Rough Week

This week was a rough one for poor Tabby.  Though it started well enough.  Saturday morning was the Magic: the Gathering prerelease events for the new Kaladesh set of cards.  I went to an early morning event and did horribly in my matches.  1-1-2, and I was lucky to eek out the two ties.  But you know, there are worse ways to spend a morning than playing a fun game with good friends, even if you do poorly in the game.


What I was really excited about though is the Two Headed Giant event.  Two players put together decks and play as a team against other 2HG teams.  They do the event every prerlease and I'd like to take Tabby, but they don't start until 6 PM, which means not finishing until nearly 11 PM.  Kinda' late for a nine year old.  This time, however, they had a 2HG event Saturday afternoon at 2 PM.  Perfect! 


And Tabby & I kicked butt. I put together two decks for us that were okay individually; good, synergystic cards.  The real strength was how they complemented each other, though.  I mostly had spells that killed our opponents' creatures and Tabby mostly had creatures with a real high power to cost efficiency.  So I killed blockers while Tabby threw out attacker after attacker after attacker and steamrolled our opponents.  We went 3-1.  Two of the games ending just ridiculously quickly.  And the one game we lost was very close.  Like, we could have won if I'd drawn just one of my 8 swamps.  And even that round, we won a door prize.  Literally, we won something every round.  It was a lot of fun.


One hint of problem though.  As Tabby & were chatting between rounds about her mice, she mentioned that poor Cornflower had an injured paw.  Like, having trouble walking.  So she had carefully put her in a soft kleenex bed.  In a kleenex box on her dresser.


Me: "Did you remember to put her back in the cage before we left?"
Tabby: "Yeah, I think so."
Phone call.
Becky: "Jack, there's a problem, Tabby left her mouse cage door open and I don't see the mice anywhere."
Me: "Hm.  Maybe check the kleenex box on her dresser?"
Becky: "What?  Why? Seriously?"
pause
Becky; "Sure enough.  They're back in the cage."


So we got home flying high after the tournament, check on the mice and found a terrible shock.  Cornflower didn't have an injured paw, she'd actually broken her back.  She couldn't move her back legs or tail at all.  She could just scoot around by pulling with her front paws. It was so sad.  Tabby cried and held Cornflower as much as she could all night.


We figured out that Cornflower actually got around okay.  She could reach her food and water and crawl all over the cage.  She could even climb the tubes in the cage.  Getting up the tall tube took a couple tries, but she managed it.


Tabby had planned on making a YouTube video.  She's been doing research about getting a rat as a pet, which involved watching videos, and she found a wonderful content maker called the Rat Guru who has inspired Tabby to create some of her own.  After finding Cornflower with a broken back, though, she changed her plans to make a video tribute to how strong Cornflower was.  It's a short, sweet video taken with a bad camera ... but it's pretty good for a nine year old's first ever video content.


Monday I kind of got the day off work.  The intranet connection between Green Bay and Indianapolis was broken.  All my work is on the Indianapolis server. All of it.  So I went home and did yard work.


When Tabby got home from school she got Cornflower out of her cage and sat down to pet & cuddle her while watching YouTube videos.  I walked downstairs about an hour later or so to see how it was going and found Tabby in tears, "Cornflower passed away, Dad.  She just fell asleep and now she's dead."  Oh man, it was so sad.  I held Tabby while she cried and cried and cried.  I felt awful.  Even Becky, who never really liked the mice, felt awful.  "Gah, why do I feel so sad about a stupid mouse?"  But she did.


So we had a nice mouse funeral Monday evening and buried Cornflower under the apple tree out back.  We also ran to the PetSmart and bought another mouse so that Springald wouldn't be alone.  Another albino, Cornflower 2.


Tuesday morning also started out fun: Daddy/daughter breakfast at Tabby's school!  We were excited about it all morning, had fun with the short clue hunt around the school before we got our food.  Sat down to eat and Tabby said, "I don't feel well."  When it turned out she couldn't even take more than a sip of her juice, I decided I'd take her home.  On the way to retrieve her stuff from her locker she just exploded.  Projectile vomit across the floor.  At least she aimed down and managed to hit a spot where no one was walking next to us.


Poor Tabby.  She gets that way sometimes and we're not sure why.  Stress maybe?  She'll get sick, throw up all morning, take a nap and wake up fine.  By lunchtime she was all better.  could probably even have gone back to school, but we don't quite feel comfortable with, "Our daughter is better now, we're letting her go back to school."


"You mean the girl that threw up all over our floor about three hours ago?"


Hm.  So she got the whole day off.


