Rats!!

I know a picture is worth a thousand words, but I didn't have a chance to grab the camera. I was working away on the laptop--like the diligent student that I am--when lo and behold I see Porkchop trying to eat a roofrat on the patio! I think that he caught it in the woodpile area and it was desperately trying to escape his maw by running for a stack of firewood that we keep on the rear patio to keep it dry.
I was able to rescue the rat, not for the rat's sake but for the dog's digestive happiness, and threw it over the fence to the neighbors. (They are gone for the fall/winter) So, I am sure it will live happily over there until another animal eats it. Or Porkchop gets it again. I just thought that I would share this experience because it was hilarious watching the dog play with his "food." He resembles a pig in some regards so I don't know how he was quick enough to catch the rat, but he was really excited about it. He has now caught more rats than our cats.

Good News and Not so good

As you can see from my last post Kathryn and I are having a boy. Yipee!!! We are both very excited for march. Obviously apprehensive at the same time though. Big life changes. Here are some pictures of the ultrasound from thursday.


I scanned the pictures in so you may have some trouble seeing them. The ultrasound tech was amazed that we couldn't tell what was what as she was moving the sensor all over. I think half of what they see is just what they know should be present not anything they can really "see."

Along with the good news of having a boy, well first let me state FOR THE RECORD that I would be just as happy and excited if we had found out we were having a girl, I heard back about my LSAT score. I will be taking it again in December. Yipee. I had set for myself a certain score that I would accept as a minimum and I didn't quite make that so I am re-taking it.

On Saturday I attended "Little Philmore." It is an SF Area event with 10-12 stakes participating focused on scouting. The YM general president was there and spoke on how important scouting is. I was surprised to a degree at how scouting is literally the activity arm of the Aaronic priesthood and that there is no such thing as an activity that is a YM activity and not a scout activity. A little eye-opener there. I think a lot of people were surprised at how forceful President Beck was stating this principle. We had different sessions depending on your calling. Certain classes for priesthood leaders, age specific classes for younger scouts, cub scouts, etc. It lasted 8 hours and was fun to see different perspectives on how to accomplish scouting.
After having a large storm at the beginning of the week it warmed up to almost summer temperatures. Luckily it started cooling down today so Kathryn and Porkchop could enjoy a comfy fire. I just realized that when I type "comfy" that it passes the spell checker. Weird. There is no way that is an accepted word.

During our fire-time the Blotters stopped by to drop off a plate of cookies. They are delicious. Every Sunday the Blotter children make cookies and drop them off to families. I am pretty impressed with their children. Especially since Greg is their father. I was expecting them to be a little more rambunctious. I guess they are holding it in until their high school years.
Here is a picture of Porkchop showing off his large mouth.

We went to the doctor's office...

And we were told that we are having a boy on March 11th. We are SOOO excited. I will post more when I have time.

An Important Event...

Is happening on Thursday. Thursday is the day we find out whether we are having a boy or a girl. Kathryn says it is definitely a boy, but I remain on the fence. We are SOOO excited to find out though. This has been another busy week for us with school, work, and the daily tasks that make up our lives. The annual firewood drive is happening for the Boy Scouts and as a leader I get to become even more involved with it than last year. Last year my sole contribution was to buy some of the wood, and this year I get to help make the phone calls, stuff envelopes, and generally try to help out. This weekend I was able to convince Kathryn to go camping with me at a place called Lake Francis resort in Dobbins, CA. It is about 200 miles from here and the real test of Kathryn's love was that this was an International Harvester Rally so I wanted to drive my 1973 Scout II. It was a long noisy drive. We did have fun though. Here are some pictures of some of the old "nice" looking scouts and trucks.



The camping site was nice and right next to the bathroom for the pregnant woman. Kathryn said that she had a good time, I brought everything imaginable to make it a fun time. There was a restaurant at the "campground" so Friday night I had prime rib, a salad bar and Kathryn and I shared a shrimp appetizer. Kathryn had the trout, and since we were in the foothills of the Sierras and next to a lake, it was probably pretty fresh. Kathryn finally met some of the people that I go to Hollister with, when I take the truck offroading. She thought everyone was very nice, but I think she was laughing a bit at some of the people's facial hair. There were some REAL mustaches going on. I didn't take any pictures of the people and I am kind of regretting it. I had fun, the Scout made the trip with minimal issues, and Kathryn was gracious enough to not complain about the silliness of it all. Overall it was a great weekend. Here are some more pictures.


There were more that showed up later in the day and some really nice looking ones too. There were a few that were less nice than mine, but mine was DEFINITELY on the low end of the trucks. There were probably 60-70 trucks there.

The week has been great for us, midterms kick off this upcoming week so I will be busy, and next monday (David's birthday) I am supposed to find out my LSAT score.
No new pictures of the pets this week. But we did just make 4 more jars of applesauce.

Messiness

Kathryn's apple crisp Extravaganza.




All 5 of Kathryn's sisters showed up to help out with the 8(?) apple crisps that were made. Of course this was also a result.

Which means I had to siphon out the water, yes it was disgusting and I even threw up a little. I took apart the pipes a bit to try and find out why things weren't moving along, but everything looked clear yet the sinks would continue to back up. Right now the pipes are full of liquid plumber as we are hoping it clears out whatever the problem is. I hope everyone is having a great conference weekend.

-Pete
Just thought that I would add, I finally got the sink unclogged TODAY. 2 days later and a trip to home depot for a longer drain snake. The clogs, yes that is plural, were about 12 ft down the pipes. What a fiasco!

Domestic Times

Well, since we have so many apples that are ripe we have to start doing something with them. So I made a few bottles of applesauce. I didn't add enough lemon juice to keep the apples from changing color from the time they were cut up until when I cooked them up. It was surprising to see how many apples are needed to only make a small amount of applesauce. I think that I could have added quite a bit more water, so the applesauce will be VERY thick the way I made it (and a little chunky). So here are some pictures of Porkchop and applesauce.



I think Kathryn is planning on having a apple crisp-making-extravaganza this afternoon to use up some of the rest of the apples on the tree. Plus we do need to use some of the 25 lbs of oatmeal that we have in the pantry.
The garden is still growing pretty well even though the weather hasn't been cooperating. The Butternut squash are growing in nicely, but the watermelon I think is done. I was really hoping that it would get a bit bigger, but I don't think that it has been warm enough. They are supposed to grow up to 25 lbs. I think ours is closer to 5 lbs.


Now that I don't have to study for the LSAT (at least until I find out the results), I have more time to do other things. Like homework that has been put off. Wonderful. But, things are going pretty well. School is school and is just fine. We find out the sex of the baby in 2 more weeks so Kathryn and I are very excited.