Adventures in Boo Bearing

So, we got a new kitten back in January which you will hear more about when I finally get around to catching everyone up on the previous months, but for now we have a new kitten. His name is Boo and he causes me unwarranted stress and frustration, and he is a big sissy. This cat is scared of everything it's so weird cause he was a stray when we found him, but I have no idea how he lasted his six months of life before we got him. Anyways he likes to try and be a big boy and go outside and since we want him to know what his smells like and where it is we let him. Well Monday he had gone in and out of the back door pretty much anytime it was open but he would come back only to go right back out again if I didn't shut the door fast enough. It's dinnertime and he's out again only neither Casey or I are really paying that much attention to the fact that he's out because I'm cooking and Casey and watching tv/playing on the laptop. Dinner is made and we are headed outside to eat, we had just taken two bites when the rain hits. We rush back inside with our food count the animals and we come up one short, Boo is not there. I begin the futile search inside the house just in case even though I know he is outside, while Casey goes down to the bottom porch where he likes to lay sometimes only to find he isn't there. Now we are stuck waiting and hoping he comes home ( you'll learn why I say this when we make it to February). All the next door neighbor kids are oustide playing in the drizzle when I hear the door bell ring, it's the second to youngest saying he saw our cat, yay brilliant!! Casey and I dash out there to try to get him, with all the neighbor kids following. We see Boo so do the kids and they want to help, not good Boo gets very skittish around massive amounts of people, then just as Casey thinks he might have him BAM!! the kid with a baseball hat and bat comes screaching around the corner and Boo dashes off around the other way. I go back up the hill and around Casey goes around the backside of our fence and all the kids swarm around trying to help us catch Boo. Which sends Boo into the forest soaking wet instead of over the fence he was just meowing at pitifully. His jumper is not the best in the world. So now we are waiting again and have decided we will just go to the gym, put the dogs outside and maybe he'll smell them and decide to make his merry way back. While at the gym a mini torrential downpour happens in which Casey and I look at each other shrug and go back to working out each hoping Boo will be home when we get home. Upon our arrival no such luck however you can now hear the little jingle jangle of his collar, which means he's close by!!! Here ensues our chase scene in which Casey and I trudge through wet and wild green undergrowth chasing the jingle jangle of a cat collar, who apparently now thinks this is some sort of game and chooses to blatantly ignore us. Like literally we see him we're calling oh so sweetly he turns looks flicks his tail as us and continues on his merry way. Well in my world that is like issuing a challenge and I'm in full blown I will get you mode, which I did two tree stumps , a hole, and jump across a creek later the wet brat is in my hands!!! Now to get back home in the dark holding a wet cat. Well Casey and I played marco polo for a while, apparently he can't see flashlight who knew?! LOL actually I don't know that I just know I had a flashlight and he still couldn't find me. Once we're back together it takes us another twenty mintues to navigate the crazy wet undergrowth and make our way around a gigantic fallen tree before finally seeing the lights of home. Needless to say I think Boo is permanently grounded or he will learn how to wear a harness and a leash. Now Casey and are just waiting to see if we wandered through mass amounts of poison ivy and if so how much like monsters are we going to look like.

