Tiger Lily

I have a confession to make.

I have been keeping a secret from you.

I haven't told you something for fear of you thinking we are totally nuts.

But I am going to tell you now because I think I have gathered enough evidence to win you over to our craziness.

In the end of December..

we got...

a kitten.

I know, as if two dogs and two cats weren't enough.

Keep in mind though that at the time we were sure that we would soon be moving to a house with 10 acres and what is one more cat when you have 10 acres?

And you really can't start too early on your barn cat collection, right?

Also, our cat Bagheera spends all his time outside and Giselle spends all her time inside.

Giselle seemed to be getting really lonely.

So we got her this:

Meet Tiger Lily

AKA T. Lily, Tiger Smack, Squeaks, Trouble, Tiny and many more



The name of course is continuing our Disney theme. (Tiger Lily from Peter Pan)

And here are some reasons why we love her and you should too.

She and Giselle are friends.

Giselle cleans and cuddles her all the time.



They kind of blend together, it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.





Then they play/fight.





Here is Giselle holding on to Tiger Lily while they sleep.



She totally had both arms around Tiger Lily.

Tiger Lily loves Lilo

She is always rubbing up against her and wanting to cuddle with her.



Lilo usually lays there and growls but doesn't do anything.



She still isn't too happy about sharing her water bowl with her.



But she puts up with it.



Tiger Lily plays fetch.

She LOVES paper balls.

If she hears paper crumpling she comes running.

If you throw it for her she will take death defying leaps to get it.







Then she will bring it back.





She is a great lap cat, she is currently on my lap now.

When we first got her she would wake us up by nibbling on our faces, thankfully we trained that out of her.

Her and Giselle sleep on our bed at night, usually curled up together.

So hopefully her cuteness is enough to forgive our craziness.

I claim temporary insanity caused by cute fluffy cuddliness.

Snow

Monday I woke up to this:





One of my favorite things about snow is how its always something you wake up too.

There is something so magical about waking up in the morning and looking out the window and seeing everything covered in white.

Especially when you have no reason to leave the house that day.

Snow is still kind of a novelty to me.

Growing up in California I rarely saw snow.

It never snowed where I lived.

Once it hailed and it was slushy and covered the deck so we shoveled some up and put it in the bathtub and made a tiny snowman.

I know, Californians right.

A couple times we drove up to the mountains for a day trip to go sledding but that is nothing like living in a place where it snows.

My first winter in New Jersey during Grad school was quite an experience.

There are so many little things about snow that I love.

At the time, I worked at Starbucks at 4:30 am every morning.

So when I would get up it would be completely silent outside and the snow completely undisturbed.

I love the sound of the snow falling.

That wonderful crunch sound when you step in it.

The beauty of a pure white landscape and the snow "highlighting" the tree limbs.

It was magical.

That being said, I hate how cold it is when it snows, I hate the gross dirty snow on the side of the road and I hate trying to get the ice and snow off my car.

I have decided I want to live in a place where there is one good snow a year.

Not a place where you get snowed in.

Or there is snow on the ground from November to March.

Just one good snow.

Because someday I want to see Stephen play with our kids like he does with the dogs.

Well maybe not the exact same way...

Stephen throws snow in Lilo's face and she tries to catch it by biting at it.



Then there is this fun sequence:







Stephen holding on to Willow about to toss snow all over her.

If you look closely at this picture (if you click on it you can see it bigger), there is a pleading look in her eyes that say "Please, have mercy! I'm a Hawaii dog and I don't do cold and snow!"



Then she runs to me for protection.



Lilo, on the other hand, was made for the snow.



This picture makes me laugh, it looks like Stephen's about to tackle her and wrestle her to the ground.





Snow or no snow, Willow loves to run.

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend we had our first vacation/getaway in over 3 years.

Some of you may be thinking "What do you call living in Hawaii for 3 years?"

I get your point but we still had work and a house to keep up, animals to take care of and dishes to do.

We really wanted to just get away, the two of us with nothing to clean, no computers to distract us, no animals to annoy us.

So Friday after Stephen was done with his classes we drove up to St. Louis.

Lilo we left in the backyard with a big bowl of food and water and a bark collar on.

Stephen's dog house is built so she would have somewhere to get out of the cold, which is good since it got down to 7 degrees during the weekend. (don't feel bad for her, she has a serious fur coat and the dog house is very well insulated)

We were hoping to leave Willow in the backyard too but a couple days before we left I noticed she had started digging under the fence, so we had to have her boarded.

