Happy Anniversary Honey!
Love you tons and tons!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Drama the Queen
Kinlee turned 15 months last week. She has grown so much and into a big drama queen! If you tell her no she will yell at you in her own language and throw herself on the floor crying! We just laugh at her because it's so funny. She climbs onto anything and everything. She's always dancing on the kitchen table.
She loves being outside playing on the slides. She also likes to dig in mom's flower pots. She's such a sweetie and we love her to pieces!
This face just cracks me up! And he wouldn't take a picture without holding his "Mack Truck"
This is one of the best pictures I have of the two of them together. They don't like to share the camera time.
And a cute picture of the family!
Monday, May 4, 2009
So Sorry To Leave You In the Dark
I guess I better give some background to the previous post. I forget that not everyone has Facebook or even reads my status updates to really catch on to what I'm talking about. So here goes my 1st chapter of my 48 Hour Mystery Episode.
(I can tell it's going to be a long post, so go pop you some popcorn to enjoy during this epic tale. I know I'll be eating some while writing it. And maybe a bowl of ice cream too.)
The Neighbor-
I have a neighbor that is a shut in. He leaves his house maybe once a week, if that, to go to town and buy cat food and cigarettes. This man is known around the neighborhood as "Catman" or as I call him, "Crazy Catman". This is because he has probably close to 50 cats if not more. (I'm not even exaggerating the amount one bit.)
His front porch was blocked off so no human could get onto it, only cats could. There are bowls and bowls and bowls laid out on it and he just dumps cat food out of his window into these bowls. As you can imagine his porch has quite the stench to it. It literally burns your nose when you get halfway up the driveway. I use the mouth breathing technique and under no circumstances will take in air through my nose.
"Catman" lives to feed his cats. When we had that huge snowstorm on Christmas this year he was snowed in. So he called some of us neighbors to go get him cat food because he couldn't leave. I've actually seen him leave in a blizzard to go get cat food before. (Well I assume he's getting cat food.)
Easter weekend I had noticed that some of his cats kept coming to my backdoor looking for food. It wasn't uncommon for me to see a few cats once in a while out there and sometimes I throw leftovers out to them. By Monday morning there were at least 15 cats on my deck. This situation struck me as odd.
We had a house showing that day, so I was busy trying to get the house clean, but at lunch I sent Travis a text saying, what if the neighbor is dead and that's why all his cats are at our house. Travis thought that could be a possibility but didn't think too much of it.
When he got home from work, I voiced my concern on Facebook. I got a few responses saying to go check on him. I decided that I would prank call him when we got back after the showing.
Travis didn't think my prank call would work. He said that Catman wouldn't answer the phone in the first place, even if he was ok. I called anyways. I let it ring 8 times before I hung up.
I was getting concerned. I went outside and my other neighbor happened to be out there. I went and asked him when the last time he remembers seeing our neighbor leave. He thought it had been a little over a week. So I told him my concern and that I was scared to go knock on the door. He laughed and said, "what are you scared of him?" NO! I was scared to find a dead body!
We walked up to his house and knocked and knocked and waited for 5 or 10 minutes. We tried to peek in the windows but couldn't see anything. I went back home and called dispatch.
I must have sounded like a crazy person to the lady on the phone. "Hi, I think my neighbor is dead." "Why do you think that?" "Because his cats are at my house looking for food."
I honestly said that.
I did explain why that would be significant to his being dead, and I said how I called him and went and knocked on his door too.
She said they would send an officer out to check on him.
Travis and I watched the drama unfold from our bedroom window. When you live on a quiet road like ours that has no main traffic on it, this is about as exciting as it gets, an actual police car drove past our house! How could we not watch?
TWO cops came to the scene. We watched as the circled the house 5 or 6 times looking in the windows and finally going over to the neighbors house to chat with him for a minute. I think they finally came to the conclusion to break into the house. In through the window one of them went and he quickly opened the door for the other.
They both emerged from the house a few minutes later. Travis went outside to get the 411. The police determined that our neighbor was dead and had been dead for a few days!
I was sad that this man had to die alone. I was glad that I had followed my feelings though before he became too decomposed.
We called our old neighbors to see if they knew if Richard, the neighbor, had any family. They knew he had a son, but didn't know his name or anything about him. Travis and I went out to tell the cops what little information we did know about him. They had us fill out a report while they were waiting for the detective to come to the house.
I would say it was around a half hour or so later I was watching out the window and saw the ambulance coming up the road with it's lights on, followed by 4 vehicles. Travis and I went outside to watch because we may be a little morbid like that. We thought it was weird that the ambulance was coming and not just the "white van".
We watched as the ambulance turned the wrong way and went down the hill instead of up where they police car was parked. We laughed and made the comment of how we were glad no one had a real emergency.
Once the ambulance backed up the driveway ANOTHER ambulance came and lots more EMTs came too. We were so confused! Our current Bishop and former Bishop also came.
From our front step (peeking around the corner) we watch as the brought out our neighbor. He wasn't even covered up! WEIRD!
After everyone left our Bishops came over and said "you guys did a great thing tonight." I was still confused and said something like, yeah too bad he had to be alone. "You might have saved a life," my bishop told me.
I swear you could have fit a tank in my mouth my jaw was so far on the ground. "HE'S ALIVE?!?!?!?! WHAT?!?!?! NO ONE HAS EVEN BEEN WORKING ON HIM?!?!?!?!?!?!?! HE'S ALIVE?"
Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and tingly inside. The cops couldn't even tell he was alive. They must have been sitting out in their trucks for 20 minutes before the detective got there.
