The Little Fluff Ball: Psapp

So we have mentioned that we got a new kitten but have not blogged about it. We are ashamed! Here is the blog on the little crazy kitten.

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The story of how we ended up with a third cat (we were not intending to get a third...it is then that you seem like you are those crazy cat people... I guess we are now). Donna met her friend Teagan at a cute bakery in Eugene and while enjoying great company, Donna was somewhat distracted with the wild kittens that were running around. These kittens pulled at her heart-strings—especially when she saw that they had a "teenage" mom who didn't seem very motherly. Toward the end of the discussion, Donna was quite sure she would be taking one home. Teagan—being the good reasonable friend, questioned this decision saying, "what will Corey say?" to which Donna's response was, "how could he resist this little kitten?" (even though the fleeting thought of being the "crazy cat lady" did pop into her mind—it was pushed away, reason being: you aren't crazy with three, it is four or more—as shown in this crazy cat lady action figure)Just as they were getting up, Donna saw a young girl carrying over the most precious wild kitten, and from that moment on she was determined to take THAT one home. Yes, she snatched a little kitten out of the girl's hands and said, "this one is mine" (Donna is not normally one to use her adult powers over a child, but here it paid off). The little girl was not going to take it home, she was just holding it (or so Donna would like you to think). SO, off to show Corey the new little addition to the family, Donna let this wild critter roam in the car. Psapp (she was named from the moment she was snatched) liked hanging out on Donna's shoulder and seeing the cars go by. Once Corey met this new little surprise, he too was captivated and there was never a question as to whether we would keep Psapp! So now that you know the story, here are some pictures of her!

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These next few shots were taken the first day we got her. We took countless pictures (love digital cameras) and here are the cutest of cute pics below. She likes climbing. I think it makes her feel like she has conquered something in her little state. Since she was a wild cat, there are a lot of "wild" tendencies that we are trying to rid her of—one being the claws that come out! Doesn't the one below just melt your heart? See why Donna couldn't resist her? She put up with a lot in these first few days. We felt that when Feist and Frou-Frou were young we didn't take enough pictures—so we are making up for it with Psapp's! (By the way, "Psapp" is another band with a girl lead singer...just like Feist and Frou-Frou. You should check the band out—very funky music called "toy-tronica" I think) Also going along with being wild—she had severe ear mites, flees, and worms—eeekk! So we had to quarantine her in our little downstairs bathroom. (so sad!) Donna took her to the vet immediately and though not in the room with Psapp, she heard her yelps and little cries all the way down the hall as they gave her shots, flee treatments and tried to rid her of all the ear mites. When we would come in and check on her, she would be curled up in the little window as shown below. She works as a great accessory—and already loves purses almost as much as Donna does! This shot has captured an expression showing that she is still getting used to people bombarding her with hugs, kisses and putting cameras in her face. We wanted to get a perspective shot so that we could take a picture of her later and see how much she has grown. Here she is about the size of Donna's spin shoe! As any cat, she LOVES to nap! We would prefer that she run around more in the day so that it would calm her down by our bedtime. The first few nights she just didn't know what to do on our large bed except bounce around on us and nibble at our fingers to get our attention. (she didn't last very long in the room before we shut her out until she settled down as she got older) Here Corey and Psapp are found taking a nap together. Awww, what great pals. (Corey does pretty well with 4 females in the house now! Maybe when we get a dog—not for a long while—we will get a male...) Psapp has quite a playful side. One in which the other cats will probably never get used to. Her favorite pastime is to torment the cats by chasing them all around the house. I don't think there is a day that goes by that there is not hissing going on. (Psapp never hisses, I think the hissing just entices her to continue the torment) It is pretty funny watching a kitten 1/3 of the girls size chase them around. She does also enjoy little toys. The other girls like watching her play (from a safe distance) with the toys. She is a bundle of energy, I think the girls get exhausted just watching her play. Look at how fearless little Psapp is! She will place her life in danger of being eaten by these large beasts called "humans". She gets quite curious when we eat food and if we let her, she would probably eat our half-chewed food in our mouth. Here Corey soothes the little savage beast with his guitar-playing. (I think she was content in the fact that she was sleeping directly on the sheet music) I forgot to mention that Psapp—like the other cats is a Siamese-tabby mix. Feist and Frou-Frou are "Flame-Point Siamese" because they have a mix of orange tabby and Siamese, leaving them with orange/brown tipped ears, striped tales, and faintly striped feet. Psapp is "Lynx-Point Siamese"—a mix of grey tabby and Siamese—which is why she has grey ears, striped tail, striped face, and striped feet. They go so well together! As rainy season comes, we get to see Psapp almost double in size. Instead of being the size of Donna's spin shoe, she is now big enough to fit in Donna's large rain boots. We did our duty as responsible cat-owners and had her "fixed" (even though she is an indoor cat like the others). They said to keep her from jumping and playing for 5 days and keep her limited in running for up to two weeks. Yeah right! She lasted 5 minutes before she was back to terrorizing the girls and jumping everywhere! Here she is jumping up for a toy (you can see her shaved belly). Psapp has definitely become part of the family. She loves being right in the middle of the activity—even if it means sleeping on your computer to get your attention! That is it. Our cat-obsessed blog is complete. Next blog will be focused on humans—we promise. And we can promise you we will NOT be getting any more cats! Three is quite enough for us.

