Whirlwind September & October

Oh my! It's been a long time since my last post. Lots has happened, and just keeping up with life has been tough enough. So this is a REALLY long post. :)

Here are a few football pictures from this year. We've actually missed the last four games :-( so these are from September. My birthday, actually.




I'll go back to late September. Camryn started dance class at school. No, we've not made the plunge and enrolled her in classes at night yet. Just the 30 minute/week dance class that happens while she's at school. That's the most conducive to our schedule. We'll see if she sticks with it and then get more serious. We bought her first pair of ballet and tap shoes. She got to go out in the garage and "break them in." She LOVED it. I'm not certain if she ever gets to wear them at school though. Either she forgets about it or the teacher doesn't have them wear their dance shoes. Cam always tells me that she just wore her regular shoes. That ticks me off a bit since I spent the money on the shoes.

All serious and showing off her ballet shoes.

Then the next weekend, I was scheduled to run in the Roots & Blues Festival 10k. Cam and I drove to Columbia that Friday night to stay the night. On Saturday, it was POURING rain the whole time. But I woke up, drove there in the dark, and finished like it was no big deal. I needed to get that run in because I had the big San Jose run coming up soon. And God bless Liz. When I came back she had breakfast made for everyone. (Loved that peach syrup Liz!) That hit the spot. The rain cleared up and we headed over to the festival, although with the girls it wasn't the easiest to navigate. I didn't get as many pictures as I thought I did from the day. You'll have to visit Liz's blog for that.

Here's how the big girls traveled. Riley was in the stroller. They have it so hard!


This is my Glam Cam shot. She just posed for the camera. Ha!


And I love this picture. A future Tiger, perhaps?

We drove home later that day, exhausted. But that wasn't the busiest part of our weekend. The next day our cat, Jake decided to take an adventure that would result in a night in the woods, hours in the emergency room and a cone around his head. I've provided a lot of detail here, so feel free to skip over it if you've heard the story.

We figure Jake snuck into the garage late one night when Craig was taking the trash out. He's always sitting there waiting for an opportunity and if Craig had to open the door wide enough to take the trash out, he probably slipped through his legs without realizing it. And as it turns out spend the night in the garage. Only we didn't know that. The next morning, Craig had to run to school to take care of a few things. Jake wasn't around, and none of us seemed to notice that he wasn't begging for breakfast or running through the house. Craig came back and I left about 1:00 to return something in Chesterfield (about 20 minutes away). As I was driving down the highway, I noticed paw prints on the windshield. I called Craig to see if he'd seen Jake. I suddenly realized he had not slept at my feet the night before, he had not wished me good morning as our normal routine goes, nor had he asked for breakfast. Craig had not seen him, so he hung up and him and Cam began a search around our house.

Within seconds of hanging up, I heard a thump underneath my car and had a sinking feeling in my stomach that it was a cat. Yep. He had fallen on the highway and I had no way to get him. I slowed down and got over to the shoulder. All I could do was watch him. He got up right away, but instead of running toward the side of the highway where I was, he ran to the median, and then across the westbound lanes of traffic, dodging cars like a Frogger game. Then across the outer road where he plunged into the woods. It happened so fast, and all I could do was watch it from my car. I had no way to save him.

As you can imagine I was rather hysterical. I called Craig over and over and over until he picked up. I found the first highway turnaround and bolted straight to the spot where I thought he jumped in. We dropped Cam off at a neighbors and searched for hours that afternoon in the woods. I knew he wasn't coming out. He was out of his element and had to be in survival mode. There was no way he was just going to greet us right away with the sounds of the highway so close by. Cats are very different from dogs in that regard. They hide. And the worst part was we didn't know if he was hurt or dead.

I was so defeated. My day was completely ruined. All plans were cancelled. Camryn and I went to post signs by the two nearby subdivisions.

Craig went back two different times that evening around dusk and then close to midnight. He figured it was quieter and so he just sat in the woods hoping Jake would seek him out. No luck.

I called local shelters and the APA the next morning. They were supportive, but their voices didn't ring of hope when I told them what had happened. Craig posted a lost cat memo on craigslist and a lady responded with some great tips about cat behavior when they're out of their element. She gave both of us renewed hope that he might still turn up.

When we got home from work Craig decided to take the first shift. Within 20 minutes of leaving he called saying he found him. He didn't have him yet. But he located him. Jake had made his way to a drain pipe and was about 20 or 30 feet into the pipe. Fortunately it was big enough for a human. But Craig's fear was if he went in then Jake would run out the other side. He had brought Jake's foot container and that caught Jake's attention when he shook it. He poured some morsels out at the entrance to the pipe. But didn't attract Jake. Instead field mouse appeared from everywhere at the sound of food. Yuck!

Camryn and I brought the cat kennel up with us so when Jake did finally come out, Craig could put him in the kennel. Craig didn't want to leave the spot for fear that Jake would move again and we'd lose him. He checked out the other side of the drain pipe and it had some wire over it, but not small enough that Craig was confident Jake couldn't squeeze through if he were desperate to run. I offered to climb up the drain pipe while Craig and Cam stood on the other end, but it was too difficult of terrain for Camryn to make it. And it was getting dark, windy and cold. All we had was the one flash light. Craig told us to go home and he would wait it out with Jake. I knew there was no way Jake was moving. And if he was hurt, Craig couldn't see.

