He's a Survivor!

You know that song: "The cat came back...thought he was a goner, but the cat came back....?

Well it has been in my head all day.


After being gone an entire month....Cash found his way home last night at 12:30.



Here is the story in full-boring detail:

Last night I went to bed early(11:00), thinking it would be nice to get a little extra sleep. I was kidding myself... Every time I dozed off, I would dream that I was falling off the back of a treadmill, so I would jump and wake up. After about an hour and a half of this I finally fell asleep, only to be awakened by a familiar meow at the back porch. I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs and opened the door. There he was; a very excited Cash. He came in and after getting some attention from me, he ran straight to his food dish. He is pretty skinny and has a few scrapes on his body, but is otherwise fine.
He meowed VERY loudly for a couple of hours and woke Charlee and Sydnee up. They were very excited, but after his persistent cry for affection they wanted me to shut their door so they could sleep. :) Justee woke up at 5 am to find her kitty and she was super excited. I woke up to her screaming excitedly, "Kitty! Kitty! Momma, kitty here!" She played with him for about an hour and then came into my bed and fell back asleep. When it was finally time to wake Syd up for school Charlee was even more excited, "Mom he has stripes! It really is Cash!" I guess he just looked black to her in the dark and she must not have been convinced it was her cat snuggling with her.

Sydnee had to rush off to school, but Char and Justee haven't left that poor cat alone. I think he really enjoys the attention though. Char told me that she is so happy that Cash is home, that she doesn't ever want to put him down. He seems very excited to be home. We are happy to have him back as well...but jeez, couldn't he have picked a better time to make his appearance? I think I need a nap today. ;)

Time Marches On...

Justee put the 200th star on our flag tonight! The stripes will be filling up quicker, now that we have made it to where they are shorter (the blue stars will fill the left part.)

...sure feels good.

Addition to Justee's Room

I did a complete overhaul on Justee's room back in January. I decided that something was needed on the empty wall behind the door. Today, I added that something...

I still really love Justee's room...I just wish she would sleep there through the whole night and quit getting up at 3 am to join me.

Little Gardeners

Three trips to the store for more soil and a few hundred dollars later....our humble garden is planted.

The girls were very excited about this project. After I got the planter box built (which was the easiest part of the whole thing,) we filled it with soil and began to plant. Sydnee kept telling me that she wanted to be a gardener when she grew up...I told her she was being one now, but she insisted that she wanted to be the kind that could do it all by herself. She also kept saying that she bet Grandma and Grandpa would be very proud of us...What do ya think, Mom and Dad? ;)

Here they are planting cucumbers upon Sydnee's request. I was only planning on strawberries, peas, a row of sweet peas along the back, and tomatoes; but the girls all really love cucumbers, so they were added to the mix. The addition of cucumbers made me have to move the tomatoes to pots.It's a 4x8 garden, which sounded plenty big to me when I started, but I think it could have been bigger...we'll have to see how this year goes, and if I don't kill everything, I might have to build another one next year. Keep your fingers crossed for me...I tend to have a black thumb...but my weeping pussy willow, in the background, is still hanging in there.Dozer better stay out...dumb dog.
Not too bad for a day's work, eh?

Friday Flashback...FLEX!

Let me start by saying that this might be the funniest thing I will ever post. I cannot stop laughing....oh my heck!

My wonderful husband has come a looooooong way since he met me...I like to take credit ;)...Who would have ever guessed that the boy in these pictures would grow into the man that he is today: a caring father, a giving husband, a priesthood holder, a successful provider, a helicopter pilot, and as of yesterday...a Captain in the U.S. Army (he finally got his federal recognition, so if you send him any mail, you now should address it to CPT Durtsche. :) Of course those aren't all the things that define him, but at this time they are the most significant.

These are some pictures Justin sent to me while we were dating when he was gone to boot camp in early 1999 (I think)...unlike this current separation, I couldn't last that length of time in a long distance relationship...I broke up with Justin, while he was gone, over the phone (with my dad standing by to make sure I did it. hahaha)

I was worried that Justin might be a little embarrassed by these pics, but then I realized that I am probably more embarrassed than he....Take a look and see why:

Happy Spring

I was a little worried about the added jobs that the Spring would bring, but I have to admit...I actually enjoyed mowing the lawn yesterday. I may have only had to do the backyard because my neighbor was kind enough to mow the front while I was gone, (a mowed front yard is a great thing to come home to:) but I still don't think it will be such a horrible job.
I've never really minded yard work (light yard work anyway....not the awful kind I had to do during teens years at home ;) and yesterday's yard clean-up got me motivated to get some other things done. I want to build a large planter box and start a small vegetable garden, and make a small flower bed around the tree in the front yard. Hopefully I stay motivated...

I am really looking forward to the nice weather...and getting through the months of May and June- 2 months until Justin gets to "visit!"

The first and only blossom on our new little tree.

Hi-yaw....or whatever

Sydnee and Charlee had their first day of Tae Kwon Do today. I went back and forth on whether or not I would sign them up, but I think it will be worth the money...I hope so anyway ;).

One of the huge selling points for this program is the respect aspect...The instructors make a huge point about the kids doing their best in all aspects of life. The girls have been saying "Yes Mom!" for the past week when I ask them to do something...ever since their first visit to the class.

Here is a small example of what is expected of them: (any outside help with teaching my kids good habits and how to behave respectfully is welcomed by me :)

The girls have not yet received a belt...they have to recite this next time in order to earn their first belt:

There are lots of ways the kids are expected to bring what they learn into everyday life, and they get to earn stripes on their belts when they excel in school and help in the home.

I didn't get a lot of pics of Sydnee because her group was farther away and too many people were in the way.