The Visit in July...(two months later)

Finally we are updating our blog...apologies for the late entry!

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In July our dear SLO, CA friends, the Carters, came to see our new digs up here in Eugene. It was crunch time for Corey, as he was nearing the end of his quarter (which meant many close to all-nighters building models). Donna was able to entertain when Corey had to slip away to do work. We were able to go to something that we really enjoyed the entire summer up here in Eugene, Friday movies in the park. This one was the movie, Big... so much fun, love the chopsticks part! They play the movies on a big inflatable screen, bring your own chairs, they provide the popcorn—perfect!

Donna made sure that the Carters got to go to one of Donna’s favorite clothing stores, Buffalo Exchange. All left happy with “new” old clothes.

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So after an almost all night of building a model, we took Joel and Sarah to Eugene’s Saturday market—because everyone here in Eugene knows that the best way to understand Eugene to its fullest is to witness this event! Below is one of the performers at the market. (we have seen unique performers bang on the neck of a guitar—or what was left of a guitar—with a spoon, so this performer was impressive in comparison).

After we had our fill of the market, we headed on up to Portland for a day trip. Especially for Sarah, we went to the Rose Gardens as the first stop. Founded in 1917, Portland’s International Rose Test Garden is the oldest official, continuously operated public rose test garden in the United States...and Portland is called the “Rose city”, so it was fitting to visit! We got quite carried away with all of the photo ops. Here Joel, Sarah, and Donna all take time smelling the roses (while Corey plays paparazzi as he does so well). There were different sections of the garden, and many interesting rose-names, we just could not help but take pictures at many of them. Below Donna is doing her best attempt at a dainty royal wave, if she had tripped over the roses in front of her I think it would have become a royal flush! (waah wahh) The romantic rosey atmosphere brought out the best in the couples.

For all of the shots in this rose garden, you can thank Corey and Sarah, caught in the act. Awww, here is more of the romance that we were looking for in this beautiful garden. These roses were called “Dream Come True”. And not to be outdone, Corey and Donna show their take at romance... well the roses were called “Passionate Kisses”. Do not worry, this is an exaggeration of their kisses... or so you hope! Donna showing the excitement of golden petals at the flowers named “Strike it Rich”. Sarah and Donna were attempting at...“Voluptuous” as these roses were named. Sarah is doing well with her hand on the hip but Donna... not so sure about that pose. Yay, frolicking in the roses. (it is fun aside from the things called thorns reaching out for us) Sarah is in her element here among the beautiful roses. Around the rose garden and Washington park, the guys just happened to find prime examples of Dr. Evil, with the help of their pinkie. None of us could remember the last time we were on seesaws! Corey and Joel’s goal was to balance on the seesaw. Ahhh, very calming guys. Sarah and Donna’s goal was to fly as high as possible. So fun! Each one of us had different ways of expressing how we liked the garden.

An amazing event happened while at the garden... and it was caught on film...

