Vinny took these amazing photos a few weeks ago. It was early on a misty morning.
Amazing!
I have not shared any recent photos of Baci in quite some time and since I have nothing else to post I thought I would share a few photos from two nights ago...
She is a lovely kitty! Have a great Thursday!
Yes, for those of you who live in colder climates, it is finally cooling off here in beautiful South Carolina. The days are still in the 70's and upper 60's; the mornings are in the 40's! On Monday, October 20th, it was in the low 40's. It was so cold that even Baci was cold. Now, she does not have her full coat of fur since we had her shaved in August. She still is fat enough to keep us all warm. While we were getting the kids ready for school I noticed this...
She is sitting on our settee wrapped up in Vinny's robe. I asked the kids and Charlie who covered her up. They all denied covering her up. Could she have done it herself? No way. After lunch, I knew she had gotten up to eat and then I saw this...
And this...
The kids were not here to cover her, Charlie swears he did not do it, and I did not so she must be able to do it herself. We do love our fat, talented cat.
As I mentioned in my last post I have found a few old friends on Facebook. Only one of these friends knows about our move so I thought instead of writing to each of my 38 friends, I would post it on my blog.
In February of 2007, we were watching TV and trying to stay warm. Charlie's daughter Megan called and informed us that it was 64 degrees in Atlanta. It was below 0 in Salt Lake. I said to the family that this is silly! We need to move to a warmer climate. My health does not do well in the cold which is unusual for MS patients. Most MS patients do better in the cold. Charlie's job at Western Governor's University allows him to live anywhere. The only thing holding us back was how to pay for the move. So we had the house appraised and found out we could get closed to double what we paid for it 7 years ago. So we did a little renovations on the kitchen and added a mudroom. We painted the purple family room and the red living room a boring beige and spent less than $10,000. Then we put the old house on the market at the end of March.
Three weeks later it was sold for more than double what we paid for it. So we now had enough money to pay a mover and plenty to put down on a new house. Meanwhile, I was doing the research on where we should move. We were hoping to get half way between Charlie's two daughters (one in Atlanta and one in New Hampshire). We could not go too far north because it is just too cold. So we settled on Raleigh, NC. Well, it turned out that all of the schools in Raleigh were going to a year round school year. I don't like year round schools so I started my search over. This time I settled on Greenville SC. I don't know why I overlooked this area on my first search because it looked perfect. The schools are amazing, the climate was close to perfect, low crime and the cost of living was amazing. It was only three hours from Atlanta and 15 from New Hampshire.
So Charlie and I flew to Greenville just before Mother's Day to look for a house. The night before we were to meet with our agent, I found a house that looked interesting in Roebuck, SC. Our agent had never even heard of Roebuck. She made an appointment to see this house along with what seemed like 10,000 others. After two days of looking we were exhausted and had one more day to look at our top three homes. I had to do more research on Roebuck which is just outside of Spartanburg and things looked great. So, we decided on the house in Roebuck mainly because of the pool. I posted a photo of the house in my last post.
Charlie closing on our house in Salt Lake.
Charlie drove out to Roebuck to close on our new house the first week of June. The kids and I waited for the movers who came on the 14th and we left on the 15th. We decided to take our time and see a little bit of America. The boys also wanted to skateboard wherever we could find a park. So here are a few photos from the move...
Bye bye icky old house..
Hello Wyoming.
Patrick skating in Wyoming. They skated in Wyoming, South Dakota, Missouri, and one other place that I have forgotten.
Mitchell skating somewhere.
Hello South Dakota
Patrick, Vinny & Mitchell at Mt. Rushmore.
Hello Iowa!
Hello Humidity, I mean Missouri!
Vinny, Patrick and Mitchell on a river cruise in St. Louis. Where are the hats? It was too windy.
Yes, we got stuck with taking Baci the cat with us. She was a very good kitty on the trip. She just laid around on the floor eating whatever food the kids dropped on the floor. Life is good when you are a big fat kitty.
I don't have photos of Tennessee, North Carolina or South Carolina. Their welcome signs are not in a very safe place to pull over and take a photo.