Happy Easter!!! A day and a half late

Happy Easter everyone!! I know I'm late again, but what can I say it's genetic. None of my family is ever on time, so I've just learned to go with it. Plus, I kept hoping if I kept asking Casey if he'd downloaded our Easter pictures yet he would do it so I would have pictures to put up. He hasn't taken the hint yet, so as per usual pics will probably pop up later in some other post who knows. Back to the topic at hand though, Easter which this year equaled best Sunday ever!!! Since starting to work weekend option almost six years earlier I haven't had an Easter off in a while, so I kinda lose the excitment and specialness of the day, because my day is spent taking care of sick people or people who think they're sick instead of celebrating the risen Christ. Well this year I got to celebrate and man let me tell you it was a marathon of a day, but it was the best day ever!!! Casey and I started our day at 7 that morning, after going to bed at midnight, Casey waited up for me after work so we could celebrate our annual trail of jelly beans leading to the Easter basket. This has been a tradition in my family my whole life and it's now Casey's job to continue the tradition. My first year working though my mom called on my best coworkers Jodi and asked her to continue the tradition and she did. I came in to work that day a little sad because there would be no trail of jelly beans, or church or family time and low and behold we had a full blown Easter egg hunt on the unit!! Jodi has continued that every year when I show up at work and every night before Easter Casey does his trail and basket, it's a great new Easter tradition. But it was soo very nice to be able to revert back to the original tradition of going to church and actually staying the whole time!! I loved seeing all the people worshipping in both services and being so moved by what we were playing and singing that hands were raised and people stood up and cheered about Christ being raised from the dead. Sitting on the front stage of the church as an instrumentalist allows me the greatest view and my favorite thing of the day happened in second service. We were playing a song called in Christ Alone followed by End of the Beginning, both very powerful moving songs and I kept hearing this voice shout out periodically. Things like, " Yes Lord", and "Praise Jesus", were just a few. I still have to get used to this growing up Presbyterian we never seemed as free as Baptists do. Well I finally found the body that went with the voice and he was this darling old man sitting front and center in his wheelchair just listening to what was being played and sung. And as he was listening this look would come over his face as the music would rise and swell this look of utter excitement and wonderment, and his hands would be clasped in anitcipation of that moment when the music just burst forth and he couldn't contain himself any longer and he would just burst forth with praise. It was the most touching moment of the day brought tears to my eyes. From our church we headed up to Dalton and lunch with my family and Nana, then I had just enough time for a 45 minute nap after Easter pictures before I had to be at my parents church for band rehearsal for the Easter Cantata that night. Easter Cantata was at seven that evening and again it was another miraculous worship time. Every little thing that had gone wrong was fixed and it just became a time of worship and praise. We finished off our evening at Steak and Shake with the family and a couple from their bible study who are an absolute riot!! Then it was an hour long trek back home followed by unpacking feeding the dogs and crashing into bed around midnight. But at the end of the night it was still the best sunday off ever!! Ha ha pictures!!! I downloaded them to Casey's computer and then sent them to myself. I'm soo stinking cool.

NOvember

Ok lets see if I can squeeze out a quick post about what happened in November before heading to bed. Since we didn't really go anywhere for our official one year anniversary we decided to treat ourselvese to a trip to New York, although after getting vince Dooley to sign a picture wishing us a happy Anniversary we could've just stayed home LOL. I mean that is pretty awesome and one of a kind kinda experience, but to New York we went because I hadn't been since high school and Casey has always wanted to go. I found hotel and tickets at a deal through one of those websites and then tacked on a New York City pass ( best money ever spent!!) Everyone continually warned us about New York and how dangerous it was and all this hullabaloo, which by the way is soo not true. There are way to many people wandering around all the time for it to be dangerous. So we land at La Gardia and stand in the taxi line, while waiting this couple talks us into sharing a cab, big mistake. Apparently according to the now angry cab driver the couple made him go a totally different way then he would have to get us to our hotel taking up precious time that he could be using to drive other people around. Then he and Casey chatted it up about everything that is wrong with this world, while all I could think was Lord get me out of here I would rather walk. ( I get nauseous when I'm hungry and there's a lot of stopping and starting and let me tell you in New York traffic there is a lot of stopping and starting.) Our first day is spent just wandering around getting our bearings and figuring out how to get our seven day subway pass. Then we ate dinner at a restaurant that brews it's own beer and meandered all the way to Radio City. My feet were killing me I thought I had bought these great walking boots, so I could be practical and stylish yea not so much, I wound up just wearing my ugly workout shoes and dealing with it. Day two was spent picking up our pass and visiting the wax museum, we then hiked it across Central Park to head towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was not open. Again I hadn't quite figured out the whole shoe thing we my little keds tennis shoes yea Katie totally walked around Central Park for a while in her socks. there is even a picture of me sitting by that fountain that is in Home Alone with just my socks on. It took us two days to learn to navigate the subway, and by then we figured we could just walk most of it. We did however see a show, ride the circle line, eat a hot dog or two from a street vendor, visit the apple store and FAO Schwartz, sit in Times Square just people watching, get lost many times ( smart phone GPS doesn't work when the buildings block everything) , did Rockafellar, Empire State building, 9/11 memorial, and shopped. We also visited Macy's multiple times and Casey wants to go back again closer to Christmas to see all the stuff lit up, that was still going up when we were there. All in all it was a completely fabulous trip and no scariness involved although I could have cried everytime I passed a homeless person. They just sat there hoping, one lady had her dog with her and that pooch looked so forlorn and sad I literally did get teary eyed. They were so different from the homeless people here in Georgia they beg plead and even get angry, New York homeless not so much, a lot of the times the cops knew them and would talk to them about how they were doing.