I spent the next 45 minutes on and off the phone with mom and dad giving them the play by play. Dad called his contact at the APA for help with rescue tactics, but the best they could do was offer was a contact for animal control that didn't open until 10 the next morning. And even then, he said they didn't have to help, but hopefully after hearing the story would loan us a net or something. I started texting Craig with offers to bring a jacket or quilt or water. Anything to help. No messages back. I had a feeling Craig had grown impatient and decided to just go for it.

Well, he did. He finally called saying he had Jake in the car and was on the way back home. He had crawled up the drain pipe, turned over on his back, put Jake on his chest and with the flashlight between his news, just eased his way down inch by inch.

The emergency room staff checked him out and said he was such a lucky cat. He didn't have a single broken bone or any damages to his organs. He had road burn on his face. The inside of his jaw was bruised, and the pads of his feet were pretty badly burned from the highway. His back claws were ripped out. They said they would grow back but would probably be pretty deformed. They thought he might have sight issues in his one eye, because it was really cloudy, but later said that his third eyelid must have had been activated, which happens when there is trauma to that area. It had retracted by the time he was ready to go home and they said his eye was completely clear. His little paw pads were so tender. The other bad injury he had happened I guess when he jumped into the woods. He had a pretty deep puncture in his back leg. The maggots had already filled up the hole and were reproducing as the emergency staff were cleaning them out. They said there were so many baby maggots that they gave us an extra does of the antibiotic for the next morning (that I had to shove up his little cat butt...ick) to try to kill any that they couldn't flush out.

Here he is several days after when I let him into the bedroom.

That week was filled with taking care of Jake, Camryn coming down with a stomach virus, me getting over a cold, Craig getting one of the most horrible colds I've ever seen him have, mom nearly breaking her wrist and Dad getting sick. If there were any "signs" telling us not to take the trip to San Jose, they couldn't have been more obvious. BUT, the day came, and we flew out to California as planned.

Here, Camryn is having a snack at the airport in Chicago. She chose a chocolate muffin the size of her face. She was such a great traveler. Didn't complain one time. Mom and I were so impressed with her. I was exhausted from the week's events, so it was all I could do to stay awake on the plane (they make me sleepy anyway) and keep Cam entertained. She wanted to do workbooks and puzzles and play with her ponies the entire way.

Here we made it! Cam and I standing in front of the 1/2 marathon sign getting ready to get my runner's packet. Here's what Mom and Camryn did while I was running. A stop at the bakery. And another huge dessert for Camryn. This was called a "princess cake". Too funny!

Here are my wonderful spectators. Sticking it out in the cold weather and waiting for me at the finish line. Camryn wanted to try on my finisher's medal.

Later that evening, we cleaned up and drove up to San Francisco for the evening. We walked around on Pier 39, which was much smaller than I was expecting. I had Navy Pier in Chicago in my mind and this was nothing like that (except the Bubba Gump restaurant and some shops). One of the coolest things we saw were these seals. They were just sleeping there, basking in the sun. Earlier we saw pelicans diving from the sky into the water to catch fish. They'd pop right up and be floating on the water like a duck. Then they'd fly around again until they spotted their prey and took another nose dive into the water. It was funny to watch.

We told Camryn about a merry-g0-round and the moment we arrived at Pier 39, it was all she could do to stay patient enough until we got there. Again, for a three year old, she was so good on this trip!

Mom bought Camryn this little baby seal (although Camryn will fight you on it trying to convince you it's a sea lion). Anyway, she just snuggled with that baby. Pinky even got had to ride stuffed in the suitcase on the way home so Camryn could play with "Silly" or "Lucky", whatever that thing's name is. As we were walking back to our car, she was sitting on these things. I'm sure they have something to do with ships, but I don't what they are. She was calling them chairs and had to try out each one. There was enough room for her and her new dolly.

The highlight (besides the seals) was the drive to the Golden Gate bridge. We were 5 or so miles away and I almost didn't go, but figured when am I going to be back in San Francisco and I would love to see the GG bridge. So we typed it into the Garmin and off we went. Only I would have been happy parking somewhere and getting a good look at it. The GPS took us over the bridge! When we first saw it and I pointed it out to Camryn, she said "Oh! That's the Golden Gate Bridge! Like on Little Einsteins..." and she proceeded to talk about the episode that featured the GG bridge. She's something else. I just shake my head at stuff like that. Anyway, we drove over the bridge, which was free. But then we had to turn around. Which was $6. When we got to the toll booth, the lady said our car lights were off. I panicked. My car's lights turn on automatically so I'm out of the habit. We had been driving all evening and across the bridge without headlights. Paid the toll, turned on the lights and as we crossed we heard "I love the Golden Gate bridge." Mom said that was worth every bit of the $6. Ha!

OK, that's a long enough post for now.