LCM

while i was in houston, i got to have lunch with my childhood friend, cherry, and meet her 3 month old son. we had a delicious lunch and then headed back to my house so my parents could also meet liam. his full name is liam charles mchale.


liam and cherry


my mom and liam - i thought she might steal him. and she assured cherry that she is a very willing babysitter. we moved in across the street from cherry when we were both about 18 months old - and now she has a 3 month old of her own!


he is such a love! he's so darn cute!!! he has the best pinky cheeks!


he looooooooves the hippo. he furrows his brow and it is so stinking cute! he's such a cutie pie - i wish i had more time to spend with him!

more of my new love!

i might be a little bit obsessed so i hope you guys are too... i just had to share a few more pictures that mom just sent me from her camera!



this is at the austin pets alive when we met her for the first time. look how sweet and trusting she was within minutes of meeting me! she she be any sweeter?!


awwwwww, what a little baby!! (and yes, i know serious cleavage... blech)



here she is snuggly and playing with mom's hair


dad meets the baby kitten...


and here she is being such a good girl and getting her nails done for the first time.


watching tv with the baby girl. she's a great tv watcher. she likes whatever i wanna watch!


close up of this little snuggler. she loves to sit right there.


play time!!


uh oh! she's about to fall out of the basket and do a sommersault!


back in the basket! love those strings!


time to rest!

i'm in love...

with a brand new baby kitten! last week, i flew home to houston to help bring home our new baby cat from austin. yes, austin which is about 3 hours from houston. you might be asking why we'd drive alllll the way to austin to adopt a little kitty when there are so many wonderful pets locally in every area. well, let me start at the beginning.

awhile back, i picked up a copy of homer's odyssey because i'm a sucker for a good animal story. i enjoyed it so much i passed it on to my mom. my mom fell in love with the story too and decided to email the author. for those of you who don't know, my mom's parents were both blind from a very young age and she is now writing a book about their extraordinary life. the author wrote back and was beyond nice - they are now friends on fb.



the author's blog in case any of you want to know more about this sweet kitty: http://gwencooper.com/blog.php

about a month or so ago, gwen posted this picture and said this baby kitty was looking for her "furr-ever" home. because i'm a sucker for kitties, especially b&w ones and ones that nobody else seems to want to adopt... i emailed mom and said wouldn't she be just the perfect addition to our home! a blind kitty for a mom writing a story about her blind parents! to my surprise she emailed me her email that she'd sent to gwen about the kitten! woah. that was easy!


here is the story of the baby kitty as told by a shelter volunteer:

“India is a 5 week old kitten who came into the Austin Pets Alive Bottle Baby program at the beginning of May. Her litter came in with moderate eye infections. India’s proved to be more serious. Very early on it became clear that here eyes were damaged badly and she would be blind. I was wondering if we might be able to get a little help from Homer to get her story out.

A little bit about Austin Pets Alive. We are a rescue located in Austin, Texas with the goal of making Austin the first major metropolitan area to be a true no-kill city. In March the city hit a 90+ save rate, officially starting the clock on marking us as true no-kill. One of the ways we achieve this is through our bottle baby program. In most cities, orphaned and ill kittens are put down because of the time and resources required. We’ve got a dedicated Bottle Baby nursery where volunteers like myself staff shifts around the clock to ensure orphaned, unweaned kittens have a fighting chance. The approach is simple, any kitten who fights is given a more than fair shot to live. Kittens are given medication, tube feeding and surgery as needed.

This brings us to India. Most rescues would have put her to sleep when the extent of her eye infection became apparent. Our vets checked her out and determined that with surgery she will be able to have a perfectly fine quality of life. They believe her condition is either feline herpes or a congenital glaucoma. So since she arrived she’s been cared for. She’s been treated with high end antibiotics, administered pain medication as needed, and generally spoiled rotten. We’ve made sure that she stayed with a litter mate so she wouldn’t get lonely. Today she’s off to foster so she can keep growing. Once she’s big enough, the vets will schedule surgery to remove her eyes.

We cover the surgery. Her potential adopter will not have to cover that expense. Again, the focus is on having a healthy, adoptable kitten who can have a good quality of life. I have to tell you, she’s awesome. The other night I was in for the overnight shift doing feeding. She did not hesitate to inform me that it was time for her midnight snack RIGHT THEN! Like Homer, she’s fearless. She drops into a new environment and quickly starts to explore. "

when we finally heard back from the shelter, we were told that someone in the austin area was interested in adopting her and thanked us for our interest. they asked if the austin adopter fell through, could they still contact us? welllllll, we'd lost hope and moved on when a few weeks later we got a random email asking if we were still interested in adopting this baby kitten... after thinking about it and convincing dad he neeeeeeeded another kitten and we swore this would be the last one! we wrote and said, "absolutely".

since we were busy and the foster family was traveling, we were finally able to pick her up last friday. it was love at first sight!


we've renamed her lily and here she is on my bed. she's staying in my room until she adjusts and until we can introduce her to her big brother and sisters.


she loves this basket. she loves to play in, on, and around!


kyle gave her this chicken which is actually a dog toy, but she loves it! it is just her size to rough house with!


chicken!!!!


she can be super playful at times...




moving on from the chicken to the conveniently hanging strings to play with!


she's all tuckered out here. look how little she is in that big chair! she is 2.9 lbs!!


she takes great pictures! you never have to worry about that freaky red eye and when she hears the camera making it's little noises, she looks right up at it! she's super sensitive to sounds and smells and is so good at navigating and getting around. i think she is the cutest thing.


she loves to snuggle and cuddle and purrs very loudly and incessantly. it's so amazing to feel her snuggled against you purring. so relaxing and so loving. here, she looks all innocent but really she's playing with my hair. she loves hair as a toy.


