Family, Friends, and Furbabies...Snow and Sunshine

Mali ~

Happy, happy New Year! 2018! The first weekend in January we found ourselves back at Memaw and Papaw's for our annual pork and sauerkraut for good luck. We brought our new games of Speak Out and Telestrations and laughed until our sides hurt.

Memaw and Papaw in their newly remodeled kitchen...
first makeover in over 30 years!

Papaw taking one of his famous candids

having fun watching everyone play Telestrations

Speak Out!

Wilkinsons, 2018

One of our first adventures of the new year was helping Alysia (my friend from work) find a cat to adopt. One of the places we visited was the Cat Cafe...a place where you can go, relax, play with all kinds of cats that are roaming around what looks like a cozy house/cafe and find your new best friend. It is such a cool concept. I believe when we were there, they had adopted out 243 cats since their opening day. Pretty cool.

store front of the Cat Cafe

this cat reminded me of Garfield...I don't think he
moved from that spot once, just waited for people
like you to bring him lots and lots of treats

That same weekend I had a night out and so you and Daddy had a fun evening in with a Nerf gun dart war, card games, and learning how to play quarters. You, evidently, are a natural at quarters! Should I be nervous? Ha ha.

In more productive hobby news, Lao Lao had gotten you some monthly science kits for Christmas and so she came over to help you with a few of them. The experiences are really interesting and you're a big fan of the science goggles.

We got some more snow this month and were able to finally take Daddy sledding. He was so happy to get to go with us!

"race you to the hill, Suzy!"

you are still stoked to be able to help with the shoveling,
wonder when that will stop? ha.

helping make soup once we got home...everyone does it on 

the counter, right? ha ha.

Lots of cozy time inside in the warmth with our animals this month. So much love for our furry family members.

all 5 animals in one photo...can you spot them all?

We got some photos recently in a thank you card from Lily to you for attending her sleepover birthday party. It was a makeover party and honestly, I was surprised you were on board with going, but you ended up having a great time. You have some wonderful and kind friends. I am so grateful for that. Look how cute you all are!

L to R - Elyse, Delaney, you, Lily, and Jude

Lily has been a good friend since 2nd grade

I ended up having to take the dogs to the vet for a regular check up this month. Everything was fine overall but we did get another reminder that our sweet Abby is getting older and her arthritis is getting more painful. She has also been doing this reverse sneezing thing and I wanted to make sure she was ok. The vet thought she had a sinus infection and so she gave us some medication for that and her arthritis and then all kinds of tips for how to make her more comfortable. Abby's heart is still strong (physically and in spirit) and so we are just trying to keep the pain at bay for now. On the way home it was very snowy and since Abby has always been such a huge fan of snow and Suzy is such a huge fan of almost any kind of fun with her humans, I took them both to our local dog park to romp around in the flakes while Abby still feels well enough to do so. They loved it and we had the dog park completely to ourselves. It was beautiful.

yes, Suzy is buckled into the front seat

she always gets her face completely covered in snow

this is how she does it...part ostrich, perhaps?

"run, run, run, Suzy!"

trying to lick her nose - Abby loves eating the snow

playing with a pine tree branch

watching some birds fly overhead

Abby has the perfect coat to catch the snow

copying her sister with the snowy face look

I also got a fantastically super early Mother's Day gift from you and Lao Lao. I love my new bracelet!

This month we also had our super, duper belated Garrabrant Christmas celebration in some cabins at Punderson State Park. It was so much fun. Gorgeous snow everywhere, a frozen lake, snow-tubing, skiing, and family time. What could be better?

Daddy is sleeping in...I like the shafts of sunlight

uh oh, what's Lao Lao going to do with that snowball?

Daddy's reaction when Lao Lao put that snowball down his shirt

you and Daddy on your way up the tubing hill

Lao Lao and I are right behind you

ready to go - double tubing with Lao Lao

uh oh...ornery with snowballs just like your lao lao

here we all are by the lodge

Daddy and I took a quiet hike through the woods and by the lake

standing on the frozen lake, against my better judgment
(I wouldn't let him go more than 5 feet out even though
there were people in the middle ice-fishing)

now home again...looks like the kitties missed us

And just like that, seeing as how this is Ohio, we go from snow galore to sunny skies and mild temperatures. On one of these days, I took Suzy for a long walk on our trail. Abby got a shorter one later closer to home. As you can see, Suzy had a blast. We have such sweet pups.

And...that about wraps it up for January. Family, friends, and furbabies.
Yay, 2018!

Love,
Mama