Ricey Gets a Bath

This was her reaction when she found out she was going to get a bath: No, I am not kidding. She was against the idea from the start, but fortunately she had no choice in the matter. She smelled bad and the kitty litter stains on her paws spoke volumes. I, for one, never knew you were supposed to bathe cats ever. Since the only cats I ever had growing up were outdoor cats, we were lucky to see them twice a week, and my dad would have never thought about bathing them. But I am married to a man who believes firmly in bathing kitties, so here's what happened:

The above pictures illustrate her, "why me?" attitude during bathtime.

She was just too funny looking afterwards to not take a million pictures of, but I settled on the best two to post. I never knew that wet kitties looked like drowned rats. She might have looked funny, but she sure smelled better, and her fur fluffed up quite nicely once she had licked herself for an hour. I read a lot of blogs where moms post pictures of their baby's faces during their first bath. Maybe that is what inspired this blog post. Ben's dad took most of the pictures, so I have to give credit to him. We really enjoyed having him over for the weekend and I even baked him a cake to celebrate his birthday coming up on June 28th:

Happy Birthday!

Hamilton Pool

This weekend Ben, his dad, and I went to Hamilton pool to go swimming. Hamilton pool is this gorgeous cave full of water where people can go and swim during the summer. It's about an hour outside of Austin, and totally worth the drive. Unfortunately, when we got there they said the bacteria level was too high, so no one could swim. This was a major bummer, especially since it was so hot outside. Anyway, here are some great pics we took. Ben and I are determined to go back and swim when it's open.

Ben and his dad enjoying the plants and walking toward our picnic spot.

Look how clear that water is! I couldn't believe there was bacteria in there!

It was truly breathtakingly gorgeous. I cannot wait to go back so we can actually jump in!

Texas Thunderstorms, Snails, and a Hole in the Wall

Two nights ago we had a killer Texas thunderstorm. One of the things I missed dreadfully while at school in Provo was the Provo weather's inability to provide a significantly loud and wonderful thunderstorm. I love listening to the rain and the thunder and watching the room light up with lightning. What's also fun after the rain is watching all the little buggies coming out of their hiding places. Normally I am not a fan of bugs, but I thought these snails were too cute not to take a picture of! It's fun to see snails after the rain. But, look what the rain also brought to our apartment complex besides snails :

If you can't tell what that is, it is a hole in my closet wall. A hole that was made from water seeping into the walls during the thunderstorm. I woke up in the morning to find a huge hole in my closet, and thankfully only one or two things got wet. I was very grateful that my wedding dress and Ben's ties are on the OTHER side of the closet, and did not get damaged.

Here's the hole from a closer viewpoint. So, I called the apartment complex and they said they would have the maintenance guys come and "fix" it. Basically the guy came in, looked at the hole, said, "that's really big" and then said he couldn't fix it until it stopped raining outside. I thought, ok, fair enough. Turns out when I called the office today the maintenance guy says he can't come and fix it until it's totally dry. Ummm....it's a hole in the wall from which water is leaking. I don't know if this thing is ever going to be dry. So, now all my stuff has been moved out of my closet and is scattered around our room in disarray. Oh, and the carpet guy came by, pulled up some of the carpet, and then left. So, I'm not very impressed with how this situation has been handled so far. I hope they fix it tomorrow. I'm starting to think that possibly I attract water coming in from unwanted places. In my freshman dorm at BYU our basement apartment flooded four times in one year!

Zilker Park!

This Memorial Day weekend Ben and I went with my family to Zilker Park. If you've never been to Austin before, Zilker Park is the absolute best spot in Austin for hiking, swimming, canoeing, etc. When I was growing up we didn't visit the park that often because we were always so far south, but now that Ben and I live so close, we try to take advantage of it. My parents, Alli, and Adrienne met up with us at the park and we all went canoeing!

Here is Alli making a face. She was actually quite the paddler. When my arms got tired, Alli got a turn paddling, and she usually outperformed me.

Ben was having a hard time keeping up with me...ok not really. He was the one doing most of the work.

Here is a very shadowy picture of me. Yay for canoeing!

A beautiful view of downtown Austin from our boat. After canoeing, we had a huge picnic with all the yummy food my mom bought. We were pretty much all wiped out afterwards. Canoeing is harder than it looks. I hope everyone else had as much fun on Memorial Day as we did!

More Pictures from Dallas Trip!

Ben's mom Cynthia took us to Olive Garden for dinner and then we went for a stroll around the mall afterwards. Thanks for the pictures, Cynthia!

I love Andrea's face in this one. haha

Dallas Trip

This past weekend Ben and I went to Dallas to visit his parents. One of the coolest things we got to do was go to the JFK Memorial and see the part of downtown Dallas where the fateful parade took place. Here is a picture of the building and the sixth story window where Kennedy was shot:
The picture above is the actual memorial. It wasn't anything particularly cool to look at, just a wide structure built out of concrete. It is supposed to represent an "open grave".

Ben and his dad are standing near the area where Kennedy was shot. This part of Dallas was really beautiful and really well-kept. Lots of people were around checking out the statues and such.

We also went out to Olive Garden with Ben's mom and Andrea. It was delicious and a lot of fun to catch up, but unfortuantely I didn't get any pictures (Cynthia, if you're reading this, please email me the pics you took!)

This is about how we all felt when we got home:

Anyway, it was a fun trip and as always it was wonderful to spend time with Ben's family. Wish I had more pics to put up, but that's it for now! Off to another day of work!

Shopping

I went shopping last night. It has been a looooooooong time since I've gone. For the past three months I've kind of been on this rebellious streak about clothes. The thing is, it seems like every time I step inside a mall, I can find absolutely nothing to wear. Not only do I feel like nothing fits me right, but I also feel like I'm caught in this weird-no longer a teenager but definitely not an old woman-phase where I can barely still shop in the "Junior's" section, but can't quite shop all the time in the Women's section. For instance, about three weeks ago I convinced Ben to go to mall so I could poke my head inside Forever 21 and finally spend the gift card I got for my birthday over eight months ago. Well, I covered every inch of that store, finding nothing but clothes like these:

Ewwwwwwwwwww. I'm sorry, but why would anyone in their right mind wear those hideous things? (I'm sorry if whoever is reading this likes clothes like these) Honestly, I could not find ONE SINGLE THING. And I seriously tried. Anyway, it seemed like every time I went shopping I would get all down on myself because nothing looked good on me or nothing was cute. Well, last night I went to...

and you know what? I found three things!!!! And I could have bought more! Target has restored my faith in clothing stores in general. Thank you, Target. Thank you for having reasonable priced, cute clothes that also almost all happen to be modest. Thank you. (P.S. Target did not pay me to post this) Just curious if any other Mormon girl out there is having trouble in the fashion world right now...let me know I'm not the ONLY one, please.