We pulled a little trick on Charlie. We called him when we were about 20 minutes away and told him we were just leaving Asheville. He thought we would arrive in 2 hours. So, when the kids rang the doorbell he was quite surprised. We had not seen him in almost 2 weeks. He had been staying in a hotel the whole time but we planned on spending this first night in the house. STUPID IDEA! W had three pillows, no blankets, nothing but the bare floor. It was awful. Oh, that is Mitchell who is hugging Charlie.
Patrick getting a hug.
And last but not least, Vinny getting a hug. I got one too, I just did not get a photo of it.
So, the first thing the kids did was run through the house, grabbed their bags, and then this...
Mitchell
Vinny.
Patrick.
The next day we were so happy to see this pull up to our house...
Did I mention that we sold every piece of furniture we owned before we moved? We still managed to have 393 boxes of STUFF. We still don't have every room furnished but we are getting there. The first thing Charlie bought was a pool table which has been the best money we have ever spent. We also converted the pool to a Salt Water Pool. If you have a pool, I highly recommend this.
So, we have been here for over a year and we all love it. The kids are so happy and doing well in school. They have great friends and are involved in singing, drama, skateboarding, and of course they swim just about every day.
If you are ever in the area, please let us know. Our door is always open and we have plenty of space. Tomorrow some great news about Vinny!
Don't be shy, please leave a comment.
Every summer we have had Baci shaved. Well, this summer when I started calling around to get prices I was amazed at how expensive it was. In Salt Lake I paid $15 to have her shaved at our local vet's office. Here in Spartanburg, the cheapest I could find was $60! I don't even pay that much to have my hair cut. The most expensive was $350 because the put the cats to sleep. She really needed to be shaved, the shedding was totally out of control. She never shed very much in Utah but here, the hair is floating in the air. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I purchased a hair trimmer at Walmart, took it home, read the directions, put her on my lap and started to shave her. She did not care, she just sat there and looked around at the birds. She is never allowed outside so she thought this was a cool adventure. The problem with the trimmer was that her hair is so long and so fine that it just was not working. So, I relented and called Pet Smart and made an appointment.
Patrick and I left our house with Baci at 7:45 on Tuesday morning to arrive at Pet Smart by 8:00. I had the vet in Utah fax Baci's records to Pet Smart. When we arrived the shaver, or whatever she is called told us that she could not shave Baci today because she was over due on her Rabies vaccine. She sent us up the road to a vet clinic where they very kindly took her right back and gave her the necessary shots. Then we had to wait 48 hours before they could shave her. Finally, this morning we took her in and picked her up this afternoon. They told us that she never cried, never whimpered, just sat there while they bathed her and cut out her matted spots and gave her a good shave. Here are a few before shots...
Another interesting sleeping spot. This happens to be a basket full of linens.
Mitchell and Baci yesterday
And now with her new hair cut, may I introduce you to the new and hopefully shed free Baci..
Baci receiving some snuggles from Vinny. She had a rough day and has slept most of the afternoon. She actually weighed 15lbs before her hair cut which is about 3-5 lbs over weight. After her hair cut, she weighed 14lbs. We call it the hair cut diet.
Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to leave a comment.
Our Cat, Baci, is truly one of the strangest animals I have ever met. I won't bore you with the many silly things she does on a daily basis. I will however share some photos from Saturday.
I still had my Tysabri headache but I knew that if I did not get Vinny and Mitchell's school supplies, they would be gone. That is what happened last year. When we returned home, we put all of their supplies on the dining room table and tossed the bags on the floor. I went to pick up the bags to put into the recycling and this is what I found...
This is not the first time Baci has chosen a strange place to take a rest. She does have two very nice and comfortable cat bed which she rarely uses. To bad she is not a real child. Labels would not mean a thing to her and I could buy all of her school clothes at Goodwill.
I hope you all had a nice weekend. My weekend was spent on the couch with my Tysabri headache. The good news from my appointment was my latest MRI report. I have NO NEW LESIONS! This was the first time in 6 years that I did not have at least 5 new lesions. So, it appears that the Tysabri is working. I am going to give it some more time and hope that the headaches will slowly go away.
Time to get back to the couch and watch the Olympics. Have a groovy week and thanks for stopping by.
