Sylvie's first camping trip!

In honor of Elsie's 5th birthday, she asked to "please go camping!".  She has great memories of our solo trips before Sylvie was born, and was anxious to put up the tent again.  Our friends, the Watermolens, just happened to be planning a group camp for her birthday weekend, so we jumped on board!

Andy decided to stay home at the last minute, but the girls and I had a wonderful time.  There was a little rain and a few snags in the plan, but overall it was a great experience.  We made some new friends, reconnected with old ones, and even had a few wildlife encounters!

The lake was beautiful!

We had lots of fun organizing the campsite (seven families!) and trying to set up the tents and prepare dinner while the kids ran amok.  They played with stilts, beanbag toss, and hammocks, in addition to self-organizing games like "Sharks and Minnows" and "Ghost in the Graveyard".

The "other Andy Cooper" had lots of assistants setting up their tent!

The campsite was surrounded by 60-foot tall evergreens, which where filled with nesting herons!  We got to watch them swoop in and feed their babies, and the girls loved to listen to their funny honking cries.

The highlight of the trip for Elsie was our close encounter on our way to bed.  We stopped by our picnic table to grab our water bottles, and came face-to-face with a very large raccoon sitting on the table, helping himself to our garbage bag!  When he ran off, we walked to our tent past another friend's table, only to see our raccoon had a friend in crime busy trying to figure out how to open a cooler on the table!

As we got ready for bed in the tent, the herons began hooting/calling/fighting REALLY loudly!  It, I swear, sounded like a flock of pterodactyls had invaded the forest.  Crazy!  They kept it up for most the night, not the it kept the girls awake at all.

And, of course, proof that the girls did actually sleep the whole night! What big kids! 

We left after breakfast, and weren't out of the park before Sylvie began asking, "Mama, go camping again? Please?". Yep, our first family-of-three camping trip was a success!

Sister Love.

Elsie is student of the week!

Tigger comes home!

When we dropped Tigger off at the vet to stay with his surrogate mama, Muffin, he weighed just 8 oz.  In the next day or two he moved up to 9 oz, then began to decline.  Six days later (after many visits and phone calls from us!), it was determined that Muffin was just tired of being a Mama (after weaning six bigger kitties!) and was no longer willing to care for Tigger.  He was only a little over 9 ounces, and failing fast.  The vets were concerned that he might have a congenital problem or other internal issue, and was not very optimistic that he could turn around.  Home he came!

Andy was really excited to meet Tigger for the first time after hearing about him all week.

Elsie was THRILLED, as her biggest concern through all of this was that he wouldn't be able to attend her birthday party if he was at the vet.  It's been a lot of work (bottle feeding every two hours around the clock), but I am happy to say that in the four days he has been with us, Tigger has bumped up to 12.5 oz (about .75 of an ounce a day!) and has completely turned around.  He is playful, full of purrs, and is even trying to walk! 

The girls adore him, and are learning to be very gentle.  Elsie is even starting to bottle feed him! 

Sylvie thinks he is hilarious, and loves to kiss his forehead.

Group nap time is also pretty adorable.

Tigger seems pretty happy with his change in circumstances, too...nothing like a warm heating pad and some fleece covers to make a kitty feel at home!  We are slowly introducing Tigger's smell to Pongo...in typical 'fraidy-cat fashion, Pongo still prefers to avoid him completely, but based on past experience I think it is safe to assume they will be cuddling like best buds in a few weeks.