After the nomriffic lunch we went to the Rave to see Toy Story 3. GREAT movie, dudes. Like the first 2 before it, this movie really delivered. There were some great new characters. Lotso the bear was a great villain. Plus, Barbie & Ken!! There were so great. I loved Ken’s little fashion show for Barbie. The movie was all around awesome, and the ending was so touching – Mike & I cried like two little girls. It was a great movie, and if you haven’t seen it, do so. Skip the 3D, though – I don’t think it really added anything to the story at all, plus it gives me a wicked headache.

Saturday, Dawn, Rachel & I finally went to see Eclipse. While my expectations were understandably low based on the previous 2 movies in the saga, I was still hopeful. So hopeful that I was really scared my hopes would be dashed and I would be disappointed again, only even worse this time. My fears were unfounded!! Eclipse was my favorite of all of the books, and I think they FINALLY got it right. Don’t get me wrong, if I could turn back time (If I could find a way! I’d take back those words that have hurt you….oops. Sorry) I would recast the hell out of all 3 of these movies. Since that is not possible at this juncture, I will say that everything outside of that worked for me in this movie. I was super nervous that my favorite scene from the book would be foiled, but I think they played it off just right. It had the perfect tone and accomplished what the book did. Things I wasn’t crazy about: The new Victoria’s hair, Jacob wearing a shirt WAY too often, and a few other little tiny details that nobody else would probably notice or care about. Subtle things I LOVED: Edward saying “Doesn’t he own a shirt?” referring to Jacob’s abs of fury, and Jacob saying to Edward “We both know I’m hotter than you.” WORD.

Ok, speaking of recasting the hell out of the saga, this guy is my pick for Edward. Justin Hartley, also known as the Green Arrow. This guy would make RPattz look like a bumbling fool. Well, RPattz kind of does that on his own. Anyway, here’s a sample. Type this guy’s name into a Google image search to see even more (READ: shirtless). Jacob is awesome & gets to stay as is. Also, Bella should be someone else. Anyone else, really.

On Sunday, I went over to the SPCA for my volunteer orientation. It was very cool. It’s kind of heartbreaking to see all of the animals caged up and desperate for adoption. And on the other hand, it’s sobering to realize that without this organization, these animals wouldn’t be here at all. I am really excited to get involved and help out in any way that I can. I plan to focus on the cats in Kitty City, but one of my personal goals is to get a little more comfortable with dogs as well. I don’t dislike them, I’m just a little scared of bigger dogs because I don’t have any experience with them. So hopefully I can change that.

After orientation we hosted Crappy Movie Sunday. This week’s feature was Snakes on a Plane. We really did things up with flower leis and fake snakes. Of course, we had an awesome time. I am working on the blog post, and it’ll be up in a few days over at Crappy Movie Sunday.

I’m really really excited that Mike & I are going out of town for a few days! We are heading up north to stay at a cottage on Lake Michigan. I truly can’t wait!! It’s going to be so fun to get out of here for a bit.

The panther is pencil and charcoal, and the parrot is a watercolor. He is actually complete, but the paper was too big for the scanner, so his beak is a little cut off.

We had a nice holiday weekend. We did a little BBQ in the park with my mom and sister and her family. We had burgers and dogs and hung around and chatted. Noah and Uncle Mike had a blast playing with a few boxes of those popper thingies. We did a few sparklers, but it was kind of lame in the middle of the day. Here’s Noah playing in his fancy sprinkler from Grandma.

As for our bird feeder, Mike put the squirrel dome on, and it totally works! Monkey Tail and his chipmunk legions can’t scale the pole anymore, so the birds are free to eat the seed! It’s kind of awesome and we feel very victorious.

I have been having some trouble with some of my plants. The Celosia in the front window box are damn near dead. I don’t think they were getting enough sun there, so I took them out and put them in a pot on the front patio. I planted some purple and white Dahlias in their place which seem to be doing well. My Astilbe in the way back is like, almost totally dead, maybe not even salvageable. I didn’t check on them for like a week and clearly, that was all it took. Anyway, I am trying really hard to nurse them back to health. If that’s even possible. Ugggh, I suck at gardening!!! It’s just really not something I enjoy. I don’t mind the small stuff, like my window boxes, but the big planter out back is just a pain in the butt.