(So what did you think of the video? Pretty amazing huh? Well, we thought it was.) • Sarah was excited about going to the Shakespeare section of the rose garden. In this portion they have all of the herbs, trees, foliage that are mentioned in his plays. She is teaching Hamlet and was looking forward to finding some Hemlock to take a picture for her students. We searched and searched and could not find any. Donna even tried to ask the trumpet flowers... they hadn’t a clue. Little did Sarah know that she had seen hemlock the ENTIRE visit with us. Right before they arrived Donna went and picked some beautiful wildflowers to have on display in the house for the guests. She even went so far as to say that if she could do it again, she would just pick wildflowers like these for wedding flowers! Well, no one knew that it was the poisonous HEMLOCK that Donna picked! So here is the beautiful deadly bouquet that was used to welcome guests:

Most evenings we got to have dinner together and make homemade ravioli, yummy salads, and—as shown below—a new pesto pizza...YUM! Sunday afternoon while the boys went to play golf, the girls went to get manicures. Sarah, Teagan (friend from Ekklesia), and Donna had to do a little hunting to find a place open on a Sunday but were successful! At the end of the manicure, Sarah convinced Donna to “brave” a little design on her toes. Sarah was getting flowers... one of the workers decided to join in the discussion (of course they get paid more if you get a design) and he said that he can do wild flames on the toes. So as a dare, and just for Sarah, Donna went for the flames. The little nail shop had never seen flames done so crowded around Donna were all the workers looking on as she had flames added to her big toes! It was quite an event. The guy who did the flames wanted Donna to come back in and next time get zebra stripes or leopard print. (not a chance) When Donna got home she felt inspired by the flames and grabbed an outfit that was more “Harley”. That night was a crazy event that only Joel got to witness (as Corey was busy working away), poor guy. Sarah and Donna picked out a movie that was supposed to be a nice Christian movie that was like The Notebook but it turned out FAR from that. Horrible acting and cliche lines lead to insanity between Donna and Sarah. Seeing a side that Donna has never seen, Sarah busted out her “sassy” comebacks that left Donna’s jaw dropping to the ground. Unfortunately no photos were taken during this crazy time (Joel was probably too scared to do so, can't blame him) we do have the image of the movie. DON’T RENT THIS BELOW. The quote on the box says “If you liked The Notebook, this film will hold you in its emotional grip...” Yeah—if you consider an emotional grip being delusional laughter and tears because of the poor acting, then yes. Joel and Sarah got a brief tour of the campus and were able to see the actual model that Corey (and Donna at times) spent hours creating. As well as seeing other drawings and projects he had done throughout the quarter. Reenacting the “support” role that Donna played throughout the quarter, we posed for a photo-op.

After campus, Sarah and Donna lured the guys to a wonderful little place they had discovered by chance. It is a cute little patisserie that has delicious chocolaty desserts.

We all indulged.

We LOVED having the Carters stay at our place. It was truly a blast! Now if we could only get them to move up here! • Next blog: camping fun... to come.

Update: Two Plates (one to drive, one to eat)

So in this blog post we have two new plates to show you all in blogland. The first one being our OR driving plates! We decided not to go with the traditional plate shown below. (just too many of them!)

We also decided not to go with this one below. We couldn't tell what it was! The guy at the DMV said he wouldn't be caught with this plate on his car. It is a "cultural" plate, which means no-so-great art, if you ask us. When we saw these around town we thought it might be a picture of a significant fire that happened in Oregon. Ha!

This one hit the spot for us. We have been biking around Eugene (sometimes wishing that we didn't live up a hill), and are glad to "share the road" with fellow bikers when we drive (well, share the road with ones that obey the rules of the road that is)! Donna also thought they were the best-looking in the bunch because they were—well—simple! Here we are showing them off before we placed them on the cars. (the most hilarious thing about this picture, besides the fact that we look pretty ridiculous, is that Feist and Frou-Frou wanted to get in on the action. You can see them at the bottom of the screen door—both of them looking away from the camera!)

So that was the first plate we wanted to show you, the next plate was one that we brought to Corey's architecture potluck. He was assigned the task of creating a dish that described himself—so he chose (with the help of Donna's recipe clippings) an interesting appetizer. We named it Pizza-Peach-Pesto-and-More-Yumminess (well, we couldn't really think of a good name, so this one works). Donna and Corey made their OWN pesto for this (and it actually came out alright). It is an unusual mesh of ingredients but super delicious! More importantly, it looked beautiful (presentation is everything—that is why Donna felt the need to color coordinate with the dish...ok, that was just coincidence). If you come and visit us you just might get to try it out!

