9-Years-Old

 My Kitty turned 9!  Look at my beautiful girl.

Kitty started planning her 9th birthday party the day after she turned 8.  She went with a Harry Potter theme this time.  She presented me months ago with her annual drawing for an elaborate cake that my sausage fingers would have to create.  

It always looks easy on the paper.  It's never easy.

Thankfully, my mama was in town and was able to help me create a masterpiece for my girl.  Well, it was a slumping masterpiece, that we rescued from certain death a few times, but it worked out in the end.  My mama made the broom and snitches, Mykey resin-printed me a mold for the Quidditch hoops, and away we went.  

It was a pretty cool cake in the end.

The day was full of fun.  We began by letting Kitty open her presents from us before her friends took over the house.

Then we braced ourselves for chaos.  And I mean chaos.

We decorated wands that Mykey had 3D printed.

We ate lots of food.  On the menu was Hufflepuff Cheetos, Slytherin twin snake gummies, Ravenclaw pizza pie, and Gryffindor butterbeer.  Yummy!  While eating, they cranked up the Alexa and danced on their chairs around the table.  It was loud and wonderful.

We also did an escape room and played minute-to-win-it games.

Our games were Erumpet Horn: they had to stack and balance 5 pool noodle disks on their forehead. 

Wingardium Leviosa: they had to keep a balloon in the air using only their wands.  

Devil's Snare: they partnered up and wrapped their partner in an entire roll of streamers.

  Mirror of Erised: they had to use a mirror to walk backwards through a maze of chairs.    

We had floating candles and they had to walk through Platform 9 3/4 to get through the front door. But I didn't get a picture of that.  Shucks.  

And then there were presents galore!

What a party!  I'm exhausted.  

Now let's see what she's planning for her 10th.

Animal Behavior

It's just what cats do with boxes.

Spooky Recital

Creepy Halloween recital anyone?  Kitty's got you covered.  

We had a good time at the performance.  The first part of the recital was your typical cutesy-Halloween black cats and witches dance numbers.  The second half was creepy murderous-teenager dance numbers.  It was strange.

But - watching Kitty was divine!  And my parents were in town so that was an extra treat. Kitty got to dance in 2 numbers.  She was a mad scientist and a kid on the playground. 

After the performance Kitty exclaimed, "I loved being on the stage and having all those people clapping for me!"

I loved it too.  

Jogathon

The jogathon was back at school this year! Kitty was pretty excited about it  - mostly because there was a cool prize she wanted to win.  Each student received one ticket for every $25 raised and they had a bunch of prizes that would be raffled off.  

Kitty had her eye on a Star Wars fused bead kit.  She spent weeks telling me her strategy: she was going to put ALL of her tickets in for that one prize to increase her odds.  She calculated that this strategy gave her about a 70% chance of winning the item. I hoped she was right.

When I asked Kitty how many laps she planned to run this year she said, "I don't have a number in mind.  I'm just going to do my best."  Good enough for me.

In years past, we've been able to be down near the field cheering her on.  This year, they wouldn't allow parents on school grounds because of our friend Covid.  No one mentioned this fact to any of the parents and Kitty just happened to bring it up the night before the jogathon.  She was very upset that we wouldn't be able to watch her run.

Try and stop me.

I told her I would stand in the road and cheer if I had to.  I wasn't going to miss the jogathon.

We ended up standing on the sidewalk above the track with just a handful of other parents.  I thought it was very sad and unnecessary that we couldn't support our kids.  OUTSIDE.  Well, if you know me, you know I have a big mouth and a loud voice.  The parents around us were cheering for their kids and not one of them looked up because they couldn't hear the cheers.  When Kitty came running by, there was no mistaking my roar.  She heard me just fine.  And the other parents were impressed.  Or annoyed.  It's hard to say.

I screamed and cheered and my Kitty ran and ran.  12 laps that girl ran.  12!  That was more than 2 miles!

We gave Kitty $10.50 per lap and she quickly turned in the money in exchange for her tickets.  She put them all in the jar for the bead kit and then we waited.

The day of the raffle arrived and Kitty was certain she was going to win; she'd done all the calculations after all.  I just hoped she wouldn't be devastated when her ticket wasn't drawn.   

I drove up to the school that afternoon thinking about what I would say to console her.  What I really needed was words to convey my shock and delight.

Kitty won the raffle!  It was yet another successful jogathon.

That'll teach me to doubt her strategies.  

Redwoods Vacation!