To tired to function

I promise I will eventually make it to the current year and month, but I gotta get there. Although I must tell you about a little recent tid bit. I have learned something this weekend, I know now that it is possible to be so tired that you cannot remember where you parked your car. On a normal day I'm usually pretty good about remembering in what general direction my car is parked in, Sunday was an epic fail. Granted I had been up since 730 am to go to church then went to work, were we got our butts kicked and finally left work at midnight. Where I promptly proceeded to walk to the deck where my car is usually parked. When I get there my car is not there, so I wander around the general area where my car should be, not there. So, I of course start muttering to myself outloud while bending down and sideways looking for my car. I then start to get upset thinking security has moved my car why I think this who knows, it's midnight people. Then I think maybe I walked directly across the bridge did I do that yes yes I think I did. So, I go up one more level, no car by now I'm like great where the devil is my car, I'm standing there turning in circles when all of a sudden it dawns on me I got lucky this morning and got to park by the helipad !! I whip around and there shining in all its newly cleansedness is my big blue!!! Now mind you I had to walk past my car to get to the deck. I probably even looked at it on my way by, cause I always scout the parking lot just in case some crazy person decides to try to get me. (Wouldn't happen though everyone always says they'd bring me back.) I bustle over to my car hop in and buzz my way home, finally at one am I'm in bed on my way to never never land. Apparently per my husband I didn't move when he gave me a goodbye kiss the next morning, and peeps let me tell you that rarely happens. So to leave you I'm going to show you Sugar my cats preferred method of sleeping only because he is currently sleeping in this position, such a boy.

October

Ok guys in an effort to get back into the blogging world I must go in time to catch everyone up with what has happened over the many months I have been absent. Casey is actually the person who brought this to my attention and the fact that I'm an utter failure apparently at being a blogger. But here goes the next few post will be a recap of the months gone by that I missed posting about. First things first, Casey and I have made it past the one year mark!! Exciting yes I know, well for us at least. We actually spent our anniversary in Athens, Ga because that next day was UGA's homecoming and that's kinda a tradition now, plus Casey and had no clue what to do for a one year anniversary. So, we drove up to Athens early had lunch downtown outside at five guys and generally just wandered around did a little shopping and then met up with my friend Joe and his wife Stacy at a bar downtown to watch the homecoming parade!! New experience for me actually watching a parade I've spent most of my life in parades as part of the band. I must admit though I really enjoyed being on the watching end, not having to wear a uniform, just hanging out drinking a beer and cheering. Afterwards we went to a little tapas place and had dinner, which was then followed by meeting up with my parents at the hotel where we had the official celebration. My mom brought down the top layer of our cake and mini champagne bottles too. Most hilarious part of the night watching everyone try to open the champagne bottles. My dad wound up circling his knife around and around the top of the bottle until he could finally pry the lid off. Saturday was the annual marathon event of getting up super early freezing to the point of hypothermia for morning practice a quick picnic lunch and then off the the field to entertain 98,000 of our closest friends. I love the alumni games though even when I was in college they were my favorite games, mainly because of the little old cheerleaders if there wool outfits who cheer, " get the ball, get the ball, get the damn ball!!" Haha because when they went to school it was ok to cuss. Of course Georgia smashed Vanderbilt and in true Katie and Casey style we came home with fabulous sunglass lines.