir treats for me (another one of Em's amazing recipes), which of course, were a super hit again. She cooked us a super nice dinner, I got to sleep in her bed.... the service is impeccable.

We met with Alan and the Topherbugs at a restaurant for lunch.... how nice was that! We even got to see Alan! And then we enjoyed the importance of being Ernest, Sam and my Christmas gift from the kids, together at Hale Center theater. A very fun day.

Some how that lamp in the background makes Alan look like the "Spirit of Christmas present".... Ellie agreed, the chicken quesadillas were excellent.

The cute Topher-Bugs

and the cute Dacia-Burrs.

Of course, no sooner had I thought:" how nice and clear the roads are for our trip home", and it started to snow. By the time we reached the pass it was a blizzard. Good thing we were driving our tank. By the time we were in Poki, it finally quit, just to catch up with us the next day in IF. I really miss the Vegas weather, and the cute kids there, and the cute kids in slc. It is rather upsetting to live so far away, just for a few deliriously lovely months in summer, when you all must come!