We are planning a multi-pronged attack angaint the criiters. First, we bought a squirrel dome that will go over the feeder to keep fat critters off of it. We are also going to lube the pole with vegetable oil or maybe Vaseline so tiny paws will have a hard time scaling it. We also mixed cayenne pepper in with the bird seed. I read online that squirrels hate cayenne, but that birds can’t taste it. We are going to get our new (hopefully) squirrel-proof feeder set up this weekend. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

Everything else has been pretty good. George was gone camping last weekend, so Mike & I had the house to ourselves, and didn’t really do a whole lot. On Saturday my mom & I went out garage sale scouting, and my big find was a beer drinking board game called Chug-A-Lug from the early 80’s. The box cover photo is priceless and it even says “Beverages Not Included” just so there’s no confusion. I’m pretty sure this was a steal for 50 cents. Can’t wait to give it a whirl soon. We also went to Milham Park for the big craft show. Truthfully, it was a little disappointing. I didn’t see too much of interest, and all I bought was some fudge and some jerky for Mike.

We did have Crappy Movie Sunday, and this week we watched Twilight. It turned into a spirited debate of why Twilight’s vamps aren’t “real” vamps because Stepenie Meyer didn’t go along with the established vampire lore. The dudes are just really mad that Edward glitters in the sun and they don’t. Dawn & I tried to stand behind the actual story and the books (not necessarily the movie, which we know is crap), but the dudes are adamant that Twilight is lame and all vamps are made way lamer because of it’s existence. Or something. Jacob didn’t even take his shirt off in this movie, so I don’t know why the boys were feeling so threatened anyway. PS – can’t wait for Eclipse! It looks like it might actually be good! Dawn & I are going to see it next weekend in an effort to avoid the (other) screaming fangirls. We really want to be the only screaming fangirls, and that just won’t be possible on opening weekend.

The party on Saturday turned out great – my sister really enjoyed it which was the main thing. We had a fairly steady stream of folks in & out for most of the afternoon. The kids had a great time too. Sticky Ball was a big hit. Here are some photos! There are so many good pics, I couldn’t choose a few, so you get a slideshow!! And I can’t embed it because Flickr doesn’t want to be friends with Wordpress. But click the link and see all the fun.

On Sunday we got up bright & early and headed to Grand Rapids to visit with Mike’s family for Father’s Day. I played bocce ball with my brother in law and some of the kids and I’m actually pretty good at it. I suck big time at Ladder Ball, though. Anyway, we had a really good time, and it was fun to hang out with everyone. We even managed to get home in time to throw some laundry in and relax for a couple of hours before bed.

So anyway, the bird feeder. We set it up on Friday afternoon and put a suet cake in there that smelled like delicious peanut butter, and also some yummy bird seed in a tube style feeder. We kept watching, but no birds ever checked it out. We were thinking maybe it would just tke some time for them to find it or something. We did finally see a couple of birds eating from the feeder yesterday evening, so we were feeling good about the whole thing. Then I woke up this morning and saw this:

Hmmm, maybe Monkey Tail is scaring the birds away. Also, now the whole thing is leaning over to the side a little. Stupid obese squirrel. I put a squirrel block out back, but apparently, that wsn’t good enough for this piglet.

I also want to show off a couple of stuffies. These cuties are both for sale at Fuzzy Paws Knits for $5 each. First, Arturo. He likes reading, chocolate chip cookies, and rainy days. Dislikes clowns, brussels sprouts, and math. Then we have Miss Mimi. Mimi likes flowers, cheesecke, and shopping. She dislikes bees, spinach, and homework. There are more pics of both of them in the shop.

