Cood and the Chipmunk

Warm weather means the doors and windows open in our house. First thing in the morning we open the back slider and the front door to get the fresh air circulating. For Cood, this is an exciting time of year as he doesn't move from the screens unless he has to eat or go to his litter box....it's that exciting. There are a whole lot of birds and chipmunks that tease him. We have decided they know he is an indoor cat and therefore he won't be able to come after them. They tweet, flit and run by the screen doors tempting their fate. Meanwhile, Coodie just sits there with his tail flicking back and forth looking as though he may pounce at any minute.

Sometimes, we do let him into the front yard as our condo is nestled in a "v" that allows some protection from danger for Cood. Ryan saw the chipmunk running around and decided to let Coodie out to see what would happen. Well.... not much! The chipmunk froze and did not move a muscle as soon as our front door swung open. At this point, we decided that Coodie might be somewhat blind (or maybe only detects motion) as Ryan held him up to the tree branch the chipmunk was perched on and Coodie had no idea what was going on....He was INCHES away from his nemesis and ... nothing.

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Meanwhile, he pretends to be a badass at the screen meowing and tail wagging at any animal that dare cross his path!

Coodie's Rough Week

Coodie has super long hair and he has to be combed daily. Once a year, it is also good to give him a bath because the shedding starts to get crazy as summer starts. Bathing is obviously a stressful event for Coodie so our vet recommended we give him a prescription medication to calm him down ahead of time, Acepromazine, also known as the "twilight" pill.

Last Sunday, we gave him the pill in the morning with the intention of bathing him and giving him a good comb out. Well, he was an absolute mess about 30 minutes after swallowing the pill. His back legs wouldn't function, his inner eyelid was omnipresent and he was so lethargic but seemingly unable to sleep. Then, we tried to comb him and he got nasty...he even hissed (which he has never done). He pretty much acted like he was drunk! We felt so bad for putting him through that almost immediately. We didn't think it would affect him like this because he is 13 pounds (bigger than a lot of cats) and it also lasted about 11 hours. I had to carry him up and down the stairs, into his litter box and give him little bowls of water as he was unable to jump up to his little water fountain. Below, is a photo toward the end of the day. Poor Cood was a complete mess.

He seemed to be pretty back to normal if not a bit tired the next morning as I headed off to Rhode Island for work for the week. Ryan then called me Monday night to tell me that his face looked a little swollen. At this point, we simply thought it was a side effect of those terrible meds. Ryan sent me this photo to show me his little face all puffy:
The next morning, Ryan called me around 6am and sent me the next photo:

Coodie looked like he was carrying nuts in his cheek! Being the good dad that he is, Ryan packed Coodie up and took him to the vet. He had to stay for the day and get some shots. The vet advised that it appeared to be a spider bite (he probably had no energy to swipe the spider off after that pill!) and Cood had to have some antihistamine shots and be watched for the day as it could be dangerous if this went back to his throat.

$150 later, the little orange guy is back to normal and as "sparky" as ever. I am now researching more natural methods to chill him out and if worse comes to worse, we will let him stress out a little when he is groomed!

Off to Seattle!

Todd dropped us at the train station on Portland early Tuesday morning as we were headed off on Amtrak to Seattle for the last few days of our trip. We had never been to Seattle so we figured since it was only a 3 and a half hour train ride from Portland, we should extend our vacation and spend a few days there.


First of all, the train was fantastic...so roomy and comfortable with big old leather seats and a bistro where we got coffee and delish oatmeal with dried fruit and brown sugar. Did I mention it was super cheap?!? Ryan and I took the time to relive our time in Portland through the videos and photos we had taken on our laptop.


Also, the weather. Wow...7 days in the Pacific Northwest and all sun and in the 70's. No kidding! While in Portland a year ago, we had all rain and overcast conditions - we still had an amazing time, but the weather was icing on the cake for this trip.



But, again, I digress. We were going to Seattle. Here we go!



Our first stop in Seattle was the famous Pike Place Market. We went back here several times as it was only 7 or 8 blocks from our hotel. Here are some photos from the market:

Our first time....

As sunset was upon us.

Another view.
Many of you may have seen the corporate video about teamwork that featured the Pike Place Fish people or you might have just seen them on the Real World. Basically, when they get an order, they throw the fish and yell in unison. Pretty fun to see in person!


They have this crazy looking monkfish on a string and pull it back and out to surprise the people passing by.
There was also entertainment each day...
Check out the flowers...only $15!



The produce was amazing with equally amazing prices. What I wouldn't give to have a market like this close to us. The sign on the apples above cracked me up....watch out for the "applanche"!

There were pigs all over Pike Place. I had to give one of them a squeeze!

