Hum... a little TOO Wild America over here.

Just a little update on our wild critters...... as cute as they are and as fun as it is to watch Chris feed them at night, we seemed to have gotten a pretty brave raccoon in our midst. The large one in the videos has moved on and now a much smaller one has been showing up every night and is getting way to brave with Prissy. The other morning, Chris saw it go up to Prissy while she was eating food out of her bowl and pull the bowl away from her to eat. Yeah...... so...... unfortunately, he's been having to take extra measures to warn this raccoon that he needs to stay off the back porch..... by scaring it with a paintball gun. Obviously, we don't want to hurt the guy, but he's REALLY not getting the hint and we're really worried that Prissy is going to snap and attack it......and Prissy will lose. EVERY night and sometimes early in the morning, I hear the lovely sounds of popping through the house as Chris shoots his gun out the slightly opened back door. This dude just isn't getting it! I just wonder if we'll have to have it trapped and transported somewhere else in order to have some peace at night for Prissy....... hum.....

Colbeck of Johns Creek.... Wild America

The Adventures of Our Backyard

So, since we've been letting Prissy outside during the day and some nights, we've noticed having more and more critters showing up on the back deck. We've always had the mama and baby deer in the back yard, although it's been a while since they've been around. We've also had plenty of birds and 4 very fat squirrels that spend the day digging food out of the squirrel proof bird feeder. But what we find entertaining are the critters that show up at night to eat whatever food is left over in Prissy's food bowl. It's amazing how brave they are too!

I call him Poppy 5000. I was expecting to see a raccoon eating her food, but when I turned the light on, I found him. Pretty cool little dude. He's been around a few times.

Prissy and the biggest of the 5 raccoons, who I call Bandit. I actually have seen her sitting on the deck with 4 raccoons like nothing was going on. We are actually able to open the back door and let her in and they continue to eat.

I have long video of Chris sitting outside feeding Bandit. This is a shorter one where Bandit catches Little Rocky peering around the corner and chases him away from the food. Chris said it sounded like a cat fight with all the growling going on. Pretty funny! I hope to have more videos on here soon.

REALLY got some catching up to do!

Ok.... so, I've been a little preoccupied with trying to find work AND planning a wedding these days... months... whatever. I didn't realize it's been since Jan since I've added a post, so I'll just do a brief little post here to catch everyone up.

Wedding Plans..... WAHOO!!!! The date.... Sept 26.... the location.... St. George Island on the beach. We always talked about a small beach wedding with just our close family since the two of us aren't exactly the kind of people that like to be out in front of a crowd. This is perfect! Got our beach houses set and the photographers are nuts, so this should make things really fun. I guess as far as the wedding goes, all we have left are pulling together the details and getting the guys their Hawaiian shirts. I've got my dress, so I know I'm set. hehehee!

Reception to follow.... kind of. We decided we still wanted to share this time with our family and friends and well, have excuse to party like rock stars, by having a large reception when we get back from the honeymoon. Got the place picked..... The Stovall House up in Sautee, GA right down the road from the Shoemake's Hab House. The most beautiful area around and I'm sooo excited. Next step is to run up there and meet with the owner and chef and pick out the menu and then meet with the crazy tent guy to decide what size tent we need. Should be fun!!! I just hope through both weekends, we don't have to deal with any hurricanes since it will be prime hurricane season.

Jobby Job search.... not as exciting. Yeah... so it's been about 6 months since I started my retirement and I've applied to close to 10 jobs.... I guess out of the 10, maybe 2 were landscape architecture jobs. It's bleak out there. VERY BLEAK! Good news, and I hope this doesn't jinx me by going ahead and mentioning this, I did go in and interview with Pike Nursery about 5 minutes down the road from here and the interview rocked!!!! The best part.... Pike's Landscape Design Department is housed in that very building. They don't have any openings now, but IF I get this job, they would get a chance to get to know me and hopefully I'll be able to have my foot in the door when they do start looking for anyone else. That's my hope at least. For now, I just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope that it's good news when I get a call from them at the end of the week.

There.... my life in review...hehehee! I'll add more later, but I wanted to get all the good stuff in first. Wahoo!!!!

Got A LOT of catching up to do!!!!!! First.... the Big News!

Well....just like everyone else, I got a little behind on my blogging. I guess with Christmas and New Years, I just had too much going on. So.... I'll TRY and get you caught up on things. First of all....The Big News!!!! In case you haven't heard, Chris proposed Sunday before New Years.

This is how is happened. He went up Tues before Christmas to spend it with his family in Illinois while I stayed here with my family. He rode back with his brother and family on Saturday. Got home kind of late, so we pretty much ate dinner with them before they headed to SC, then we went straight to bed. I woke up and met Megan and Jennifer for breakfast the next morning, not thinking anything, just really excited to have Chris home and I really wanted him to open his gifts. hehehee! We laugh now, because I gave him "old man" gifts for Christmas..... bird and squirrel feeders and food.... picture frames... but really, he's like a female Snow White. We've had deer, squirels, birds, raccoons, and rabbits so far and he LOVES to feed them all.
We sat in front of the Christmas Tree to open gifts. I got to his gifts.... I got a Savannah Tours book (my FAVORITE place), a Smokey Mountains National Park map book (maybe our next National Park).... then a bag with a printed out Menu for McKendricks. He said he wanted to print out Morton's menu, but they didn't have one to print out, but he told me I got the idea... he wanted to take me to a really nice Steak house. YUM! Then, he said, he had some ornaments for me. He pulled out a little tent ornament from his pocket that he picked up at REI..... I already had one, so we laughed as I turned to put it on the tree next to the other. Then I turned around and he handed me a key to the front door- I have been living there for months, but have been using the garage door to get in because we didn't have a spare key for me. hehehehe! He handed the key to me and said, You'll need this if you're gonna be wearing this.... and that's when he pulled the ring out of his pocket to hand to me. He said I had the most dumbfounded look on my face.... I think it took a second to register that it was for real! AND of course I said yes!!!! Why wouldn't I? I love this man!

Here's the funniest parts about the story. He had bought the ring a year ago... even before he bought the house.... and the big leather chair I am sitting on right now, that I sit on every day and nap on on the weekends.... yeah.... he lifted it up and showed me the little safe under it.... said I've been sitting on my ring for a year! heheheheee!!!!!! Under my butt the whole time and I had no clue!

Another story he told my dad when they called to congratulate us.... back when mom and dad moved to Florida, I don't know, maybe March? Chris was in charge of hanging up pictures. He got to what we call, The Wedding Wall, and asked mom how she wanted them to be hung.... we've got mom and dad's huge picture, then Megan and Julie's smaller pictures. She told him she's not sure since she's missing one (hello ours!). He was too funny..... didn't get it at all. Said, well, do you know what size that picture is going to be? Mom said... no, what size do you think you want it to be? Still nothing...... he said, I don't know. Then he said, Maybe we should wait until we get that other picture before we hang these up. Mom said.... when is that gonna be? I can't wait forever! hehehehee! He asked her where the picture was, and she said she didn't know and then asked him where he thought it was...... that's when we died laughing and HAD to tell him to LOOK at the pictures he was hanging up... oh yeah... red face! Little did any of us know..... he had the ring during that conversation too!
He's good...... heheheee!