And now...let's check in with Finn and Lucy

The last few weeks we have been busy!  Busy talking about summer, and holidays and school functions and all the hijinks that go along with them.  I think now it is time to check back in with my family's two furry mascots.  Our dog Finn and our cat Lucy.  Let's see what they have been up to lately!

Finn has been keeping up with her reputation of embarrassing me and mostly our daughter Tatum who takes her outside in the afternoon.   Tatum likes to ride her skateboard right after school and we live with a park directly behind our house.  She rides after school, and lets Finn run alongside her for her afternoon walk.  Only thing is...Finn is never put on a leash, and she had a short attention span.  She will be running beside T, which she thinks is her job and takes very seriously.  But all of a sudden - A FAMILY!  Have you ever seen the Disney movie UP?  If you have, then you know the dog on there I am talking about.  It can talk through a computer chip.  Every couple of sentences the dog will stop, POINTE and say, "Squirrel!!!"  That is always Finn, except for squirrel it is - Bird!  Person!  Guy on a lawn mower!  GOLF CART!!!  Today is was a guy - poor guy - riding on a golf cart around "our" park.  Finn ran halfway across the park after the golf cart.  Barking I'm sure.  Tatum and I had to do the call of shame from our yard.  Alerting everyone that the crazy dog belongs to us.


Going to take kids to school is Finn's favorite time of day.  She loves nothing more than to hang her head out the window, smile wide and let the world know she is alive.  But the short walk to the car and back to the house without a leash are real gambles.  Then when we make it to the car, she turns into a huge chicken.  Any animal that she sees, and then just random neighborhoods (I don't know what that's about) make her whine.  I mean, whine!  Loud and embarrassing.  Today while waiting in a school parking lot, we were parked right next to a male pit bull who was barking at her from his car.  And i have to say - he was really cute.  Nothing.  She was silent.  But at the next school parking lot 5 minutes later a tiny dog walked through and Finn went so bananas I had to roll up her window.  People were staring.  (And then a boy in my SUV started yelling out the window as I was rolling it up as fast as it would go.  I don't even want to know what people think of me.)

My husband is a volunteer sheriff's deputy.  Last week I had a couple of little boys here and he brought the patrol car by for them to see.  I opened the door for them to see it in the driveway - they were so excited - and they weren't the only one.  Finn saw this as a promise for a car ride, and as soon as I opened the door she looked out  and saw a running car in our driveway.  Didn't matter that she had never seen it before - the promise to take a ride was there.  She ran outside, really when we were so engrossed with the little boys eternal glee that we weren't paying enough attention to Finn.  And this time she didn't climb in the strange car and refuse to come out resulting in having to be drug by her collar which she can take off and then we are in trouble.  Been there.  No, instead she waited until a neighbor came over to visit outside a minute and then ran across the street to other neighbor's house that we don't know very well.  And then you know what she did - or tried to do.  However - I actually got to her in time before she could take a big dump in their manicured lawn.  Shew.  You'll have to try another day Finn.

Lucy has also stayed busy.   She enjoys being an inside/outside cat.  She is a good 4 pounds, but at night she likes to go outside and vary between pacing up and down our sidewalk, and sitting at the very edge of our front yard, facing the neighbor's yard.  The neighbors have a cat named Callie.  And if Callie even thinks for one second about trying to cross the street and come into our yard.  Well.  Lucy's ready.   But sometimes she will wail to come in for a bathroom break.  She will want in just to use her litter box, and then want back outside.  The litter box.  Which I have to clean out.  Versus the yard which I don't have to clean out.

And speaking of guarding.  I run  a little daycare out of our house during the week, and I have a couple of babies/toddlers here during the day.  They nap between 1 1/2 - 3 hours every afternoon.  (Oh happy day!)  The whole day Finn sleeps on the couch, or on the floor next to her favorite chair, or in Bret's office.  Until the babies take a nap.  That is her patrol.  I think in her mind, our front door holds all kinds of evil things, because if any noise goes off in the house at nap time: the air conditioner kicking on, a car driving by, heaven help us if Bret or I closes or opens the bathroom door.  She barks her head off.  And only while the babies are napping.  Really.  I guess she is trying to keep anyone from waking them up?

And for my Facebook friends who have heard my storm stories before - we also have two frogs which live in our front goldfish pond.  Their names are Belly and Jelly and they are going strong.  They have at least 1000 tadpoles in our tiny, green, should be pretty pond but it's not cause chemicals will kill the tadpoles.  This is a fun time of year, cause the tadpoles are starting to turn into baby frogs and are hopping out of the pond and showing up anywhere you are not expecting to find them.  They look like teeny rocks, and then oh.My.GOODNESS.WHY.DID THAT ROCK JUST MOVE!?  No matter how many times that happens, it never stops being scary.

We had a large turtle in our pond too named Optimus Prime.  But I haven't seen him lately, he must have had enough.  Lucy probably had something to do with it, I can just see her trying to ride him around the yard during her nighttime neighborhood cat patrols.

We sure do have a lot of fun with them, and we have included some extra pictures at the bottom, so you can enjoy them too.

And We Know That In All Things

God Works For The Good Of Those Who Love Him

Romans 8:28

Tatum gave Lucy some milk, but Finn thinks everything of Lucy's is hers & she takes it over.  

Christmas morning comes too early.

One of our good friends had to have surgery, and she loved to wear mismatched socks.  So we all wore mismatched socks (even Finn) in this picture to send to her.

Sometimes a cat nap isn't just for a cat.