Great Saturday

I had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday, my father, my sister, and my sister's four kids made the drive up to Rochester to visit me. Due to the number of stops that they had to make for the kids, it took them about an hour longer than normal to make the trip, but they managed to get her about 11:00 or so. They got here and we got the van all unloaded. Thirty seconds later, the official question came from Liam: "Where's Precious?" Bear in mind that this is before we even get in the house.

There was a minor casualty in the process of ushering everyone indoors. There was a screw missing in the floorplate under the front door. It's been missing all long, no big deal. But apparently, someone stepped on the floorplate just right so that it bowed up a bit. The net result was that we couldn't get the door closed. (Thank goodness the cat had already been spooked by one of the kids and went into hiding. Otherwise, we would've had to worry about keeping her indoors while we fixed the problem.) So Dad grabbed the tools he brought with him (he was already planning on fixing my bookcase for me) and started looking at the door. After hammering at the floorplate for several minutes, he dug through his box of screws and found one that would fit the open hold. Once he tightened that down, the floorplate snugged back into place and the door closed perfectly fine. Like I said, minor adventure. But I was glad he was there to fix it. Otherwise, I would've had to call the office and get them to send maintenance around. Hopefully, they would've been quick about it, as I believe that not being able to close your front door is classified as an "emergency" matter. But all the same, I was glad Dad was there to do it, because he was even quicker.

While Dad finished up the great door disaster, I gave Stephanie the tour of the house. She thought it was fantastic. She also spotted the recycling bins, and we got those sorted. I had thought about my utility knife, my scissors, my cleaning supplies, and other various things Warren might have gotten into, but I didn't think about the sharp cans in the recycling bins. So we stacked them up, making sure the cans were on the bottom.

Amazingly, Warren left both the cat food dishes (yes, my cat gets two different cat food dishes) and litter box alone. He never even looked at them. That surprised me. Stephanie said he's usually into everything, and I was hestitant to move that stuff. But it was fine.

We then went to BK for lunch, my treat. Fortunately, it was a slow day still at the BK we went to. The kids were a bit wound up (understandable, considering the fact they had sat in a moving vehicle for two hours just prior to this), so they'd go sit at the tables with my dad only to decide they'd rather be up at the counter with Stephanie and me. So they were running back and forth a bit. But overall, I'd say they were pretty well behaved.

After that, we all piled back into the van and headed for the Eastview Mall, which was about half an hour away. I pointed out the plaza my office is in as we passed it. I considered stopping, but decided there was no point. We couldn't get into the building on a Saturday and there's no point in just driving by to see the outside (even though it is located in a pretty sweet area and has some great landscaping around it).

Once we got to the mall, we decided to get a stroller for Warren. He was getting a little tired by that time, and we hoped a stroller would convince him to take a nap. It worked beautifully. Of course, this resulted in Liam trying to tell us he was too tired to walk. Fortunately, his tune changed when Stephanie told him that if he was too tired to walk, we'd have to forget about going to the Build-A-Bear Workshop and just go back to my place. As all of the kids have wanted to make their own stuffed animal (they had seen a similar store down in MS) for a month or two now, that did the trick. Suddenly, Liam wasn't too tired to walk. So we walked around the mall until we got to Build-A-Bear.

As Warren was still sleeping, we decided to leave him and Dad out in the hallway while Stephanie and I took the other three kids into the store to make their bear. Stephanie did make a bear for Warren, though. So it wasn't like he was completely left out. By the time we were at the second station, we were glad we left Warren in the hallway with Dad, though. The store was absolutely crowded and the process took a lot longer than either Stephanie or I expected. But we managed to survive.

The end results were absolutely adorable. Kyra ended up getting a white cat with a "glittery" tail, which she then proceeded to dress in a wedding gown and white shoes. She ended up naming her cat "Glitter." Alyssa got a beagle she christened "Christie", which she proceeded to dress in a pink poodle skirt (and let me tell you, I've been amused by the idea of a beagle in a "poodle skirt" ever since) and pink tennis shoes. Liam got a brown bear he named Joey-Bear and dressed in a fisherman's outfit and sandals. And Stephanie put together a black bear for Warren and put it in a floppy fisherman's hat, canvas short, and sandals as well. She named him Milton. I'll have to talk to Stephanie about getting pictures to post, because I didn't even think to take any.

I have to admit that the whole process was more expensive than I really expected it to be. The animals themselves weren't too bad, but the prices the store charges for the clothes is pretty steep, in my opinion. But I know the Build-A-Bear workshop in Syracuse actually gives a portion of their proceeds to various wildlife projects, animal shleters, and similar organizations. So I'm hoping this one works the same way. Besides, putting the smiles on all of the kids' faces was well worth every penny. Who cares if I blew my budget for September. As long as I do better in October....

Then we came back to my house and the kids watched The Lion King on DVD while we waited for pizza. (We ordered delivery from Papa John's.) After supper and when the movie was over, Stephanie, Dad, and the kids all climbed back into the van and headed back to PA. The house was kind of quiet after that.

Of course, the silence made Precious happy. They weren't gone for five minutes before she crept out of her hiding place. She came downstairs, gobbled down her food, and spent the rest of the night with me. I was a little disappointed that she hid the entire time company was there, but I can't blame her, really. When Kyra came in the front door (and she was the first one in), Precious was about six feet away. Well, Kyra rushed at her and she bolted. I'm hoping the kids eventually learn that you have to be a bit more cautious around cats. Kyra didn't mean to scare her, but sudden movements like that tend to spook Precious. Heck, there've been times she's almost bolted because I moved too suddenly or too quickly. And then the rest of the day, the kids would go looking for her and pestering her, which just added to her shyness. Ah well, I suppose this is to be expected from small children, especially when they're more used to being around dogs than cats.