The Central Coast Trip

Well the Templetons are finally updating their blog. We left a cliff-hanger... the Central Coast? Some might say, “Did they actually come to the Central Coast in CA without seeing us??!!” The answer is no... but we sure like making people THINK so (we are mean... no, we tease!) We actually headed to the Central Coast of OREGON for a 24 hour fly-by tour before Corey started his architorture (architecture) classes. 

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Right when we got to the campsite (under two hours of driving) we were given some fun stickers. I think they are reserved for kiddos, but hey, we had to make our first Oregon camping experience fun! Though it was our first stay in an Oregon state park, we were already big supporters, as you can see below. 

We have realized that we should probably get a more weatherproof tent than this little tiny summer guy, but it worked for one night! Donna felt like she should give it a kiss and a hug (because it overheard us talking about new tents). 

Now that we were done putting up the tent, Corey was looking off to the trail that leads to the dunes!

...and Donna was ready to go in her ever-so fashionable duds. (sometimes the comfort of warmth outweighs style). 

So, we took a hike, and were able to catch a beautiful sunset! 

We had to hike up some higher dunes to get to a great view. 

Donna found that taking off her boots made for a better solution for getting up the sandy dunes. Cold toes, but better traction. 

Sunsets can never be fully captured by a camera...It is always more beautiful in person. 

The next day, we wanted to celebrate 150 years of Oregon being a state by going to a chainsaw carving competition! Isn’t that everyone’s dream? We knew we were close to the event when we heard the hum that scores of chainsaws produce. The entire weekend, each of the pro and semi-pro carvers take one large piece of tree and carve away toward their sculptural masterpiece. 

The theme for this year’s chainsaw carving competition was Oregon celebrating 150, so we saw a lot of Lewis and Clark, Indians, and Sacagawea (as seen below). 

In this picture below, you can see the row of contestants that come from around the world (Germany, UK, Japan...etc.) for this event in small Reedsport, OR. 

This one below ended up winning 1st place for the pro division. On one side he has a native american with a spear, on the other side there is a pioneer, very detailed!

The highlight to this event was the “quick-carve” contest. The contestants are given 70 minutes to go from tree to sculpture. 

People LOVE bears, almost every contestant had little carved bears for sale! How can you not love them, they wave and are so cuddly! (only when made out of wood or cotton)

So along the way, we always love people-watching. Here we caught an old-fashioned photo-taking carving enthusiast... who was so into taking the picture, that his nose gets squished (maybe we are seeing what Corey will look like later in life?)

Perhaps the oddest couple was a father and daughter doing... well, we aren’t quite sure. It might be practicing for a father-daughter dance? Either way, we decided that it should probably not be done in public. 

Before we left, Donna had to pose with a chainsaw to show off her mad skills. (that is why the chainsaw had a protective cover on it... to protect all around, including her). If you notice, she does not quite know where to place her left hand (but the fierce look makes up for it!). 

Settling into Eugene...

As mentioned in the last post, the truck was unloaded quite quickly! BUT the real task then became, what to do with all this stuff and where should it go! By coming up here before Corey starts the Master's program, it allowed full dedication to the task of unpacking and decorating. • A key feature that we loved even from the moment we saw this rental posted on Craigslist was the unique fireplace. It has been renamed "darth vader" for its resemblance to the oh-so-popular nemesis in Star Wars. Maybe it is from these very fireplaces that the mask was designed for the movie?! (this style fireplace was around in the '70s) Who knows... Here is a picture of the fireplace and a picture of darth... you decide. Corey's parents came up this past week and drove up Donna's yellow beetle (woohoo two cars!). They really wanted to help us settle in, so we decided to take them up on the offer. We spent a large portion of one of the days completely fixing up the back yard. (it is the most rocky soil anyone could imagine!) We added beautiful flowers, a little vegetable garden, AND a composting area! We are diving into "green" oregon with both feet! Here are some pics of the outcome. Here is the below shot (provided by our landlord...we forgot to take "before shots" fortunately he had!). And here it is after our hard day's work! Our first go at a composting box... we will see how this goes! (I think we might have to build a barrier around it so that little critters can't feast off of the goods...we have already found multiple raccoon droppings in our yard!) Didn't Corey and his dad do an amazing job building it?! The inside of the house is really coming along as well, BUT in order to see those shots, you will just have to come and visit! (we do have a guestroom!) • Still to come later on in the next few days... our weekend on the Central Coast...

