Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I'm sure everyone is tired of our bluebird posts... but we just had a stakeout and were able to get a couple pictures from the window. We think the bird was looking at us and was weary of our presence, but he delivered the goods regardless. Delicious worms for the youngin's. Next we need to get donuts for our stakeout... stakeouts are not stakeouts without donuts.

They are actually removing the crap!! In my last post I mentioned that the birds were removing something... it's actually the crap. Oh I have learned so much about bluebirds already...

Here is a link to information about the crap removal.

And here is an awesome page about the bluebird lifecycle... oh it's so awesome! My guess is based on that lifecycle, we are about 14 days into it.

We can't tell you how exciting it is to follow the lives of the bluebirds in our birdhouse right now. By the way, there is no doubt about it, they are bluebirds. We'd take some pictures but they are super fast, especially when they see us. Not too long ago the mother dropped 4 eggs in the house and since then the birds have hatched and have grown to be quite large. I would be willing to bet that they are very close to leaving the nest soon.

Liz doesn't like that I do this but every now and then I will tap on the house to see if anyone is inside and if no Mommy or Daddy birds fly out, I'll open the lid to take a peak. The birds have only been awake one time, all the other times they'll be sleeping.

The Mom and Dad bird are so protective over their young. They are always either inside the birdhouse or sitting on our neighbors house watching their home. Yesterday we witnessed a squirrel running on our deck trying to get to the birdhouse and the Mom or Dad divebombing the squirrel to stop it. I was going to step in but Liz thought nature should take it's course... but to me the only course nature will take is for the squirrel to be run off... if he gets anywhere near our birdies, I'm going right out there. They don't seem to mind the dogs or Liz or I being near the birdhouse, in fact, we have opened it up on accident when they were watching. It's either because they don't see us as a threat or they see us as such a HUGE threat that they don't bother us.

And as I type, I am watching the Mom and Dad birds fight off a little tiny finch of some kind that is trying to peak inside. Hopefully the babies grow up and fly soon!! It's amazing to me that these little things are born and sit inside a dark box for a month and then all of a sudden climb up and go "ya know what, im flying today" without any hesitation. I realize they were meant to fly but it's amazing to me that it's in their nature. It takes us a freakin year to learn how to walk. It only takes them a month without even experiencing the world.

What's weird is, today I've been observing the Dad bird flying into the house and leaving with something every time... is he making space? Is he on poop removal duty? What's he doing?!

It is so much fun to watch it and I can only hope next year I have 2 or 3 more birdhouses around the yard to help the bluebird population of NC.

I didn't see these pictures until this weekend, but Liz has taken some fantastic pictures of Gryffin and I want to share them. Obviously I am no picture critic, but based on what I've seen of pictures, these are really good. Here are a few, but you can see more pictures of our trips and stuff at the picture album link at the top:


The last one is my favorite, he looks like he's in deep thought... we all know he's not.

Yesterday in church, our pastor read this during a sermon. I won't get into how it pertained to the sermon, mainly because I was too stressed out about Kidstuf that I wasn't listening very well. But it made me laugh very hard so I thought I'd share. I have always insisted that if I wasn't allergic to cats, I still wouldn't have one anyway because dogs are much more fun. As funny as this diary is, there are not a lot of cat owners that would disagree with it:


The Diary of Dog:
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Dinner! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!


The Diary of a Cat:

Day 983 of My Captivity

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.

*I realize Daisy looks like an alien, but she has perfected the "flash blink". She times it right EVERY time.

On Thursday, Dewey came over for a two week sleepover and the puppies are loving it. You would think 3 dogs are harder than 2 but it's really not much different at all. They get along really well, we have the backyard so we don't have to take them out on the leash very often(except for walks), and Dewey is not a destructive dog so when we leave he is free to roam the sweet room and kitchen.

Daisy and Gryffin realize they are outmatched during play time but they love chasing him around. He's also super gentle with them when they wrestle. Yesterday he was basically letting Daisy chew on his neck, much like she does to Gryffin during an even match, as he rolled around on the ground. I don't think there are a lot of dogs that would let her do that. He's also ridiculously smart and will do his commands like "sit", "lay down" and "drop it" without hesitation. I don't know if he knew how to do this beforehand either, but he has picked up the "sit" and "ok" commands right before we feed the dogs. Before those commands, D&G would attack the food before we let go of it. Having all 3 dogs siting there waiting for us to say "OK!" to eat, is super cute.

The only complaint I can make about Dewey is that he can let out some of the most vicious SBD farts. I mean he puts me to shame with some of those bad boys. I think that's a boy dog thing though cuz Gryffin is really bad about that too.

So it's a two week sleepover and when I say sleepover, I mean it. There are times at night when I'll lean over and D or G are snuggled up into Dewey. It's so nice not to have to worry about them getting along. Like Liz and I always say, they're "best fwends".

A while ago, I came up with the phrase, the "you're awesome letter". What is it you ask? It is the confirmation from a bank or loan that you have paid off a debt. You have worked so hard to get rid of a debt and made so many payments and unfortunately, have sent so much money, you deserve a letter from that company saying "Hey! You're Awesome! Job Well Done! Not everyone pays off a loan ahead of time!"

I have never received a "you're awesome letter" because when we paid off our furniture (bed) loan, Rooms To Go never let us know. They just kept on going, business as usual, but instead of sending us billing statements, they just... stopped sending us billing statements. The punks.

So needless to say, when we paid off our car early in March, we were super excited to get that letter. A whole 2 years and 3 months early to be exact. I mean, they had no choice but to tell us we're awesome, they had to send us our title! So, at last, it arrived almost one month after our last payment. Here it is:


You probably can't read it, here's the gist:

Dear Michael & Liz,

You're awesome for paying off your car. Here's the proof. You're awesome.

Yours truly awesome,

BB&T

I must add one more note. We took better pictures than the one above. But when I went to go make this post, I realized that every single photo we took contained specific information about our vehicle that I did not want out on the internets. So this photo, with my face covered up and the letter somewhat blurry, gets the job done. When is your next "you're awesome letter"? Ours should come around November. Woo hoo!

I think I just made a bunch of people gasp. No! Not us! The bird in our birdhouse has laid a few eggs. I still am not 100% sure it's a bluebird, but the eggs are blue so that's probably right. Check out the picture:

As you can see, I don't feel like typing much today...