The Half Blood Prince

We have a new addition to our family, a little grey tabby from Mexico. The Half Blood Prince (because he's half Mexican and half American) joined our family in August. He came from our missionary friends in Mexico and made the trip North with his brother Griffin in the Fortuna excursion. We call him Halvsies for short (and Matt won't use the name Half Blood Prince because he doesn't like it haha). I was waiting to do this post until all of the pictures were together, but I can't wait anymore. This is partially a sad post because our beloved kitten has been missing since last Saturday. We are trying to tell ourselves that he is just wandering, but we think a neighbor may have stolen him. Sue (the missionary) says that males tend to wander, especially if they aren't fixed yet. We figured at 4 months he was too young to be fixed, and had not gotten that done yet. Matt made posters and we have been putting them up around the neighborhood. But it almost feels like a lost cause. I miss our little kitten so dearly, I never thought I would have gotten so attached. I am afraid we need to just give up and pray that he is with a nice family, but another part of me does not want to give up hope. Sue said that Belle (his Mama) is pregnant again, so we can have a kitten from her next litter. Matt said this is only going to happen if it's another male with white paws, just like our little baby. That being said. Here are some pictures of our wonderful kitten.

This is actually a picture of the toys I made him. He wasn't old enough to use the catnip ones yet!

I can't rotate this, but here he is only a few days after coming to our house

Sleeping in the bed that I made him. He did outgrow his little basket really fast though!

Playing outside while Matthew was watching

You need to stand on your head to see this in the right way. But here's a pic of me and our kitty

And another one

We caught him climbing on the outside of the screen door. He wanted in, because he loved people that much!

Killing his first lizard (he killed at least 3 more and numerous flies & crickets)

Typing messages to people on facebook

Biting Mommy's fingers

There are more pictures, but they are on my other computer. And I believe there are a few videos of him. More to come later!

Crusing on the I-5

I love visiting my parents and the Bay area. There is just something wonderful about cool weather and time with family that cannot be beat. The one major drawback is the 6 hour drive that it takes to get there. The last time we went, Kev & Linds joined us in the Avalon, which made the ride much better. I thought I would share this picture of the sunset with you. Ah, the sun setting over the 5, what a glorious sight! (my mom will make a comment about how I said the 5 and now just 5. trust me, it's a NorCal - SoCal thing!)

This is what I usually look like when I'm stuck behind the wheel. Paying attention to the road, but totally bored.

But the Starbucks does help! A treat that we usually save for these trips. And this was purchased with a bday giftcard from Joy. Thanks Joy! (actually I think it might have been Christmas... meaning it sat in our eating out envelope for 6 months!)

Hope you all enjoyed the little glimpse of our ride. And yes, that is my College World Series t-shirt that I'm sporting, go SeaOtters [Lions]!

Wine Closet

Would you like to know what happens when you move out of your parents house and they take over your old bedroom?? They turn what used to be a nice little closet for all of your clothes into a wine closet. Seriously? A wine closet?? Not to mention, it is stocked pretty well! haha My parents actually turned my old bedroom into a guest room, once I was married and all. They left the shrine to Megan at peace until I said I do. Mom Claire did a really nice job re-painting it (what? not everyone likes green & blue walls with a yellow ceiling?) and refurnishing it - there is now a queen sized bed in there, so 2 people can spend the night! But I did get a kick out of it once I realized the refinished closet (it had 4 doors that opened by folding into themselves, which didn't work as well once the giant bed was in the middle of the room... so they bolted the one closest to the wall into the closet frame & left the other one to open) had been turned into an ebay storage shed & wine closet. haha And yes, that is a wine cooler fridge thingie on the bottom. My dad got some great deal on it from the other Matt, his nephew.

Our little garden

My mother in law has an amazing garden. I mean, seriously, any space in her yard is prime garden space. Talk about not being wasteful. I can't even imagine how much money she has saved us with her free fruit & veggies (well, free to us, she paid for the seeds and spent a lot of TLC on that food). She is a gardening inspiration. I was so excited to have my own garden once we got the house. I remembered my little radish and carrot garden as a child and saw that I could do it again. So my big push when we first moved in was to clear out space for the garden. I think I was in a bit over my head. My dad was amazing and laid out my garden and cleaned up our fruit trees. The pomegranate and lemon trees were incredibly overgrown! Terry helped me start out some seedlings and I transplanted them when I thought they were ready. But I was a bit overzealous. Some of the seedlings were not big enough to transplant and they died. Others needed more shade than our little garden patch could provide. So we rigged up this tarp thing that shaded the garden. But it was too much shade for other plants. And don't get me started on the weeds! Our neighbor has a palm tree and it drops these little pods which turn into the biggest freaking weeds you've ever seen. And you have to dig them out. Because if you just pull them out then you don't get the root and they keep growing. I spent many hours in that garden cursing Adam for his sin & making the land hard to work. haha

But I did learn a lot. Next year we are going to move the garden to an area with more natural shade & filtered sunlight. We will get the drip system to its maximum potential. (My dad put in a great drip system, but I did not have things planted in the whole garden patch, so it wasn't working correctly for what we needed). This way the garden will get watered and my hubby won't be upset that I spend more time caring for plants than for him (okay, so I talked to the pumpkins a bit, no big deal!). I will choose plants that grow well together and that are good for this area (cactus? haha). I need plant that take good care of themselves, like my fruit trees. And hopefully we won't be doing as much work on the house, this time next year.

In the meantime, enjoy the pictures of some of the good things that happened in our yard!

Check out those sunflowers! (the rest of the dead garden is to the right)

We had so many tomatoes from these plants. Although the ones on the left did not bear much fruit. But I got these 5 plants for free (1 was a gift from the Whites) and took great care of them!

Fruits of my labor: Yummy tomato sauce for pasta!

The insides of my cute little pumpkin

I was very excited that I grew this pumpkin all the way from a seed into a full plant! This was the first thing we picked from our garden