Annie

Those of you who have spent much time around us know who Annie is, or are at least familiar with the stuffed otter Kassi has carried with her everywhere for the last two years. Annie was bought at the zoo when Kassi was 8 months old. She has gone everywhere with Kassi since then. She has been chewed on, slobbered on, dropped in the dirt, washed and washed and washed some more. Well when we went to the zoo this past weekend they happened to have new Annie's. Kassi was ecstatic to see another Annie and there was no getting out of there without her. We now have old Annie and new Annie. It is amazing to see the difference two years of tagging along makes! Old Annie is still the favorite though.

Zoo Montana

For the last few years we have been going to the Billings zoo each year around my birthday. Since Kassi was born this has become and even better tradition. She loves to go and see the animals and to be able to run along the trails. This year it was really nice. It is usually hot and buggy, but this year it was overcast and just perfect.

Look at my wonderful family!

I like the red pandas.

This is the first year the wolverines have been out to where we could really see them. She kept going in the water and splashing.

Kassi's favorite! We always spend a lot of time watching the otters.

Yard and Garage Work

It finally started to get warm enough to plant our garden and do a little yard work so we have been extremely busy the last couple of weeks. I was very glad to get Kassi's vegetables in the garden and off the kitchen table and window sills. We had corn, tomatoes and zucchini overtaking the kitchen!

I had not used my small garden area since Kassi was born so it took a lot of work to get it cleaned up enough to plant our vegetables. Kassi wanted corn, cantaloupe, zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, onions and carrots. I am pretty certain the corn will not get ears on it, but she can still see the stalks. This is the zucchini we had started inside.

We also decided to eliminate some of the rock areas we had put in when we moved in and put grass back in. Some of you may be familiar with the rock areas we put in to create a separation from our crazy neighbors. Well since they were charged with stalking they have moved on to bother some poor other family somewhere else and we can now replant our yard! Kassi helped us and dug up lots of worms and put them in the flower pots. She decided she wanted to keep two of them forever because they were her friends. So we have a small flower pot with worms in it. She waters them every once in awhile and likes to dump it out and dig for them.

We have also been getting things puppy proofed for when Nina gets here this week. We put a small fence around the garden and cleaned up a lot of things in the garage. I have been so spoiled by Daisey I am a little nervous about this puppy. Daisey doesn't dig, she doesn't chew and she has always stayed home even if the gate or door was open. We have decided to crate train Nina in the house. I have never done this nor have I ever believed in it, but we are going to try it. She will still spend her days out in the yard with Daisey, but we will try this for the nights. If anyone is familiar with this and/or tried it any advice you can give?

Carnival

We took Kassi to the carnival last night. She had a lot of fun. Each time she would get off a ride she would say "that was fun". It was really nice because we went on a Thursday and around 4:30 there were hardly any people there and most times there was only one other kid on the ride and sometimes none. She rode the carousel, the cars, the helicopters and the mini roller coaster. Of course she played games as well and won lots of cool carnival toys including an inflatable hammer.

It was a lot of fun and so cute to see the huge smiles she would get when she would ride. The cars were the only thing she actually rode by herself. Paranoid mom was right there with her on the carousel, in the helicopters and the roller coaster, but she didn't mind.

She rode the cars and the helicopters two times.

She kept telling me to let go of her and her horse because she was fine.

The big hammer!