Oregon Adventures (belated) Chapter 2!

Vicki—this one is dedicated to you! Thanks for bugging us to get the next blogs up! Here we go! Now where did we leave off... • Our moving van/semi is shown below with Corey's car being towed behind. (if this truck is 26 feet, plus the front portion, plus the length of the car towed... well, you do the math, it is LONG!) Going up the Cuesta grade was quite an adventure...a slow adventure. This beast would only get up to 25mph going up! We had huge semi-trucks passing us on the left. We just had to sit back and laugh. In this picture you can see Corey (the normally speedy driver) enjoying a (forced) leisurely drive. (If you can see the speedometer... it is only at 25!) Okay—so maybe his face started out more like the picture below! (ohhh, so determined! Here he is almost breaking 20mph!) The truck was diesel, which was nice because it was a lot cheaper than unleaded gas. It had a 50 gallon tank... most places would not let us fuel up the entire way... stopping at $100. We just had to get a picture of the momentous occasion—it is not every day you see $100 on the gas pump! (though with gas prices continually going up... maybe this won't be so rare!) We stayed the night with stella/mom and hit the road quite early! Katie and mom woke up to eat breakfast with us (how sweet) and then promptly went back to sleep! Two hours away from Eugene we decided to pull the kitties up front with us (until then they had been in their own "kittie coach", having free reign in the car being towed). These are a few shots of how they first reacted to the change of scenery. Frou-Frou has was quite "meowy". Feist and Donna both join in on the meows! Frou-Frou and Feist started to calm down and really enjoy the plush nap setting, while Donna was still a bit frazzled, but she eventually calmed down as well. The beautiful Oregon highway! What a trip! (yes, that is a semi just having passed our moving truck!) Upon arriving we had some amazing movers show up! (thanks to Nik and Ekklesia church!) For those who have been following our blog... remember our road trip last summer? (posted last July titled day 32 & 33) Well, we ended up keeping in contact with our Eugene friends at Ekklesia and are now going to that church. (Back when we heard about this church from Nik back a year ago, it was held in the pastor, Wesley's home and now has grown to filling out a community center). It reminds me of being in the Vet's Hall back at shoreline nine years ago! If you are interested in finding out more about the church we are stoked to attend go to: www.ekklesiaeugene.org Seven awesome people showed up to help us unload the beast! It was accomplished in less than two hours. Praise the Lord! He has truly provided for us! We are making lots of new friends and having great fellowship already in this short time here in Eugene. yahoo!!!!!! More to come!

the Oregon Adventures, Chapter One

Can you believe the big day is finally here!?

After 13 years for Corey and 9 for Donna, we are packing up and headed up to Oregon!

With friends, having pizza, sitting in a room with friends and no furniture - that's what moving is all about. Celebrating the good times in this chapter of life, and sharing with close friends as they carry your earthly belongings out the threshold of your home are great ways to spend our last day in SLO!

The girls, Feist and Frou-Frou were just hanging around and so were we, after 15 or so of us loaded the moving truck and cleaned up the old house in under 4 hours. Oh, how we are going to miss our friends here in SLO...

Frou-Frou and Feist have been following us around the house today (there are no boxes or bags to play with anymore!) They are quite attached as you can see below!

Feist looks so small with no furniture around her! She was trying to mess up the amazing job Sarah did cleaning our room (don't worry Sarah... it is still beautiful!).

Here are a few of us hanging out at the end. You can't have a complete moving day without pizza on the floor at the end!

So here is the beast that we will be driving up to Eugene! This truck/semi is 26 feet...and we did fit all of our stuff in there (barely!!). We were told that we need to stop at all the truck weigh-ins... what?? That will be an adventure for sure! We will try to keep up with posting as we make our journey up to Eugene and get settled in! So check in soon to see how we are doing!