Austin and I arrived this afternoon, and when we got to Grandma's house, we meet the new kitty Mom found! Mom was in the back yard, when she heard a little kitten meowing. She hunted around and found him, in the tall grass, in Barnes back yard. He must of been abandoned, no Mom cat in site. Mom had to get a little bottle, and some kitten formula so that she could feed him. He was a lot smaller than this when she found him.
Austin had a great time playing with the "Kitty." The weather is only in the 60's and raining, but it's suppose to be sunny Wednesday and Thursday and in the 80's! The premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince just came out. Cory saw it in Provo with his friend. And down in Houston, Kelly got together with some friends and went to the midnight showing...I wish I could of been there. Here in Bellingham, it was all sold out for Monday, so Mom, Scott, Austin and I are going to see it tomorrow at 1220pm so that should be fun. Chuck said he was going to go later in the week and see it.
While we were up here, we had a nice visit with Grandma Asplund. She seems to be doing pretty good. The sore on her bum is still not healed completely, but she says that she's not to uncomfortable.
During our visit, Austin was being very silly around her, it made Grandma smile.
I really think that Scott enjoys feeding the kitty too! Kitty likes to curl up with Scott and take a nap.
Austin was so excited to see Beasley again. The poor dog is so tired by the time Austin goes to bed at night!
On Wednesday, we went to go and check out the cabin. The grass was waist high, and in the middle of the yard, the grass was all patted down; you could tell that the deer are making this place their home. I have my work cut out for me!
My job is to cut away some of those bushes in front of the shed.
The front yard wasn't to bad!
The rest of the yard is going to take a bit of work to cut it all down! I hired the teenager, that lives next door to Mom, to do that. I helped him a bit, but then I went to work on the bushes in the back of the cabin.
Here is a picture of Grandma Rose. She helps out a friend at one of the gas stations in Lynden a day or two during the week.
An awesome view of Mt. Baker.
Here is a view of the beach at Birch Bay. Austin loves to go down on the beach and throw rocks in the water. He is also getting a bit braver now that he is 6...when the tide is out, he will walk out more than a few feet now, by himself!
My main reason for coming up here, was to get someone to fix the cabin floor in the bathroom. Our last tenants were unaware of a leak from the washer/dryer...it seems to have pooled around the commode! Chuck took the toilet off the floor, and the handyman will put it all back together again!
On Friday, it was such a beautiful day that Austin and I went to Lake Padden. It is one of my favorite places in town. If I could pick anywhere to build a house, this would be the place. To bad it's a protected City Park!
Austin had fun chasing a Mom duck and her babies. It was a good thing the water was so cold, it slowed Austin down a bit.
The next day, We meet Dad and Grandma Asplund for dinner. Grandpa Asplund looks really good after his hip surgery. He said he was healing really well. Grandma is so funny, I asked her where she wanted to go for dinner, and she wanted a hamburger and chocolate shake from McDonald's...Austin liked that! Funny story...we got Grandma seated and ordered our food, guess what? The milk shake machine was broken! For heavens sake, she's in her 80's and all she wants is a chocolate milkshake. After deliberating with Dad, we got the manager to put some vanilla ice cream in a cup and added some chocolate fudge to it...we stirred, and stirred it....VOILA! Chocolate milkshake! Apparently it was pretty good, she never said a word about it.
One of the things Austin likes best about Grandma and Grandpa's house are all the trees he can climb. Here he is playing in the front yard, by the apple tree, playing with his bow and arrow.
7/18 We went out to Samish Island to see Scott's sister, Fran. Crab season had just begun, and she shared her bounty with the whole family. Thought of Ashlie, she liked crab almost as much as I do! Austin had a great time throwing anything in the water.
Austin took a picture of me near the water.
A sail boat on the water with the foothills (mountains if your from Houton) in the background.
A picture of Fran and Mom up on the deck, with family. you can see Mt. Baker in the background, a different side of it.
Fran's daughter Peggy, and Scott off to the right.
On Monday it was a perfect day to go to Bloedel Donovan Park. Austin was so excited to go swimming!
The two pictures above are of Austin getting on a floatie to lounge on, after a few tries he did it!
Austin took a picture of me sunbathing on the blanket. After I warmed up a bit, I went for a swim with Austin. We swam to the logs bordering the swimming area and jumped off! Austin also jumped off the pylons remaining from the docks that use to be in the swimming area. It took me another hour to warm up enough to go in again later.
While Austin was warming up on the blanket, he noticed that kids were jumping off of this street bridge, into the water. I told him he was not old enough to do that, but that we could both get on the floatie and paddle over there to watch the kids jump. Man...the water was cold, but we paddled over, and went under the bridge, and watched the kids jump for a bit. Then we went back to the blanket to warm up again! Mom came by for a bit after work, and sat on the blanket with us. Boy, that brings back old memories of going up there as a kid. And we probably laid on the same blanket! We had a fun time on our visit. Grandma was a bit stressed out this time, because she has been taking care of Scott,the dogs, the house, and yard all by herself for the last 8 weeks, so she is very tired. Scott just had foot surgery. I don't think that she was very excited to see us, but we were able to take Scott around and I made dinner a few nights, so I think that helped her out a bit. Austin can't wait to come back again!
