Amorsley Family Website

Spring Break in Florida

Hazel and Wendy went to Florida for Spring Break. They were joined by Dawn and her sons, Cole and Lincoln. We all stayed with PePere and Grannie Annie and had a great time!!!

We went to the beach a couple times, Dawn and Wendy took the older kids to Sea World for an amazing day, and Grannie treated us a trip to the Brevard Zoo. We had a lovely afternoon with MeMere (who's an amazing 97 years old!), as well as rambunctions socializing with a bunch of the Morissette clan and a short visit with our Chamberlin/Brown cousins. Hazel and Cole got to meet tons of neighborhood kids and lucked out with the loan of a bike and scooter from a neighbor for the week. And of course, lots of pool time and a new activity with PePere: tool time! They learned about basic tools and using the vise.

Wendy was able to keep up her walking routine with Ann and Major, and was thrilled to be doing so without a coat, hat and gloves! We all got to ride on PePere's new Harley Davidson, a 2008 Street Glide, and Hazel and Cole both got to go on the highway!

Our gallery has all the pics Hazel and I took, including this one:

Dawn has her pictures on Flickr. You'll need to go here to see pics of Wendy that aren't self portraits!

This is my favorite one:

Local wildlife

Here's Walter, doing his best cinnamon role impression.

Yes, he is very cute.

Everyday we are treated to a performance from the Cirque du Squirrel troop living in our yard. This is one of their more basic tricks, Toe-Hook-While-Stuffing-Face.

Cold Snowy Days in January 2007

Yep, it's cold, there's been snow on the ground for over a week and there's supposed to be more on the way. I'm tired of dirty snow bits and black ice in the parking lot, but Hazel is having a ball, a big ball:

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Hazel created her giant snowball one day and when she came out the next day to continue rolling it around, it was frozen to the tundra that is our back yard. It's pretty heavy even when it's not stuck, so I showed her how to use leverage:

Hopefully that was a 'teach a man to fish' moment and she'll remember the benefits of leverage in the future.

I'm sure she's building up some big muscles here.

Queen of the Tundra!

Meet the new member of our family

It's been two months since our old man kitty Jordan was laid to rest in our pet cemetary. Our old lady cat Harlow has been mournful and lonely because Libby, our younger cat, hasn't been doing her job of cuddling and comforting. We were planning to get another boy kitty at some point but Harlow's mournful cries motivated us to speed up our timeline. Friday we called our fabulous vet's office to see if they had any boy kitties we could consider. The response was, "Come pick him up." The him in question is a 7-8 week old orange and white cutie pie with distinctive markings on his body. And it seems he was born very close to the time Jordan died.

Before we came up with his name we called him various things: Stinky, Booger, Little Guy. We considered names like Tornado, Hurricane, Cyclone, and Twister, all inspired by his swirls, but none of us are happy with those. We looked at male hurricane names, but weren't inspired. I came up with Gary, as in the Snail who sounds like a cat on Sponge Bob -- and the swirls. That name has been nixed by Hazel, for some reason. Hazel really favored 'Walter' -- Hazel loves the Walter the Farting Dog series and Little Guy *is* kinda stinky.

So, let us introduce you to Walter, who has a number of nicknames already: Stinky, Booger and Mouse.

I came, I purred, I conquered

Our memorial for Jordan and Maisy, our boys. The extra marker for Jordan, given to us by Sharon, says "I came, I purred, I conquered"

True Blue

Tulips and Cats

Here's our old man, Jordan. Jordan has cancer in his jaw and we know we don't have much time left with him, so it's nice to see him attending to his duties around the yard.

By special request, here are photos of our bountiful tulips.

They are amazingly tall. Growing next to the house and in lots of sun gives them an advantage over the ones behind the hedge.

Here's Jordo on his way back from drinking from a compost-pile puddle... he must have heard about the fortifying properties of compost water.

Tulips reaching for the afternoon sun.

Jordan on the prowl in the yard.

Daffies in Snow

Spring and winter co-exist in our backyard on a snowy March morning.

Halloweeeeeeen 2005

This year, Hazel was Art Director for our Pumpkin Carving Project. This is a design she drew of a happy pumpkin with a heart-shaped forehead jewel.

The Art Director chose this stencil for our larger pumpkin... Oooooooh, scary!

And finally, a shot of the Horse Trainer and her friends on a break between Trick or Treat runs.

Happy Holidays!

