Kitties - and Seb's Birthday!

 Ohhhh the kitten cuteness! This tiny guy (not that we ever saw him that tiny, even at four months old) is now 14 years young!

What a lot of life has gone by in those 14 years, and Sebastian has been there for all of it. We love him so much.

He is my lap buddy in the morning when I read my Bible, and Stace's purring friend when he relaxes in the evening. He still seems to be in very good health, though he definitely puts more thought into his jumps onto higher places or the cat tower. We pray his health continues for many more years!

I bought a second harness so Cora tried to take both of the young ones out at the same time. What's that phrase about herding cats??

The catnip spilled and Evie found it! She was rolling in it. Oh, so fun. 

This guy...

He has a thing for Cora. Every morning he loudly demands to be let in her room, so he can aggressively purr and force pets and kisses. It's kind of crazy.

She will be asleep - he doesn't care. If she sleepily pets him, then dozes off again, he nips her. All while purring loudly. 

Oh, though, how I wish he had chosen Violet for this. She lost Spencer, and now generally doesn't have a cat sleeping with her. 

Violet's room has become something of a staging area and Evie needed to check out the huge boxes our new solar tubes came in.

Week in Review

I was blessed to attend the memorial service this week for a very special man, a Godly teacher and coach at Saugus High who touched the lives of thousands of students and baseball players. 

Mr. Worley taught a life skills class called Strategy that I loved when I was a freshman, and he also was a longtime baseball coach at Saugus. Just a wonderful man! 

On Friday evening, the theatre students held a preview night of the scenes they'll present at the district theatre festival in a week. 

Cora has been working hard with Mackenzie on this Hamlet piece, where Cora plays the Prince of Denmark and Mackenzie plays the mother.

Here, Hamlet pulls off stage the body of the man she killed. Oops!

On Saturday, Violet went on her Christmas present whale watch with my parents. They saw the Channel Islands...

...and a huge pod of orca, or killer whale!! It was amazing. Included in the pod was an albino orca, extremely rare.

Stace put the girls to work in the yard, cutting down what was left of the bush/tree by the side of the house. Since the construction work involves re-stuccoing the whole side of the house, it makes sense to get it out of the way. Plus, it wasn't an especially amazing plant we loved.

Stace: "This is why you have kids."

Tidbits

Violet and I went to Mentryville for some walking PE time, and saw a gopher peeking out of his hole. We walked to the cool collection of oil equipment and back. 

We also saw a bobcat! So neat to see them in their wild habitat. 

A day earlier, we went to the archery range and saw a coyote! 

Melanie brought over three beautiful floral arrangements Stace bought for Valentine's Day. 

Stace and I went out for dinner at Cheesecake Factory on the 13th, thinking we'd beat the crowd, but it seemed many others had the same idea. We ended up sitting at the bar. Still, a lovely meal with my beloved!
 

Branching out with my home-milled flour - we were going to have burgers so I found a recipe for quick buns!

Aren't they pretty? They were a little thick- should use a different flour next time and make twice as many buns from the same amount of dough, rolling them thinner.

Stace and Violet had a daddy-daughter experience and made Australian Crunch for a nostalgic treat for Stace. 

Sadly, they had some mishaps with the melted butter, and I don't think Vi will want to cook with Stace again for a while. Ha!

I came upon an unfortunate scene in the garage, near my laundry and pantry area - rats got into the unopened bag of birdseed and had a field day with the sunflower seeds. What a mess.

With Percy Jackson coming up, Cora was ready for a major haircut, her first in many years. 

This length will be much easier to hide under a boy wig! She'd had trouble hiding all her hair under her Velma wig last May. So cute and fresh-looking!

Room Addition: Framing, Plywood

 After allowing the foundation to settle for a week, the men were back with the wood for framing. 

It was fun watching the first steps of the room taking shape - window openings, sliding door opening, the general size.

We got more rain - the danger of doing a project in winter - and more water intrusion. It was easier to deal with after we decided we weren't trying to keep the carpeting.

The next step involved taking off the roof where the new roof would be tying in to the house's roof. 

Unfortunately, we learned we'll need to replace our whole roof. The original wood shake shingles are still there, under the metal tiles that were supposed to last many decades. But, nothing is supposed to be put on top of wood shingles; they should have been removed prior to the installation of the metal tiles. 

Piles of metal shingles and other roofing material.

Here come the roof rafters!

At this point, we were expecting more rain, with a lot of wind, so Joe the contractor ensured we had heavy-duty plastic tarping over the whole of this side of the house.

Thankfully, this worked! The noise from the plastic sheeting flying around was insane though; I was sure it was going to fly off.

Cora is 18!

 Cora decided to have a few friends join us for go-kart racing at MB2 Raceway, where she also had her 12th birthday gathering.

Joining us where her school theatre friends Mackenzie, Rowan and Lucas. Stacey is joining them in this photo, as they were the group that did two races.

In one of the races, Stace had the fastest single lap time among the nine racers (although is overall average time placed him fourth, just a hair behind Cora). In the other race, with 10 racing, Cora placed best of their group, though behind a few other racers we didn't know.

The kids also played laser tag, and unfortunately Lucas fought a wall, and the wall won. Hence the ice pack and bandage (not shown).

It was actually really affordable to rent the axe-throwing bay, so they had fun with this while they waited for their turn on the racetrack.

Cora does very well at this.

Violet and Stace had a turn on the air hockey table after Cora and her friends.

We then took the kids to In-n-Out for lunch.

In the evening, the family came over for dinner and gifts.

Lucas had given Cora this Disney doll, but Ellie was a more appreciative recipient.

Cora loved these beautiful Celtic-style earrings from Nan and Pop.