Chapter 432

Thursday evening I headed over to Kingston to watch Reagan on Friday morning while Carissa had a staff meeting. I hit a bit of traffic at Enchanted Parks while fire/police/aid cars/anything with lights rocketed down the left shoulder to stop shortly ahead of me. I heard on the radio that it was a road rage incident where a motorcyclist shot a guy in a car. This was just moments ahead of me since the aid vehicles were just arriving. I heard on the radio that the freeway was backed up for miles shortly afterward with a 2-3 hour slowdown.

At least I had a beautiful sky to keep me entertained. What a beautiful night for such a terrible thing to happen.

Since Mozzy is NOT happy being left inside while the family enjoys the patio, I thought maybe he needed a Kitty Holster like Nitro wears on his walks. One of the important contributions to the success of this operation is getting the cat used to the vest before he actually needs to go out in it. Mozzy had the expected reaction to wearing clothing. He stopped. and. plopped. Maybe by summer he'll be ready to suit up and keep the family company outside.

I brought Reagan home with me since the kids were coming over Saturday anyway. On the way home we stopped at Build a Bear at Tacoma Mall and she picked out a stuffie. Being the smart kid she is, she took me up on my "stick to the red tags (Buy one get one free) and get two or pick a while tag and get only one." She wisely chose red tags and ended up with two animals. She got to press the foot pedal to blow stuffing from the machine into her animal.

She was all in on watching the stuffing process. She loves to see how things are made and studies processes with total intensity. You can see the wheels turning in her head trying to figure things out. Check out the video here.  Each stuffy gets a heart and Reagan is waiting for her big moment.

She got to put a heart into each animal and undertook the duty with her whole heart. Also note she wrote the words for her own shirt. She even got a compliment on it at the mall and she was so proud.

After filling her animal, she gave it a "bath" to get all the little bits of fuzz off. Once again, she took on this duty like it was a matter of life and death.

She named her critters herself and made birth certificates for them. This process was also fulfilled with the utmost seriousness and focus.

All business as she carries her booty through the mall to head home and surprise Grampa. He didn't know I was bringing her home (or stopping at the mall).

Bedtime stories in the "elevator" with Grampa. 

Then Nitro and I sit and rest our feet after a busy day. Me from chasing Reagan and Nitro from running from Reagan.

Saturday morning she had an unfamiliar guest at breakfast. We haven't seen the sun in almost a month and we have had just 7 sunny days since the start of October. 

Taking advantage of the sunny day, we spent quite a bit of time outside playing/working in the yard and at the park. It was 30° when we went out and the garden dirt was still frozen.

She found some of the radishes I planted as a "winter" crop. She may not like radishes, but she sure like to pull them up!

This is the first year she hasn't been afraid of loud noises and happily joined Grampa on the tractor while they scraped up (frozen) mole hills.

It looks like Payton, Chelsea, and Reagan got ALL the artistic talent in the family. Reagan and I made her a calendar this weekend. Well, I printed it and filled in the holidays and she did all the hard work of coloring it by herself. Personally, I think she did pretty good.

There's one tired little girl sleeping in that tent tonight.

 Bob and I thought we'd take advantage of the great weather and get a few caches in today. Although it looked great outside, the wind was waaay too cold to stay out long considering neither of us planned on the wind and didn't have heavy enough jackets on. Today's target caches were up on the Weyerhaeuser campus and we got a couple by the lake and the Pacific Bonsai Collection. It was sad to walk thru the once vibrant campus and see it so eerily deserted.

Bob finding  the Natural Backdrop cache. You can see the  Weyerhaeuser pond in the background.

 Back home we started cleaning up from the visiting whirlwind to help us warm up. After vacuuming, Bob's #2 task is to clean the glass on the "elevator".

Have a good week, everyone!