When we got to St Louis (a 2 and a half hour drive) we went to a jazz club and had dinner and heard some good jazz music.

That was nice since there was no good jazz in Hawaii.

Then we checked into the Hyatt where we had a very small but nice room.

This was the view from our window.



(That is the Arch, in case you couldn't tell)

Saturday we went to a place called Roosters for breakfast.

I had some amazing french toast with caramelized bananas and nuts.

I have a thing for good restaurant breakfasts.

Then we went to the Missouri Museum of Art.

Stephen, who now has a license to conceal and carry a gun (I'm so proud), decided to bring his gun to carry this weekend for the first time.

Sadly when we got to the door of the museum it said "Weapons prohibited" so he had to go back and put it in the car.

But he did get to carry it the rest of the weekend.

It's a silly sign since the kind of person who would respect it is not the kind of person who is a threat.

It's not like a guy coming to shoot up the museum would see the sign and say "Dang it! Guess I better go home."

It just means that when a guy like that comes to the museum there wont be anyone there to protect people.

Anyways, back to the museum.

It is hard to be satisfied with museums after going to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, that place is amazing.

But still it was nice to see some beautiful paintings.



I particularly liked this one:



Stephen liked this one of a civil war period school house.



Whenever we get to the modern art we can't help but talk about how stupid it is.

A canvas painted solid black is somehow considered art...just don't get it.

It shouldn't be allowed in the same building as the genus of Monet and Van Gogh.

We were unfortunately limited on what we could do because it was very cold outside.

I really wanted to go to the zoo but that will have to wait till another trip.

After the museum we went to a big used book store, that was sadly overpriced so we didn't get anything.

Then we went to a brewery and had lunch and tried a few different beers.



Then we went back to the hotel to take a nap to prepare for the late evening.

Back in September of last year we looked up the St Louis Symphony.

We had wanted to go to the symphony for a long time (neither of us had ever been) but sadly the Hawaii symphony ran out of money and shut down.

So we were excited that once we got to Missouri we could go to the symphony.

So we looked at the schedule and saw this:



That's right, the symphony doing Disney music, pure awesomeness.

We bought the tickets right there and then.

So we had been looking forward to this for a long time.

Sadly we were disappointed.

Instead of it being the symphony playing the awesome music of Disney in its pure beautiful arrangements, they had 4 broadway singers singing most of the songs.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy broadway and the singers were very talented but if I wanted to go to a broadway show, I would have gone to a broadway show.

Their over the top singing and acting completely took away from the symphony.

The few songs the symphony did without the singers were amazing and gave me goosebumps.

The singers just ruined it.

So that was sad but we still had a good time.

After the show we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant called Sidney Street Cafe.

At this point it was about 9:30 at night, which is past our usual bedtime, it was a good thing we took a nap.

Dinner was amazing and we had a really good time.

I had some amazing short ribs (which are one of my favorite foods ever and one of the reasons I could never be a true vegetarian).

It was one of those sad situations though after appetizers and bread and salad I wasn't able to finish the short ribs.

I really tried but it just couldn't be done, and there wasn't enough left to box (without looking silly that is).

So I had to say "darn you!" to my small stomach and say goodbye to the last few bites of juicy, melt in your mouth, beefiness.

Yes, I am still a little sad thinking about it.

We were the last ones to leave the restaurant at around 11.

The next morning we packed up and checked out.

We went to Roosters again for breakfast.

Then we went to this beautiful church Stephen found online.

I love cathedrals.

I have always thought it was sad that more protestants don't have cathedrals.

They invoke such a sense of awe and reverence that is so appropriate when entering a place where a community of believers gather to worship the holy God.

This church was a Presbyterian church (the conservative kind of course) and it had a beautiful building.

We really enjoyed it.

Then we went to lunch at a tasty pizza place called Pi.

Then we went to a chocolate shop called Kakao because it wouldn't be Valentine's Day with out some amazing chocolate.

I got this tasty box of truffles.



I got a little distracted by eating the truffles before I thought to take a picture.

Then we headed to the mall so I could walk around Anthropologie and drool.

Stephen really loved that part of the weekend ;o)

Then we went to Whole Foods to get things that can't be found at the grocery stores near Ft. Leonard Wood.

Then we headed back home and listed to War of the Worlds on audiobook.

All the animals survived our absence, that was a relief.

Overall it was a good but too short weekend.