Big Cats, Big Progress and Big Rain

This is kind of a mish mash post since I've been ignoring this blog for the last week and have a few notable events to mention.

Last week we had some absolutely gorgeous spring weather. Mike and Dylan took advantage of it and had a very spur of the moment zoo trip with Mike's Dad. He's been doing well post surgery and was looking to get out on a walk and use his crutches a little more. So, with our new zoo pass in hand, they went to the Stoneham Zoo (near Mike's parents' house). Mike, Dylan and Bumpa (what Dylan will call Mike's Dad) had a great time roaming around the zoo.

I asked Mike for some of his favorite pictures of the day. They were all of the big cats! Those kitties were pretty active that day. In fact, the snow leopard was VERY interested in Bumpa....perhaps almost too interested. The cat stalked him as he walked by on his crutches and was eyeing him the whole time he was in sight.

Snow Leopard Giving Bumpa the Eye!!!

Jaguar
Cougar

I learned of their little outing after the fact which was probably for the best. I was pretty jealous of my father in law getting to enjoy such a nice, fun day at the zoo with Mike and Dylan while I was stuck at work. Something I'll just have to get used to, I'm sure.

Speaking of missing things while at work, I also missed the first event of a huge milestone with Dylan. Apparently, crawling (after knowing how a week and a half) was no longer challenging for him because he was ready to move on to the next step - pulling up to stand! He did this on Mike at the end of last week. Mike called me instantly. Lucky for me, Dylan was more than happy to recreate the event on me that evening. I caught it on video this weekend. So far, he's limited this new skill to our legs....surely furniture will come next.

After the wonderful sunny weather we had last week, we've had nothing but rain since Friday. A lot of it. It's really causing some problems around town and our house hasn't been excluded. Now, we don't have a water tight basement by any means, but, in 5 years of living in it, we've never had water in it like we do now. I had to wade through about 3-4 inches at the bottom of my stairs to get to my washer and dryer last night. We reassessed the damage this morning and somehow, after a night of continued rain, it's not quite as bad as last night.

Unfortunately, as I was leaving for work this morning, I discovered that our carpet tiles in the mudroom are soaking wet. So wet that our sub floor is starting to buckle. Not good. I moved out one of the new benches to keep it from getting damaged and Mike's gotten in touch with our contractor who is going to have someone come check it out. I'm crossing my fingers that it's an easy fix. The rain is expected to end tomorrow so we'll just have to wait it out and then do what we can to reverse the effects of it. Here's hoping for sunny skies soon.