This weekend we're going to Chicago.  And Ben is taking some SAT specialized subject tests.  Should be exciting.  Hopefully it turns out to be all good instead of the ups and downs of the past week.

Recent pictures.

9/15 - 9/18 we took our annual trip to the Chequamegon Fat Tire Fest.  Only this time we went up a day early to do some touristing.  We stopped at an old fire tower that had been converted into a Bayfield county museum.

And stopped at a park where everyone climbed trees.  Even Grandma.

The highlight of that first evening, though, was a boat tour of the sea caves near the Apostle Islands.  These are the same caves that freeze over most winters.

We saw some bald eagles.  Including a couple of juveniles that didn't yet have their white feathers.

Moonrise was cool.

We had a great time playing around on Lake Delta.  Tabby even decided that this was the year she'd get a Kayak all to herself.

We had planned to hike up to Morgan falls and St Peter's Dome.  But this dirt road?  Washed out in the summer flooding.  Up a bit from this beautiful scene the road gets awful.  I'm sure there are vehicles that could get through to the hiking trail ... but not our minivan.

Of course Becky took the chance to walk around and shoot some fabulous pictures.

The bike race happened!

Ben showing off his new hat in the cany store.

Winner! At least of the three in our party

Evidence that Mike finally beat his Dad.

Once again we stopped at Copper Falls on the way home.

Just this past Saturday, Santi played in a soccer tournament.  We crushed Fond du Lac 8-0 on Friday night, then lost 3-1 to Pius.  This is the Pius game.

Pictures! Late Summer.

It just wouldn't be summer without waterskiing with Uncle Mikey.

Or without Becky taking us on excursions to beaches.  Or other settings to snap pictures.  Though I suppose that's not unique to Summer.  Just more daylight hours to capture in the Summertime.

One such excursion took Tabby and her friend, Ella, to Cave Point.  Apparently there's a trail that we never before followed to its end.  Which is a shame.  At its end there is a really cool beach covered with rock piles.

I mentioned that Tabby got mice, right?  Her albino is named Cornflower.  She also has a black & white named Springald.

Reading Redwall, Of course!

Tabby turned 9!

This year, they choreographed dances with sparklers.

Early August there is a national safety day, or something like that, on which neighborhoods are encouraged to hold activities and invite community emergency responders as a kind of get to know you thing.  Ashwaubenon is a great community, I really like our neighborhood and that we do this is one of the reasons.

The highlight is when the firetruck comes by and foams up a lawn for the kids.

My nephew Ryan graduated from high school last year.  In August he held his graduation celebration at Eau Claire Dells.

Mid August, the Ore to Shore Bike race happened.  I had to work this year, but Sam, Ben and Tabby all went up to the UP Michigan with Becky.  They hiked around some,

Played at the cabins,

and of course, saw the race.

Tabby's annual pictures turned out fabulous.

The last week of August, Santiago Yrayzoz arrived from Spain.  Or from Paris, actually.  He's from Cádiz, but lives in Paris.  That first day we drove out down the river to visit the dam in De Pere.

The next week Becky took him, Ben and Tabby to meet up with Ryan Chadderdon at Eau Claire Dells again.  Probably her very favorite place to photograph.

First day of school!

First weekend of September was the annual Kite Festival in Two Rivers.  Jackson and Sam came up to hang out with us at Neshota Beach.

At dusk, Becky had fun playing with ghosted images.

On Labor Day we hung out at Bay Shore Park for a bit.

Santi plays soccer.  His first game here was in Sheboygan, so Becky & Tabby took the opportunity to go visit Jack for a bit, then watch Santi's game.

They won, like, 5-0.  In fact, the team is in third place in the conference now at 8-2.  Which is spectacular considering that they only won 8 games total last year.

September 10th was advancement testing in Tae Kwon Do.  See the girl on the left here, getting ready to kick that guys butt?  That's Michelle, she lives up the street from us and Tabby absolutely loves her.  Michelle walks our neighbor, Mary Ann's dog every morning and hangs out with the kids at the bus stop for a bit with the dogs.  Turns out she's taking TKD too!

A bit after she tested, us white belts got our turn.  Tabby & I both passed and will get our yellow belts next time we have class.

Woo hoo, Chon ji!

Showing off our side kick form!

 One step sparring.

September 11th the student exchange program held an orientation at Peninsula State Park in Door County.

And there we go.  Caught up just in time to fall behind when Becky takes a billion pictures at the Chequamegon Fat Tire Fest this weekend.  It's going to be an awesome time.  I'll tell you about it later.