The ultimate cat tree

At the risk of becoming a "cat lady", I recently purchased my dream cat tree.  It arrived in a huge box, all 65 pounds of it, along with a ridiculous diagram of how to put it together, which I managed to figure out. 

Grendel and Penny...best friends (during naptime anyway)

Christmas 2010 at Sarah and Trent's place in the East Mountains

Junior, the three-legged pit bull.  Isn't he just the cutest?!

My darling kitty cats

Guess what's in the suitcase?

It's Miss Grendel hiding out!

Must be a bug near the lightbulb

My "chat noir"

Miss Penny loooves to cuddle! She is so sweet!

Fun Photos from Rapid City, SD Thanksgiving 2010 - I might add, I took some liberties with the edit option in photobucket on some of them!

Custer, SD - we went to my mom's favorite store and they had these amazing horses outside and I loved the building next to them, too!

My favorite picture out in the plains of SD, a man walking his dinosaur

This is one of the pictures I took when we were coming back into Rapid City.  I caught the lights just right in this one.

The following pictures are from the Train Museum in Hill City, SD

Another of my favorite

Can you tell where this one was taken?

Halloween 2010 - Keele and I went to the Treasurer's office during lunch. It was amazing! They really go all out every year to decorate. Unfortunately my batteries pooped out after I took pictures of the window and the front of the office. What you don't see is that there are rooms off the back where there are cubicles and they are decorated as well. One room was cleared out with a stage set up for an Elvis impersonater, another had all the lights turned out with a black light and life-sized prow of a ship and nautical theme, another room had a fake fireplace with a small table and 2 wingback chairs in front of it and lots of dead people and a coffin. It was amazing! And, I might add, in the basement of a city building.

Bernalillo County Treasurer's office - zoom in to get how detailed it was!

This is the front, if you know someone (Keele) and can go back, the other fabulously decorated rooms are at the back!

Tamara as Snooki
P.S. The reactions Keele and I got when we went out to Sandia Casino after work for drinks and appetizers were priceless.  I would say that most people in Albuquerque do NOT know who Snooki from Jersey Shore is.  I think most of the people we saw just thought I was a tramp! And Keele said that no one would make eye contact with her (whether that was because she was with me or because people didn't know she was dressed up is a whole other issue - it was super fun and a great study in human behavior!)

Keele as Marilyn Monroe

Fourth of July Canyon, near Tajique, NM. My friend, Keele, and I went to take pictures here yesterday. I don't believe I have ever seen maple trees up close and personal like this. I took a over a hundred pictues and they were all beautiful. It was hard but I have limited my posting to about 15, trying to give you an idea of what you see on the way there, there, and on the way out. As a point of note, the road out was completely awful but well worth it because we saw a bobcat run across the road!

My lovely friend, Keele

On the way there, this is what the landscape looks like. 

Hard to believe you go from that to this in one short hour!

The Fourth of July Campground and trail.  The campground is gorgeous and the sites are wonderful and shady, but it would sure be tough to get in there with a trailer of any kind due to the narrow, rough road.

The next series of pictures were all taken on the short, easy trail we took.

The end of the trail.

On the way back to the car.

This is the road out. Passenger cars are not allowed, for good reason! Luckily we had Keele's boyfriend's SUV so we were able to take this road out.  Otherwise, you just go back the way you came in.

Besides the bobcat, this view was definitely worth the hassle of driving that rough road back to civilization!