Pictures of the puppies

The puppies eyes are just starting to open. They are almost two weeks old. Their names are Buck, Buttercup, Muffin, Sparkle, Cloudy and something (can't remember). We are enjoying them, all but cleaning up poop.

The happy and the sad

Ginger had her puppies on Sunday night. She had seven puppies, but the first was born dead. I think he drowned because it took too long for him to be born. I tried to resuscitate him but no luck. When the next puppy was born, I almost cried to see a squirming body. The next pup born took quite a while and I went to bed afterward as it was past 1 AM. Michaela informed us the next day that there were six puppies. They are very cute. Ginger is a great mother. The puppies are already little roley-polies. When I get my camera out of the cold van, I will take some pictures. . .
That was the mostly happy news. Nutmeg on the other hand lost both her kittens. They were still-born. Nutmeg had trouble birthing the first and I had to help her by pulling it out. This was after an undetermined amount of labor as I woke up to the kids saying she was giving birth. I went to watch how she was doing and realized too late that something was wrong. It was a sad day.
Nutter seems to have weathered the situation well, though.

Anybody want a cute little lab/malumute?? So cute. . . Check back for pics:)

Thanksgiving at Grandma's

We took a bold (or insane) step and decided to go to Washington State for the Thanksgiving holiday. We missed last year because the babies were so young and I was still nursing. So we packed up our bags and hit the road. We left on Friday right after school. We drove to Boise and spent the night in a motel. The kids went swimming before we left the next morning. We drove the next day until we made it to Bremerton at 8:30PM. It was a very loooong trip. The little boys had not built up a tolerance to numb rear-ends and tingling feet, so they cried from stir-craziness. It's OK when one is crying because I can hold one, but when both are crying and we are tired of the drive, it's bad news. We made it in one piece though, barely.
We stayed at Grandma's house and enjoyed seeing lots of family. We saw Annaliese and Addie. We so enjoyed watching her smile and coo. We saw Diane and Ryan momentarily before they left back to UT. We enjoyed the presence of Orson before he left to go back to WA State. We got to know Anthony a bit more and wanted to hire him as a replacement chef at the Nelsonranch. We soo enjoyed playing cards with Penny and soaking in her exuberance for life. We drove over to see Arielle, Dave and Grayson. Grayson is getting so big and has such a happy personality. It was great fun to hang out and be with the sis-in-laws.

We went to Illahee park and walked on the dock checking out the sea-life. There were people there crabbing.

It was a beautiful day. You could see Mt Rainer from the beach. We played on the big artillery guns and the playground.

We went to visit Paul's friend Sean Olmstead who owns a nursery in Silverdale.

They had a couple reindeer there and a building that was decorated beautifully inside with Christmas lights.

They turned on the snow machine when we were there. (It makes you sneeze though)
We also went out to Fort Wordon.

This was a military base in the early 1900's that protected the Puget Sound from invading ships.

A sign posted on the trails to the batteries said to watch out for aggressive coyotes and to keep an eye on your little ones.

Tessa wielded a stick after we read that sign. It is an amazing view of the ocean there. The kids taunted the waves, racing away as the water rolled up the beach.

We played racketball with Dave and Claire and tried our first sushi in the form of California rolls. Can't say I will do that again. . .
We went to Dave and Claire's house for Thanksgiving dinner and enjoyed the company of Claire's family and CJ, Kenneth, and Dominick. The food was incredible!!
We left to go home to UT on Friday.

We barely caught the ferry to Seattle and played a game of "Cover your Assets" our favorite card game. We then went over to the gingerbread house display that was soo not what we were expecting.

The line was too long and the display was too small. We stopped at the Curiousity shop for old times sake. Next we drove to see Grandpa Nelson's gravesite.

Paul hadn't been back to see it since his dad died. Then it was off to see Ken and Rosy. We stopped in for a quick visit. They fed us and entertained us graciously. We needed to put some more miles behind us so we left for Baker OR.
When we woke the next morning (let me just note how lovely it is to try and get 10 people to sleep at 12:30 AM) the kids went swimming again and then we went over to the house my dad lived in when he was first born. I wished that I had gone over to the cemetary to track down some ancestors. We then drove to Ogden and stopped to see Grandpa Andrews, Patti and Great-Grandma Johnson. We had delicious burritos and they loaded us down with some yummy food. It was wonderful to see my Grandmother. She is now 94! We finally made it home at 9:30 PM and we all raced in to see if Nutty had her kittens.
Nope, not yet.
If you are reading this still and are awake, I am amazed.