Behind Pike Place Market was a neat little park overlooking the water. There was only one little problem....a freeway in the middle. Who designed that??

So, we did go elsewhere aside from the market while we were there...well, a few places....



There were some pretty cool hills in the middle of the city that allowed a view to the water from several blocks away.

Post Alley. We hit some neat places for drinks and the like down here.
Here I am at one of these places...the Kells. We had baked brie with soda bread and fruit. True Irish style!
Ryan and I ...downtown by the water.

We also hit a few of the tourist attractions since it was our first visit. Number one on that list was the Space Needle. Right next door was the "Experience Music Project" as well as the Science Fiction Museum. One purchased pass got you into both otherwise we probably wouldn't have bothered with the Science Fiction piece (sorry, Trekkies).

We rode on a fairly empty monorail to get there.
Funny enough, the "Experience Music Project" was supposed to be pretty cool. You can play all of these instruments and create your own video. However, there was a large group of middle schoolers on a field trip that swarmed the place and made it a bit difficult to navigate. Ryan was able to get a room with an electric guitar, keyboard and drums all amplified for about 10 minutes before the tweens started knocking on the door.

Believe it or not, the Science Fiction Museum ended up being better solely due to the Jim Henson exhibit. We snuck a photo in of Bert, Ernie and I before the photo police came to get us. There were also Fraggles there, too!
Next stop, Space Needle! Pretty quick and pricey trip but worth it to experience at least once.

A view from the top....

I had to give a shout out to 2 other places. First was our hotel, the Fairmont Olympic. Sounds and looks and was super expensive...but, since I always book my hotels on Hotels.com, I get alerted when they are having a sale and I got our room for 50% off plus I had a $50 coupon from a previous visit. All in all, we got away with one of the cheapest hotels we have ever stayed in and it was also the nicest! Fantastic service and a huge room with a comfy bed.

And, on our last night in Seattle, we had dinner at The Taphouse. Great beer selection (160 on tap, holy cow!) and martinis. The food was also fantastic (sushi, pasta, burgers, etc. etc.). It is on 6th Ave just a few blocks from where we stayed.

Phew...can you believe we only stayed in Seattle for 2 days? We definitely squeezed a lot in and got our money's worth. Luckily we had our walking shoes on, who knows how many miles we put on those sneaks!


We are still a bit on west coast time, staying up too late and sleeping in. Work on Monday morning is going to be a harsh awakening! But, at least we are refreshed and had a wonderful time!

The Kiddos

I have been trying to separate these blogs out evenly so they make sense with the special things we did while on vacation. However, there are some photos that do not fall into neat categories (oh, the horror!) so I am dedicating this blog to those photos, named "The Kiddos" because they are mostly of ...well... the kiddos! Here they are:
Grant asleep after a long walk in downtown Portland.

Owen up bright and early with Uncle Ryan. He came up between 6 and 6:30am every day and crawled into bed with us. We could only convince him to let us sleep an extra 20 minutes or so until he started tugging at Uncle Ryan's sleeve to come and have cereal with him, which of course, he was more than happy to do! After cereal, they would go out back and play basketball. Too much fun!

Dinner time for Grant!

Our trip to the Niketown Employee store. Look at those future athletes!
Owen...in a tree! Multnomah Falls.And, I had to throw in another pic of Gracie. We missed Cood so much but she was a pretty darn good substitute!Thanks to the west coast McCagues for another fantastic trip! Can't wait to do it again!

Grant's First

We were lucky enough to be part of Grant's First Birthday Party while we were out in Portland which proved to be a lot of fun. Ryan blew up balloons and shopped with Todd for patio furniture and also set up said furniture as well as a volleyball/badminton net. I helped Cathy make cupcakes and cole slaw and had the priviledge of putting the birthday boy down and getting him up from his naps on the big day. He was a trooper, had several guests and did not fuss at all!Here is Uncle Ryan blowing up a ton of balloons the night before!Phew, the guys and gal (Bondi the dog) were pooped after all the party preppingUncle Ryan and Owen fill up the Loch Ness monster pool for the festivities.The cupcakes. Check out the cute labels that Cathy made. Can you tell what the theme was?The morning of the party...Grant opening his gifts mailed from all over.Sometimes you don't realize what a good photo you have until you get home and blow it up. Look at little bro Grant looking up at his big bro, Owen. So cute!Grant and I on the big day!Mom and Dad helping Grant with his Birthday cupcake.And....a happy Birthday boy with some cupcake on his chin! Happy First, buddy!

Multnomah Falls

Pretty cool, but tourist-crazed. I haven't checked this but I was told this was these were the second highest falls next to Niagara. Since I have never been to Niagara, this sounds good to me! Here are some photos:

This was a photo taken on an old highway on a detour to the falls. Pretty amazing view!