I've wanted to see the Redwoods for a long time now.  With the increase in wildfires as of late, I worried that the trees would burn down in a raging inferno before I ever crossed that item off my bucket list.

So we decided to go the Redwoods on vacation this year.  I'm crowd-adverse so I didn't want to go in the height of tourist season.  We scheduled our adventure for the last week in September and anxiously awaited our trip.

Here's the thing I didn't know about the Redwoods.  It isn't just one specific place where you go and see "The Redwoods."  It's actually a large-spanning forested area in northern California where you show up and see what you can find. We weren't sure where to go or what to do or how to maximize our Redwoods experience.  From that standpoint, it was a strange trip.  But, we did manage to see some enormous trees and made some lasting memories along the way.

And that's the point of vacation.  

I admit that we also hit some bumps during our journey.  Kitty was sick our first couple of days on the road and graciously passed it on to Booney.  There's something magical about paying for a hotel room and a family experience, only to be laying in bed coughing and wanting to die for part of it. We also hit a bump when we tried to ride dune buggies and the guys informed us they weren't taking any more buggies out for the day, even though we arrived BEFORE their advertised closing time.  I also spilled an entire cup of lemonade onto the floor of the car.  

It rained like Noah had just set sail in his ark as we attempted to hike around the Trees of Mystery, but boy was it breathtaking.  And we were all alone because of the storm.

There were no sea lions waiting for us in the Sea Lion caves, and we paid $10 to drive through a tree that looked like Jed Clampett was maintaining. Our Prius could barely squeeze through.  

 

BUT - in spite of it all, our fun times far outweighed the bumps.  

We saw loads of animals at Wildlife Safari park and Great Cats World Park, and experienced a hurricane in a tube. Kitty still talks about the hot dog she ate at the Wildlife Safari park.  We ate lunch overlooking the lemurs and it was all very magical.  Apparently it ranks as the best hot dog she's ever eaten.  

We got to pet a tiger shark, see a seal show, and hold starfish at Ocean World.  We also went ziplining through the tree tops, where Kitty faced her fears and came out the victor. 

We were amazed and intrigued at Ripley's Believe or Not museum, where Kitty stuffed her entire body into a small box.  We also found a secluded trail and enjoyed a hike through a forest of enormous trees. 

And to top it all off, we defied the laws of nature at the Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery.

What a great vacation we had!  "Visit the Redwoods" is officially crossed off the bucket list.

3rd grade

Can you believe my Kitty is in 3rd grade?  We went to the school's Open House and they had a desk for her in a 3rd grade classroom so...I guess it's real.

My mind is far too feeble to comprehend such craziness.

I'm going along with it though.  

After she successfully completed the first day of school, we celebrated the craziness with Kitty's favorite dinner: baked potatoes, chicken with ranch, cheese buns, and chocolate cream pie for dessert.  And we gave her some new Harry Potter Lego mini-figs for fun.

Bring on the 3rd grade!

Coastal Camping

Our annual Labor Day camping trip with friends arrived in a flash, thus marking the end of summer.

Booooo

How does that saying go, "nothing lasts forever?"  Well, poo on that.  Summer should be courteous enough to last a little longer.  Alas, it does not.  

So we celebrated with one final hurrah and then called it a day.  Our hurrah this year was held at Umpqua Lighthouse state park.  It was a beautiful setting within walking distance of the lighthouse and a quaint lake.  We had a marvelous time, complete with Kitty making her own chalk out of charred logs from the fire pit, and the adventure of a raccoon busting into our campsite and munching down on snacks galore.  True story.  We failed to properly put our food away and I was awakened by rustling sounds in the middle of the night.  I was terrified as to what wild animal might be out there, and didn't want to be mauled and eaten.  

So I sent Michael to investigate.  

The fattest raccoon you ever did see was calmly eating our chips.  Even when Michael shooed him away into the trees, the fat raccoon sat just outside our tent door and crunched on the bag of chips he had taken with him.  I was looking into his eyes and he never broke my gaze.  He just calmly kept reaching into the bag and pulling out chips.  What a jerk.  

The other downside - apart from the thieving raccoon - was that there was a burn ban in effect.  We did not have a marvelous time adhering to the no campfire rule. That was the pits.  I have decided not to go camping again with fire restrictions.  It was such a bummer to go to bed once the sun went down.  No late night chatting around the fire, no s'mores, no ghost stories - it was crappy. But...we had a wonderful time bidding summer farewell nonetheless.

Hooray for camping with friends!