Zilker Botanical Gardens

It's been a long time since I've been to the Zilker Botanical Gardens, and Ben has never gone, so when Daniel came to Austin to visit us for the weekend, we thought it would be fun. It was fun, but one thing I always forget about Texas is it's always hot, hot, hot.

The Oriental Garden is by far the coolest part of the garden area.

Ben and Daniel chillin' on a bench.

Our cat. Sometimes I just can't help myself. I think she looks majestic in this one.

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!