Friday, April 23, 2010

Sally

Well we picked up this stray cat. It followed some friends of ours to our house and the kids played with it all that afternoon. It was so tiny and skinny, poor thing. It wouldn't lap up any milk so I was feeding it with a medicine dropper and we didn't think it would last very long so I didn't really wan to blog about it knowing I'd have to blog about it's death.... Well I guess she's a fighter because she's still around 1 week later lapping up her milk and getting some meat on those bones.
Ryan and I haven't really named it or anything but Brayden and Sydney did that on their own calling her Sally. She's not really a part of the family, if she followed someone else home no one would miss her but the kids sure have been enjoying her. She's mostly an outdoor cat except for the times the kids bring her in and I don't notice. I think her biggest fan is Madison. It's so crazy how excited she gets when the kitten is around! Thankfully for Sally Madison will just follow her around, she's a little to nervous to actually touch the cat.




Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Firefighting - 1 of the Few Jobs Left That Still Makes House Calls

We were out for a walk to the resort in our sub division last Sunday and Sydney and I left before Ryan to check on sleeping Madison when the guard approached to tell me that there was a fire in front of our house and not to worry because the fire department was there now.
I looked at him a little frantic, "in front of our house!? What? On our property??" overloading the poor guy with too much english. He was able to explain the best that he good that the house was fine and not to worry. I walked the 2 blocks to my house wishing that Sydney's little legs were just a bit longer so she could move faster but when we arrived at the corner I could see what the guard meant by everything was totally fine. Across the street from us in bunch of empty lots in a row and THAT was were the fire was. Far enough away that there was no way it was going to touch us and thankfully it was just a bunch of empty lots so no one had any damages to their yards or homes.



The fire truck was there and everything was under control although the fire had looked like it was quite huge, probably spanning through 6 or 7 lots, there wasn't really anything much left burning. The fire department then left and the day went on as normal until I was doing dishes and looked outside and saw flames again across the street. Since it was just a smaller patch inbetween the already scorched grass and the road I decided that it wasn't going to do much damage and the fire had no were to go and would slowly burn out and grabbed my camera to take a picture or two. I'm out there snapping shots when some guy comes running out of no where with a huge bucket full of water and tries putting out the fire. I felt guilty and I'm sure he was wondering why the crazy white lady is just standing there and not helping so I grabbed our garden hose and let him use it to spray the fire and used the outside tap to fill my wash basin which I dumped over smouldering ashes and the last green parts to stop the fire. Soon the manager of the resort/sub division was there with some of the employee's making sure the fire was really out this time.

I haven't had that kind of excitement in my life for a while. Now all we need is a good rain so the black ash isn't blowing all over the yard and the new green grass can grow back. One bonus is that with all the black our path from the Beattie home to the Jarman home was salvaged and the kids don't have to walk through all the ash getting totally dirty.

My Favourite 4 Year Old


Well, it's true... we have a 4 year old in the house again! Sydney Jean Beattie is one proud girl, so very excited to finally be able to hold up 4 fingers when asked how old she is! It wasn't the biggest of celebrations but we had great cake, a few friends and she was quite pleased with her spoils.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Bocal Bocal


Up in the mountains a little way from Bacolod is a natural spring which they've turned into a day resort. There are a couple of pools filled with the natural spring water (brrr), picnic shelters and a sink/BBQ area for families to cook their foods. Bocal Bocal is where we spent our 'Black Thursday' this Easter with our Ward Family from church. We had a great attendance, the kids swam almost the entire time we were there and the rain that was coming down when we departed left quickly leaving the day hot and sunny. The grounds were filled with different shades of vibrant green, little water falls where the spring water ran into the pools to fill them up and a dirt path to walk around the gounds. Thankfully the amount of trees offered some shade and kept the place cool enough from the summer sun that I didn't feel like I was being roasted alive. Now hopefully I will remember the way up there so I can take Ryan with us on a day off!