This morning I stopped by the lake and took a few quick shots right after sunrise. The geese were annoyed, so all the pictures show is their rear end swimming away. But it was beautiful and peaceful. And really early.

And Merlin has a girlfriend now. They are inseparable and so sweet together. Seeing them sleeping with one arm over each other is so commonplace that I rarely take pictures. That, and by the time I find my camera, they've changed position or gotten up to help me look for it. I guess... I don't know what they are doing half of the time. But what I do know is that they've FINALLY calmed their little butts down. I guess adding a lady to the mix settled them. Plus the main culprit is at the end of his cute-yet-terribly-annoying kitten stage and now spends most of his time sleeping like a good little partner.

Oh they still make a couple laps around the room here and there, but it's not the crazed incessant chasing it used to be. Plus (and this is a BIG plus), neutering Merlin somehow redirected his bathroom habits to the place they should have been all along. Thank. God.

So it turns out adding one more actually turned the world right-side up again. The kittens we were surprised with also all found homes, as well as the rest of the original pack outside (Merlin's two sisters). A friend of ours was looking for cats to bring to his farm to help control his mouse population, so we loaded up our little pack of hunters last night and delivered them to their new home. A happy ending all around.

In non-feline news, the boys collected some of their allowance money they've been saving and made a trip to the store this morning to purchase the new Lego Harry Potter Wii game. And I can't say they haven't earned every bit of it. They've been great little helpers lately - drying dishes, pulling weeds, picking up sticks out of the yard. We've all been pulling together to help keep things going while I've been working this extra job. This morning was my last day, so even though the horizon is shaping up to be pretty crazy, for now we all get a well deserved reprieve.