First, the heart shapes, while only 1 inch, were too big for their tiny mouths. So after all that work, I ended up having to chop the treats up into smaller bits. Note to self – making the treats cute does not make them more appealing to the target audience. So I chopped one up and presented it again. The reception was….less than enthusiastic. They nibbled and licked the pieces a little, but I got the impression that they knew I had worked hard and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. Yesterday morning, I gave them each a few more tiny bits, and this time they didn’t even bother. One sniff and they both wandered away. Rats!!

I decided to try another recipe. This one is chicken based, but still baked like a cookie. I whipped these up this morning. This time, I just dropped them by the teaspoonful onto the cookie sheet – no fancy shapes. Once they were baked and cooled, I took a tiny biscuit, chopped it into bits, and put some in front of Nemo. Again, polite licking and nibbling, but no real enthusiastic chewing. Hmmm. Next I went to Buffy. She LOVED these – she tore into them right away and ate all I gave her. SCORE! I tried Nemo again with a few more bits – nope. Not interested. I have found Buffy’s favorite. She has always been a carb lover, so the cookies were bound to be a hit eventually. She loves breads and potato chips. Nemo is not into carbs, he is more of a meat eater. I have one more recipe in mind for him and I think he will dig it. It’s made with canned cat food, scrambled egg, and cheese, and it isn’t baked. I am 90% sure this will be Nemo’s kryptonite. Pics:

I have a buttload of Tuna Hearts leftover, so I am giving them away to other cats to sample. We are heading up to Grand Rapids this evening to see some friends, and I am going to try to unload some there as well. At least all the cats of my homies can maybe benefit.

After a looong debacle involving several different worker dudes here for many different days, my tub is finished! As of last night, I’ve used it twice and it is officially the BOMB. We still can’t shower in there because we haven’t hung the bar for a curtain. We haven’t hung it because we are still deciding what color to paint. We had a clear idea of what we wanted when we went to look at paint (iced mocha), but then we saw all the fancy swatches, and we were totally confused. So now we have 62,086 swatches and still have no idea which way we will go. So, we’ll see what happens there. It’ll be interesting.

Other excitingness is that I am making headway in my Beer Society adventure. I decided to start rating the beers and keeping track. View my progress here via a Google Spreadsheet. I’ve also added that link to my Blogroll on the left over there. It’s moving along, and it is quite fun. Here’s a pic of George & Mike hanging with me on Sunday while I tried a couple of brews.

Ok, a couple of other quick things. Mike & I went to a matinee last Friday and saw Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief . I really enjoyed it. It was definitely formulaic and similar to Harry Potter, but that didn’t bother me too much. It was funny, interesting, and the effects were great. I did feel like the story was a little bit obvious and it was pretty clear how things would turn out, but still very enjoyable. I started reading the first book as well and I am really liking that too.

I also started watching Weeds on DVD which Voldemort and his lovely wife got me for Christmas. I just finished the second season, and it’s genius. I still have 2 more seasons, plus the fifth came out recently as well. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen, it’s always hilarious.

Just for giggles, here’s a cute pic I snapped of Nemo the other day. :)

We also went to the South Bend Chocolate Company’s Chocolate Cafe – a magical place filled with chocolate and sweets. They also have a gorilla gaurding the joint. See?

I ordered a hot cocoa and picked out a cute little Vanilla Bean Cupcake. The cupcake looked yum, but when I went to take a bite, it was rock hard! Eww, stale cupcake! I traded it in for a red velvet, and it was AMAZING. So good. Loved it.

We also hit a cool used book store where I found a Shakespeare’s Sister CD used for $3!!! I was stoked! I think that might have been the foirst CD I ever bought, and who knows what happened to it. Anyway, it’s cool. The other place we went was a really cool gaming store that had manana cards, Warhammer stuff, and all kinds of associated stuff. It was pretty neat. All in all, a really fun day! We capped it off with dinner at Red Robin.

Saturday was Mike’s 34th birthday! We headed up to GR and hung out with his family. We had a great time, and Mike had a stellar birthday.