So needless to say it was a crazy crazy crazy night. Richard was life flighted down to Salt Lake where he eventually died early in the morning. I was left with the guilt of what if I would have gone over there sooner. You know that fun game. Every scenario played out in my mind of things I could have done or should have done. I honestly feel now, after much prayer and discussion with Travis, that I did all I could do. Richard wouldn't let me be a better neighbor. I still have a hard time with it all sometimes but I'm much better now than I was that week.
Stay tuned for Chapter 2 - The Hunt for Next of Kin
(I can tell it's going to be a long post, so go pop you some popcorn to enjoy during this epic tale. I know I'll be eating some while writing it. And maybe a bowl of ice cream too.)
The Neighbor-
I have a neighbor that is a shut in. He leaves his house maybe once a week, if that, to go to town and buy cat food and cigarettes. This man is known around the neighborhood as "Catman" or as I call him, "Crazy Catman". This is because he has probably close to 50 cats if not more. (I'm not even exaggerating the amount one bit.)
His front porch was blocked off so no human could get onto it, only cats could. There are bowls and bowls and bowls laid out on it and he just dumps cat food out of his window into these bowls. As you can imagine his porch has quite the stench to it. It literally burns your nose when you get halfway up the driveway. I use the mouth breathing technique and under no circumstances will take in air through my nose.
"Catman" lives to feed his cats. When we had that huge snowstorm on Christmas this year he was snowed in. So he called some of us neighbors to go get him cat food because he couldn't leave. I've actually seen him leave in a blizzard to go get cat food before. (Well I assume he's getting cat food.)
Easter weekend I had noticed that some of his cats kept coming to my backdoor looking for food. It wasn't uncommon for me to see a few cats once in a while out there and sometimes I throw leftovers out to them. By Monday morning there were at least 15 cats on my deck. This situation struck me as odd.
We had a house showing that day, so I was busy trying to get the house clean, but at lunch I sent Travis a text saying, what if the neighbor is dead and that's why all his cats are at our house. Travis thought that could be a possibility but didn't think too much of it.
When he got home from work, I voiced my concern on Facebook. I got a few responses saying to go check on him. I decided that I would prank call him when we got back after the showing.
Travis didn't think my prank call would work. He said that Catman wouldn't answer the phone in the first place, even if he was ok. I called anyways. I let it ring 8 times before I hung up.
I was getting concerned. I went outside and my other neighbor happened to be out there. I went and asked him when the last time he remembers seeing our neighbor leave. He thought it had been a little over a week. So I told him my concern and that I was scared to go knock on the door. He laughed and said, "what are you scared of him?" NO! I was scared to find a dead body!
We walked up to his house and knocked and knocked and waited for 5 or 10 minutes. We tried to peek in the windows but couldn't see anything. I went back home and called dispatch.
I must have sounded like a crazy person to the lady on the phone. "Hi, I think my neighbor is dead." "Why do you think that?" "Because his cats are at my house looking for food."
I honestly said that.
I did explain why that would be significant to his being dead, and I said how I called him and went and knocked on his door too.
She said they would send an officer out to check on him.
Travis and I watched the drama unfold from our bedroom window. When you live on a quiet road like ours that has no main traffic on it, this is about as exciting as it gets, an actual police car drove past our house! How could we not watch?
TWO cops came to the scene. We watched as the circled the house 5 or 6 times looking in the windows and finally going over to the neighbors house to chat with him for a minute. I think they finally came to the conclusion to break into the house. In through the window one of them went and he quickly opened the door for the other.
They both emerged from the house a few minutes later. Travis went outside to get the 411. The police determined that our neighbor was dead and had been dead for a few days!
I was sad that this man had to die alone. I was glad that I had followed my feelings though before he became too decomposed.
We called our old neighbors to see if they knew if Richard, the neighbor, had any family. They knew he had a son, but didn't know his name or anything about him. Travis and I went out to tell the cops what little information we did know about him. They had us fill out a report while they were waiting for the detective to come to the house.
I would say it was around a half hour or so later I was watching out the window and saw the ambulance coming up the road with it's lights on, followed by 4 vehicles. Travis and I went outside to watch because we may be a little morbid like that. We thought it was weird that the ambulance was coming and not just the "white van".
We watched as the ambulance turned the wrong way and went down the hill instead of up where they police car was parked. We laughed and made the comment of how we were glad no one had a real emergency.
Once the ambulance backed up the driveway ANOTHER ambulance came and lots more EMTs came too. We were so confused! Our current Bishop and former Bishop also came.
From our front step (peeking around the corner) we watch as the brought out our neighbor. He wasn't even covered up! WEIRD!
After everyone left our Bishops came over and said "you guys did a great thing tonight." I was still confused and said something like, yeah too bad he had to be alone. "You might have saved a life," my bishop told me.
I swear you could have fit a tank in my mouth my jaw was so far on the ground. "HE'S ALIVE?!?!?!?! WHAT?!?!?! NO ONE HAS EVEN BEEN WORKING ON HIM?!?!?!?!?!?!?! HE'S ALIVE?"
Doesn't that just make you feel all warm and tingly inside. The cops couldn't even tell he was alive. They must have been sitting out in their trucks for 20 minutes before the detective got there.
So needless to say it was a crazy crazy crazy night. Richard was life flighted down to Salt Lake where he eventually died early in the morning. I was left with the guilt of what if I would have gone over there sooner. You know that fun game. Every scenario played out in my mind of things I could have done or should have done. I honestly feel now, after much prayer and discussion with Travis, that I did all I could do. Richard wouldn't let me be a better neighbor. I still have a hard time with it all sometimes but I'm much better now than I was that week.
Stay tuned for Chapter 2 - The Hunt for Next of Kin
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