Here is Char doing her bow at the beginning of class

It was so cute watching all the kids do their moves and yell out "Yes Ma'am!" and "Yes Sir!"

Charlee is so shy that it took a while for her to get brave enough to really say anything. She kept trying to make sure Sydnee was saying it before she dared say it, and her "Yes Ma'am!" always came out, "Es man!" She did a very good job of listening and paying attention. The funny thing was that the male instructor had a sling on his arm, so when he would try to show her how to do something, she would want to hold her same arm up like him...it was so funny to watch.

Syd is in the background of this next pic. She did really well too. She really got into it and it didn't look like it was her first day at all.
Here are the lean, mean, fightin machines...doing a couple moves they learned.

I loved watching every second of their class...I think I had a smile on my face the whole time. They loved it too and they can't wait to take their Dad to class. :)

Bedtime Stories with Daddy

Before Justin left, I videoed him reading stories to the girls. I finally finished the disc today and let the girls watch it tonight...I know, I am terrible for taking 6 months to do this, but maybe the girls got more joy out of it by waiting for it longer...? They seriously LOVED every min of it. They were all glued to it, and watched it 3 times before I told them to shut off their tv and go to bed. Justee saw a little bit of it on the computer while I was writing the disc...she cried and threw a fit when I shut it off. She was beyond thrilled and kept shrieking, "Daddy! It Daddy! Hi Daddy!" and of course she would throw in, "That me! That me, Mommy!"

Chuck's first reaction was to tell me that she wished Daddy was home... "RIGHT NOW, and that is because I miss him."

Sydnee laughed through a lot of it and said, "I am so glad we got to watch this tonight. Thank you mom."

Friday Flashback...Pets

We had a sad thing happen recently with one of our pets...Our cat, Cash, was let out by mistake and he never made it back home. I have kept my hopes up, thinking that he still might come back; but now that it has been over 2 weeks, I don't think it will happen. (The girls miss him very much. The other day a cat meowed on tv and Justee took off to the door all excited like she was going to let Cash in. She was very disappointed when he wasn't there.)

As I was thinking about Cash, and the fact that we haven't even had him a year yet, I started thinking about all of the pets Justin and I have owned since we were married.

Our first pet was our cat Blaise. She was a beautiful cat with tons of personality. She loved to play hide and seek with you, and she would play with cat toys all day. We got her just days after we got home from our honeymoon. She came from one of my parents' cats who had kittens. (The cat my parent's have now is Blaise's grandmother.)

The second pet we had was a Bluetick Hound that I rescued from the shelter. This is Tatum:
I warned Justin before we got married that I was going to own a Great Dane. Not long after we got Tate I took the opportunity to get one...I told Justin it would count as my birthday and Christmas present. (We weren't even married a year, and we were about to get our 3rd pet.) So we headed to St. Louis to pick up Dirkley. Luckily we were able to stop in Kansas at my sister's house for a break.This is the day after we got Dirk...He and Tate loved to play.It wasn't long before Dirk really outgrew Tate.

Tate became a huge pain in the butt. She was a hound dog and wanted to do what hounds do...we couldn't supply that kind of lifestyle for her, but we knew someone who could. She is currently living in Ten Sleep, WY and is the best coon dog her new owner has (last we heard.)Somewhere in the middle of the pet frenzy, we got two rabbits. Bronco was the grey one and Harley was the white one....they sure were cute, but what was I thinking? Harley died in child/bunny birth while we were out of town and we gave Bronco away to a family we knew.Then it was just Dirk and Blaise for a while.That lasted until we went into a pet store...just for fun. We had no intentions of getting another pet....then I saw this adorable face. I have no self-control. Mikko was our fluffy little Pomeranian.It was pretty funny to walk a Pom and a Great Dane at the same time. They were great friends though, and Mikko definitely ran the show. At one point we thought we lost Mikko...I had let him out to go potty and when I went to let him back in, I couldn't find him. We searched and searched the neighborhood. To make a long story short...Our neighbors stole him and were hiding him from us...said they were going to sell him. Nice huh?

Here he is a little bit bigger:Dirk and Mikko with Kyle, Journee, Mark, Karlee, and Jada:We were visiting my parents around Thanksgiving when Justin had to come inside and tell me he found Mikko dead on the road in front of my parents' house. They live on a dirt road out in the country...I'm still upset that someone would be driving fast enough to hit the poor little guy and then not come tell us.

After Dirk was without a playmate for a while...almost a year...Justin got the dog he always wanted...an English Bulldog. Dozer and Sydnee:

You'd think that having a dog stolen would only happen once, but it happened to us twice. In our second home in Laramie, we had some crazy college kids living next to us...They were always having parties and after a particularly wild party, we woke up to find Dozer missing from our yard. It took some time, some threats and a police report, but Dozer was returned to us.

Not long after moving here, we had to get Dirk put down. It was very hard for me, but he was struggling. He wasn't the same dog after we lived in Alabama...he had gotten severe heat stroke there, and his health and his mind were going. It was the right thing to do....hard, but necessary.

Next, after about 8 years of having Blaise, she just didn't come home one night...That was really hard for all of us too. The girls really missed her so...a few months later, we got Cash.

Now Dozer is the last of our pets (if you don't count the fish tank) and I'm sure he misses his buddy Cash, but I think we need to just take a break for a while...we have had 8 different pets in our almost 9 years of marriage. I wonder how much money we have spent on pets and all their needs over the years...more than I'd like to admit I'm sure, but I can't imagine not having them in my life or in my kids lives...I think kids learn valuable lessons from animals...(Plus I think kids who live in homes without pets get sick more often (that is if the house with pets is kept decently clean)..I have no real proof on that, but it is probably out there. ;) So that's my story and I'm stickin to it.

Phew...that post ended up being much longer than expected.