We recently got the opportunity to be a 7 pet family (for one day only), and although we were more than happy to do it, it made us realize that the four permanent members of the family are just enough for us! At this time, only one of them is borrowed, and that is Sir Reginald. If you read the previous blog, you would know that he quickly ate into his brand new sleeping pillow. What we didn't tell you was we caught him early enough to do just a little damage ... until the next day!
Of course, it probably was tag-teamed with Bailey, but I'm prejudiced! But they tag team a lot! They have become such good friends that it makes me sad to think of them splitting up. But Bailey and Reggie love to frollick through the woods bringing us dead animal parts (NOT pictured although I could if you want). And it's true ... Ness LOVES having to step over half eaten 'coon skulls on her way to the car.
Then there's poor old Circe. She has become the "Phantom of the Basement". Her food and litter box are down there. She does come up whenever not eating, but she can't seem to figure out where all these other animals came from! But she is a mature adult in the midst of kitten/puppy hell. They always want to play. She wants to be left alone. Makes for one GRUMPY cat.
I included this (out of order of course) because it's a really good picture of him! But we can't seem to feed him enough lately! His Year 5 clothes are NOT small on him, and his typical food intake usually goes like this (he eats like a hobbit):
Breakfast - 2-3 bowls of cereal
2nd Breakfast - PB&H sandwich ... and a glass of milk
Lunch - another PB&H sandwich ... with more milk
Tweensies - a banana and some Goldfish crackers
Dinner - whatever has been made - often 2 helpings and then a dessert
Before Bed - an apple and a piece of buttered bread - with water
Before Bed #2 - "Mommy ... I'm hungry"
Back to the animals! Well ... Bailey had his last appointment at the vets this year (until the snip but don't tell him it's coming), and he weighed in at 45 lbs at 16 weeks. He is very gentle though so don't be scared! Yesterday Ness wasn't feeling so well so she laid down for a nap. And Bailey spent the whole nap with her. Oh ... and we weighed Ava yesterday too ... 44 lbs. Sorry kiddo!
But she's not upset. I think she's a cat person because although she loves Bailey, she LOVES Molly. And it's mutual. This is a normal pose for them, and if you know cats, you know this is not how they usually enjoy spending their time. She had her last visit yesterday too - 3.5 lbs and very healthy. And getting curious about the outdoors. It's getting hard to keep her indoors but we actually want her to make some mousers for us. That barn out back looks LOADED with them. The way we figure it is lots of cats to keep the mice away and one (or two) big dogs to get the Raccoons.
Oh, and the kitchen is all done (minus new cabinets but that's a little down the road)! Looks good too. We learned the hard way you can't re-use someones leftover tile adhesive but we've fixed all that and now all is right in the world. But sadly Donnie's words concerning our attempts to fix up an old house are coming true ... "I think you'll call me 100 times a week and I think everything will take you 10 times longer than you think it should." Sadly, very true. Luckily, Ness and I have all the time in the world.
And so FINALLY, the upstairs master bedroom is next! Just us and bags of plaster/buckets of mud and a dream! Corny I know :)
The kids are still very into TKD. They went to State Championships. They both did very well and we are so proud of them. And they both placed high enough to go to Nationals this summer but they are in Texas and so we're not going this year. BTW Eli is getting tougher all the time! This kid hit Eli illegally straight in the nose about 4 times (not exaggerating) and even though he cried each time, he kept fighting and took this kid into overtime. Well Done!!!!!
After they were all done we all went out to eat! Here are some of the kids in their TKD school.
OK so the work on the interior of the house has slowed down as of late. Ever since the weather became nice my time has been spent in landscaping projects. Trust me ... the outside looks way nicer now! But the master bedroom is slowly being worked on. I thank my wife for showing patience in getting moved in here!
This is what it looks like to smooth out the newly re-done ceiling. Once I finish it then we can paint the ceiling and walls, then sand and re-surface the floor, and lastly re-wire the room (because it is SOOOO jacked up). Then we can finally move in.
We also had a birthday party for Grandma Potash. Due to the birth of Lara's baby boy Hunter we now can proudly say that here our family has a 5 generation photo!!!
What a cute girl!
A good time was had by all!
Grandma seemed to really enjoy the day! And the weather was perfect for her birthday.
Ness did Ava's hair "old school" curly. And even though the product the next day was very impressive, Ava did not seem to be too enthralled with the method that night!
Here are our two angels the night before Easter!
We invited many people over to our house for Easter. After service we had a nice meal followed by a HUGE Easter egg hunt. There were 250 eggs out there to find, and Bailey even dropped one in my lap last week! But those kids sure did their best to find each one.
I love this photo!
See? Big changes. And there are even more changes now than there were when this photo was taken! But if you want to see what's been done, just compare this photo to our picture on top of the blog!
And the rest of the blog will be to show how the Conderman's roll. All four of us took belt tests yesterday and passed with flying colors!!!!! So we are all now "Green Tips" - the intermediary step toward green belts.
Look at the form! Eli has really excelled in forms.
Here is a fantastic picture of Ness kicking my butt. Of course I let her do it, right?
We all broke boards at the end.
Ness did great too!
Ava broke boards too I promise!
Here is one formidable family! Give us a couple years and nobody will want to mess with us!
So I apologize for not posting earlier. We will try to do better but for now realize that all is going very well and if you don't hear from us for a while it is only because we have no tails left as we will have worked ours off!
