Cassiopeia and Starrllyle

We never intended to remain a one-cat family for long, and today we went to Gwinnett County's Bill Atkinson Animal Welfare Center (the animal control shelter) to adopt two new additions to our home. Their names are Cassiopeia (the more orange of the two; Casio for short) and Starrllyle (the lighter-colored cat; I think his full name is spelled with two R's and three L's, but mostly we just call him Lyle); they are three-month old brothers, and they're very sweet and also very curious about our house.

Here's one picture I took--of Elyse taking a picture of Lyle in Mom's office, within a few minutes of us arriving home and letting them out--and one picture Anna texted to me and four pictures Jessica texted to me throughout the afternoon:

Casio exploring Jessica's room

This is the one Anna sent me

Hale-Bopp is so far not amused to have two new cats living in our house, but we are confident that eventually she will warm up to them.

The Cats in Jessica's Room

Jessica just texted me this picture of Halle-Bop and Nosfuratu on the flowery reading chair in Jessica's room:

Jessica's Photo of Haley

Jessica texted this picture to me. I think it's pretty great. 

Jessica's New Painting

Jessica painted this last night and this morning. Isn't it beautiful?

It's adorning our dining room wall now.

Jessica and Her Typewriter

Jessica has wanted a typewriter for a long time. Today we went to a flea market in Loganville (the one more or less beside Community of Grace church, where her Girl Scout troop meets) to look for one, and, incredibly enough, they had one that is perfect! It's a portable Royal Mercury, and it's in really good working condition. She was very excited to get it:

Jessica's School Portrait

A few days ago I posted Elyse's school portrait; here's Jessica's:

Jessica's Collages

Yesterday Jessica made these collages of pictures she's taken recently:

Jessica Prepares Granny and Pa's House for Halloween

Serendipity 2018

This weekend Anna and the girls went to Serendipity, the annual Girl Scout gathering at Camp Meriwether. They've been going every year for quite a while now; I believe this was Anna and Jessica's sixth year there, and Elyse's fourth.

Here are some pictures Anna texted me of their activities:

(You might be able to tell in this picture that it rained some of the time.)

(Elyse really enjoyed archery.)

You might notice that Elyse is in different clothes in the picture immediately above than she is in the others. By this point she had changed into her ballet outfit so should could do the dance she's been rehearsing for weeks now--her own take on "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy--at the talent show. They tell me it went very well. Unfortunately, they had to use Anna's phone to play the music, so she couldn't take any pictures. (Note to anyone reading this years in the future: Yes, in 2018 we use things we call "phones" to play music and take pictures. They are also occasionally used to make calls, but frankly not the often.)

I don't know if this picture was taken before or after her talent-show performance, but I do know it was taken at sunset:

Jessica and Elyse's 2018 School Portraits

Miscellaneous Recent Pictures

Here are several pictures from the past few weeks (except for the first one, which is from January), some of which I took myself, some of which were texted to me:

Jessica, shortly before we moved out of our house in Loganville:

A few pictures from Elyse's Field Day, near the end of second grade at Magill:

Anna texted me this picture from one of their many recent Girl Scout trips:

Anna texted me this picture from Savannah while she and Jessica were there with their Girl Scout troop:

Here's Elyse, eating a cake pop and waiting out a thunderstorm in the cafe at Target, on the weekend that Mommy and Jessica were in Savannah:

The sky over Target after the storm:

Elyse in my bed reading with Tessie:

Me in the part-time instructors' office at Gwinnett Tech on the first day of summer semester:

Jessica set up, took, and edited this picture, and then texted it to me:

Hangin' Around the Storage Unit

Tonight Jessica went with me to take a load of stuff to our storage unit--one of them, that is; we have two that we're using to store a bunch of our stuff as we get ready for our move.

(You can't tell from the pictures, but there's a lot of stuff in there--behind that wall of shelves and boxes that looks like it's at the back, there's another wall of shelves and boxes, containing several hundred books, that you can't even see in these pictures.)

Happy Birthday, Jessica!

Today, Jessica is eleven years old!

We got a late start on our celebration because we had to wait for my car to be ready at the car place where it was being fixed, and then go pick it up so we could return Pa's truck to him (I'd been driving it for the last few days while my car was being worked on).

We met Granny and Pa at Subway (Jessica's choice) to get sandwiches to take back to Granny and Pa's house (also Jessica's choice), but we didn't actually sit down to eat until about 7:00, by which time Elyse was tired and cranky. She laid down on the sofa and slept through Jessica opening presents:

It's hard to believe Jessica is only a couple of years away from being a true teenager. In many ways, she already is one; she's certainly working on developing a teenager's attitude and sense of independence.

We're proud of her and so happy to have her in our lives! I just wish, as I've probably written dozens of times in the past few years, that I could figure out a way to make it all slow down.

Jessica is Sidelined

This afternoon, Anna sent this message to Jessica's teachers:

"I took Jessica to visit the Urgent Care facility today after she slipped yesterday and complained of severe pain in her right ankle that continued this morning.  They did X-rays, and she has a fracture in her ankle.  She will not be in school today."

I'm not going to post any pictures of Jessica in her brace or trying to use her crutches (which she is strenuously resisting); mostly she's been resting on the couch with her leg elevated, watching "The Addams Family" and "Cupcake Wars" on Hulu.

We hope she recovers quickly!

Jessica in the Woods

Looking through the recent posts on this blog, I noticed that there are quite a lot of pictures of Elyse, and not that many of Jessica. In many ways that's understandable; Elyse is the more outgoing of the two, and Jessica doesn't always like to have her picture taken.

But in an attempt to try to give my older daughter equal coverage--whether she wants it or not--here are some pictures I took of her a few weeks ago--on the same day Elyse went to Tree Top Quest, in fact; that Sunday, Jessica and I went to Vines Gardens and wandered around in the woods for a while (and got lost, and ended up at Grayson High School):

I'm happy to say we made it home (a little later than we'd planned, but with a half-gallon of ice cream we stopped at the store to get) unafflicted by either poison ivy or ticks. The ice cream was really good.