Smoky sunrise

Andy sent this photo of the golf course this morning. We noticed hazy skies last night when we were out with friends, but they told us it was smoke from Canadian wildfires. Smoke was still in the air Saturday so Andy sent me this picture of the "red" sun. I asked E if they were experiencing smoke and she said no and asked where the fires were. They're in Saskatchewan and Manitoba so east of Seattle but in a perfect location for the wind to bring the smoke to us.

Butt spray?

Andy and I went to Walmart to get some plants and picked up a few extra things while we were there. This appeared as "butt spry" on the check-out screen and receipt but it's actually butter-flavored cooking spray lol.

Our Boo Bear

Even with the "kids" in their 20s, we still have Boo Bear in our freezer. We've had him since E was small and he's fixed many boo-boos through the years.

This is the backside that gets colder. I use it when I burn myself in the kitchen which seems to happen quite often and Andy just used it for his jaw after having work done Wednesday on his soon-to-come implant.

More Disney fun

L's friend, T, returns home today from her vacation at L's place. On Sunday, they were at Hollywood Studios.

On Monday they went to Animal Kingdom so T saw all four parks, and a water park.

L started her DVC training Tuesday so roommate T, who has the week off, entertained the visitor while L is working.

Nice giraffe pic.

Back at Epcot Monday night.

Hey, squirrel!

Not cool, squirrel.

Two birds (my lady cardinal at right) at once. The sparrows have visited a lot.

Not sure if the app identified this one right - a Brown-headed Cowbird? I did look up the sound it makes and it does sound like the one the video captured, so maybe? The camera didn't get a decent picture.

Flashback toy puzzle

My first puzzle without August to "help" out. It was lonely but a lot easier to put together. I had a few of these toys - the Barrel of Monkeys, Play-doh, Etch-a-Sketch, Silly Putty, Bingo, the Cootie game and the Spirograph. The Woolly Willy was always fun.

Closing the safe deposit box

Our banker called the other day and said Chase is getting rid of our complimentary safe deposit box (and likely eliminating all of them soon) so Andy and I went to the bank to clean ours out and hand over our keys. We acquired the box in June 1991 so kudos to is for knowing where both keys were after almost 34 years.) We did have a $10 deposit on the keys but we're not expecting to get that back.

Here we are inside the vault. We had the box for long it was an ordeal to close it - they had to create a new contract for us, get us to sign that, check our IDs, then had us sign a paper to close it out, checking our IDs again, typing in a PIN that I had to create as part of the new contract. It took a lot longer than we had anticipated.

We didn't have much in the box. It has everyone's birth certificates ...

our marriage license (interestingly, signed by our maid of honor and best man, but not us), one of our engagement pictures and all of our wedding negatives ...

and all of my sorority pins, as well as my class ring and mom's class ring. We were thinking of getting a fire- and waterproof box to store the documents in at home but we figured they all (except the wedding negatives, of course) would be pretty easy to replace if something happened to them.

In memory of August

We picked up August's paw print from the vet on Saturday.

It's a lot nicer than what we were given for Muffles. Such fancy packaging.

And when we got the mail that day there was a sympathy card from the vet's office.

L’s visitor

Before L starts training for her new job on Tuesday she's enjoying a few days with her visitng friend, T?

Usually the line to see Figment is really long so maybe they had a light-attendance day?

And a cute picture with Mickey, or "the boss," as I like to call him.

Here's T enjoying her first ride on Guardians of the Galaxy. As they were leaving the ride, L said, a cast member if they got to hear the song they wanted while on the ride. L said, no, but it was T's first time riding it and she loved it, so that's all that matters. The cast member replied, "Well, let's try again." L said, "What?" and he opened the fast pass lane and let them in for T's second ride. That's pixie dust!

The roommate joins the fun at Typhoon Lagoon.

ETA Today they're at Magic Kingdom!

Dinner with friends

Andy and I met our friends, M and R, at Little Gem last night for dinner. We all had their "date night" menu and Andy and I both had steak. It was a night of good food and conversation. Andy and I were there once before, for our anniversary in 2021. And a bonus - I had food left over for my work lunch today.

L’s last day

Yesterday was L's day as concierge at Yacht and Beach Club. She really enjoyed her time there and her hard work paid off.

Now it's onto a full-time Disney job! She starts training with the Vacation Club on Tuesday!!

Neighborhood freebies

Our neighbor set this garden trellis by her garage. It's suburban law that if you put something by your garage, it's fair game to take so I did. She also had set out two flat trellises and I told Andy I wanted to go get them too. He said I should knock on the door and ask if the neighbor was intending to toss them out. Um, not going to do that.

So when Andy was preoccupied, I tossed some garbage outside, scurried across the street, grabbed the other two trellises and stashed them by the basement door. Later as we were leaving the house, he looked over to the neighbor's house and said, "Someone took those trellises." I said that someone might have been me lol.

More birds!

A house finch came to visit today.

And my first cardinal. I named her Ruby. Her partner is sitting on the wire to the right.

My Bird Buddy

My Mother's Day was delivered Friday, May 16. It took a little longer to ship than the kids had anticipated. It's a Bird Buddy! Once it's set up in the yard I'll be able to see what birds stop by via the camera and an app.

We decided to put it on one of the supports for the back porch.

All installed on Sunday. Eventually I can get a solar roof for it so we don't have to charge the camera.

Waiting for the birds to arrive. Apparently, the app will notify me when we get a visitor. I can also take a picture of the bird and the app will identify it for me.

My first visitor, less than 24 hours after we set it up, was a sparrow.

Another sparrow. The app asked me to name it so if this same bird returns the app will let me know that. This is Bob.

Pilgrim weekend

Look at me - at church at 5:30 Saturday morning for my coater donut shift, wearing my new donut shirt. Andy was at church by 3 a.m. for his donut captain shift.

So many donuts! I was so tired of looking at donuts by the time my shift was over I didn't take any home for breakfast. The market was kind of slow, and it was chilly.

Such a gray day. The donut is featured on the market's new anniversary street banners.

Then at church on Sunday I got a gift of marigolds for helping out in Connect. The card on the front of the bag is Ecclesiastics 11:6, "Keep planting seeds. You never know what may take root."

RIP August

We certainly were loved by August, and we loved him. It was hard to watch him slowly deteriorate but he always perked up for a treat, always wanted to sit in our laps, lick our hands and "help" with our puzzles. He never seemed to be in pain which was a blessing. We thought he was going to be put down when Andy took him to the vet May 15, 2024, but they gave him some meds and he perked up. This was when we adopted him and Muffles. I love this picture of him as a kitten helping L do her homework.

This is such a beautiful picture of him.

And this one (February 2020). This is his "glamour shot" and this links to a beautiful fall shot. Such a good cat. As a young cat he would often hide in the basement rafters. He loved to chew on L's hair ties. Once we found a whole stash under the shelves. As he got older, and especially after Muffles was gone, he became our constant companion. Several times we searched outside for him only to have him casually reappear a few hours later.

These last few days he was barely eating or moving. He'd sit in the same spot for hours.

This was his last picture at home before we took him to the vet Saturday morning. I carried him to the car in my arms and we placed him the carrier once we pulled it out of the garage.

This was heartbreaking.

He kept looking at us and we petted him all the way through.

One nice thing of having this blog is that I can look back on all of his pictures through the years. He was such a sweet cat who would often paw at our hands wanting us to pet him more. He especially liked bring petted under his chin.

So sad.

Some of his fur and a cute heart stone.