this is a blankie that someone in WA who'd heard about it sent to the shelter to keep her cozy. that's her carrier/bed. when she gets all tuckered out from playing to much or filling her belly, she puts herself to bed and curls up inside her carrier. it's beyond cute.


and here's what i call the lily necklace. she loves to sleep like that. we spent many hours snuggling.

and i'll admit, when i had to say goodbye yesterday i hadn't known the kitten but for a few days and i was smitten. i cried. a few times throughout the day knowing i would have to leave her and i don't know when i'll get to see that sweet face again.

while we were in austin, we had dinner with my mom's friend. when we told her about the kitten, she said she'd never be able to adopt a blind cat as she wouldn't be able to stand not seeing the eyes. omg, seriously, this kitten has the sweetest face and i love her face without those eyes. she doesn't need them and she is pretty darn amazing. she's had a pretty rough start to her life, but in the harper household she will never ever have any more hardship and she'll lead a pretty amazing life. lucky lily!!

f is for french lick & family.

over the last weekend in june, my mom's side of the family gathered for our annual family reunion. this year's was held in french lick, IN...never heard of it?! me neither... but! it is the hometown of larry bird (sarah: basketball great and boston celtics player in the 80s)... i'll admit, french lick didn't sound very exciting to me and neither did the 6ish hour drive from chicago... however, surprise surprise - it is actually a really beautiful part of southern indiana with rolling hills and lovely lakes.


the whole family stayed at the patoka lakes cabins which while definitely not luxurious had enough room for all of us and the cabins had 2 beds and a kitchen/living room and a great outdoor space where we spent most of our time.


we had several cabins and they looked similar to this - but this is a stock photo from the website... no idea who those lovely folks are...


to be honest, i have no idea what the correct term is to call this adorable girl... she's my cousin's daughter who is 9 and bella had just learned how to ride her bike without training wheels for the first time a few days prior. needless to say she was beyond excited! her brother learned how to ride that very same day!


hanging out on the cabin porch is my aunt anne and her two sons: vinney and chris. chris is the oldest cousin at 45 and i am honestly not sure i've seen him since i was a little kid - like maybe 5 or 6. he lives in az now and vinney lives in seattle. anne is my mom's oldest sister and is bravely fighting a losing battle with cancer.


here are a bunch of family members all hanging out on the front porch. there was a great bench that ran the entire length of the deck and also a table and chairs set.


this is my uncle john and aunt anne - the cakes are to celebrate a variety of events from the summer: birthdays/anniversaries/etc. we are a family of sweet tooths and thus there was no shortage of cake, pie, fudge... well, you get the idea...


one of the main attractions in the town, is the historic train that goes for about a 2 hour ride. this is our entire clan. the only missing people were my grandma and grandpa, but they both passed away 12 years and 5 years ago this july. we've not all been together for as long as i can remember so it was great that we could all come together and give anne a wonderful weekend of family.


this is my uncle tim, aunt rita and cousin erica on the train


my mom (the baby by 10 years), her sister anne (the oldest by 10 years), and anne's partner of close to 30 years, sue.


the siblings: mom, anne, rita and their brother john: alllllllllll aboard! you may have been noticing the matching shirts. oh yes, we had t-shirts for the occasion! john was not in the mood to wear his i guess. which is kind of funny since it was his wife who spearheaded the whole t-shirt campaign!!


my mom and anne (who is where i get my middle name from)... how cute are they in this picture?! do you see the resemblance?!


the cousins - from left: chris, vinney, me, chris (yes, there are two - my grandma used to joking introduce them as her two grandsons, chris, as they were the first grandkids), erica, and my brother andrew.


family pride right there. vinney didn't have a shirt, but he sported the cap with pride.


me and mom being totally silly. still not sure why i'm posting this, but i think it's pretty funny.


me and bella. this is the first time i'd met her and she is beyond adorable. a little shy, but she took a liking to me and me to her. we got along great - esp after she asked how old i was and i told her 32 and she said, really? i thought you were 20! what a great kid :)


this is bella's 5 year old brother, nicholas, and their dad, chris. i hadn't seen chris since his wedding in the mid 90s - unfortunately they are now getting divorced - but he's a great dad and those kids are awesome.


on another day, we visited a rock shop. anne and my mom love rocks. yes, rocks. the outside of the building had been built with all types of rocks and geodes.


this guy's place was amazingly full of rocks from all over the world and while there were so many, they were really well organized. he's been in business for 50 years.


that's his workshop space where he cuts and polishes the rocks and things he finds on his digs.



more and more and everywhere you look there are more and more and more rocks and rock related things


this is the rock guy - his name is merrill hinshaw and this is his daughter who also works in the shop. he was fascinating - he learned everything he knows by doing - no formal education. his daughter is the geologist in the family. he also creates one of a kind jewelry and so i had to come home with a pretty and unique ring!


Named by Lapidary Journal as one of the top ten stone polishers in the nation, the Hinshaws collect rough stones, then cut and polish stones by hand to create a work of art.


this is the west baden springs hotel that was built in 1904 - and was totally restored in the 90s. it's a gorgeous hotel. and unfortunately we did not take part in their spa.


anne and my mom hanging out on a big green chair in the rotunda area.


the inside of that big red dome from the picture above. it really is stunning.


such a beautiful hotel. i had no idea something like this existed in the middle of almost nowhere indiana!

and that, folks, was our family reunion... besides all that there was of course a load of meals and hanging out. i definitely would not recommend french lick for its cuisine as that was practically nonexistent. it was a lovely family filled weekend and my aunt anne said it was the perfect weekend and wished it could go on longer. i'd say that is success!!