From our family to yours, we wish you a safe and happy new year. Work hard, play hard and make your dreams come true.

wildlife on the patio

This poor critter was being harassed by our cat, Libby, and took refuge on our patio. Wendy chased Libby away and for a long time the chipmunk stayed on the patio, shifting its position to stay in the shade.

I was surprised not only by the little guy staying close to the house for so long, but because I've never seen a chipmunk near any house I've lived at in this area. We always have gray squirrels, but these little critters are much less common.

San Diego Pics

"Hey, what's up with the winter pics? Get with the program, it's almost summer!"

Yeah, yeah, we know, we're waa-aay behind on updates to this site. We do have new pictures uploaded to our picture gallery, including ones from our San Diego vacation in March.

Our Great Big Fat Snow Day

This is what we woke up to this morning. It's still falling steadily and we've got between 2 and 3 inches accumulation so far. We're not trapped by any means, but we have no reason to leave the house. The temperatures are supposed rise today, with the snow turning to rain and all this loveliness turning to grey sludge.

Good thing we have time to go play today.

Sun falling on Cherry

Happy Holidays

Happy Happy Holly-Days from the Amorsley's.

We don't have much under our tree yet, but we do have cuddly gifts and gifts that cuddle.

Kitty Love

The weather has turned from summer to fall and the cats are finding places to nest. Here are Libby and Harlow, sharing a little bed in the office.

Not to be outdone, Maisy and Jordan also share the love, by making a nest on my lap.

Happy Hallowe'en

Last night I introduced Zelly to the time honored tradition of carving pumpkins just before Hallowe'en. She went with the Happy theme, while I stayed with my favorite, Scary. We got Scary's body from Dad, who also grew a very scarily large pumpkin. I'm not sure what Dad fed them, but Scary had 1.5 inch walls and was a beast to carve. The nice thing about a thick walled pumpkin, though, is that it holds its shape very well.

Tomorrow we'll get some pictures of Zelly in costume with her pumpkin friends, including the Really Really Big (I mean Really Big) Pumpkin that I can hardly move by myself.

Happy Birthday, Wendy!

Wendy had a birthday this weekend (8/17). I'm not going to say how old she is, but if you examine this photo carefully, you can probably figure it out.

Love ya, babe!

On the Beach

Camey, Zelly and Wendy enjoying vacation time on the Oregon coast.

To read about our beach vacation, see these Bugsplat entries:
Beach vacation, part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5: Concert Interlude and Wrap Up.

We'll put up some more beach related photos in the next few days.

Summer is Good For You

This happy couple displays the characteristics of people enjoying Summer. Don't let Summer slip by, begin the enjoyment now.

henna party

Last Friday we had a henna party at our house, courtesy of the fabulous Shannon and a secret henna recipe crafted by a friend of hers. We went online and surfed around to get ideas for our henna designs (search on 'henna tattoo' or 'mendi' or 'mehendi'). There are a lot of beautiful, intricate designs to be dazzled by. I decided early that I'd stick to something simple. For one of my feet I used a sea tortoise in Hawaiian tribal style.

We all worked on our own designs, with the exception of the work on Wendy's lower back.

Shannon got started with Wendy while Zelly and I painted our toenails. Wendy had a few ideas for Shannon to work with, but mostly left it up to her. The result is a beautiful design that may form the basis for a tattoo of the future.

To prepare the area for henna, you first cleanse it with rubbing alcohol or something similar that will remove your skin oils. Then you rub in eucalyptus oil and you're ready to henna. Shannon had the henna in two small squeeze bottles. I worked on my turtle design first. During and after the henna application, you pat the design with lime juice (which made me think of margaritas) to keep the henna moist and the skin sticky. The stickiness is useful when you're finished and you wrap it with tissue (that's what we used on our feet). You just want something that won't slip around and move your henna, gauze pads and tape are good for larger areas, like Wendy's back. This is very important since you need to leave the henna on for at least 12 hours and the longer you leave it on, the darker the design will be.

This is Wendy's henna design just after completion, still dripping with lime juice.

These are my feet the next morning, after carefully removing the tissue.

Here's Shannon's own design the next day.

Here are the feet of Buggy (left and right) and Wendy (center).

Here's Wendy's back a couple of days after.

cherry blossoms

Shown at the scale that a bird might be familiar with, these blossoms cover the giant flowering cherry tree that dominates our front yard.

Maisy in the Sink

Here's a shot of Maisy taken with our new digital camera. He's 10 months old and quite a bit bigger than his sister, Libby.

Artsy Farts

Every year Wendy and I go to The Painted Plate before Christmas to make gifts for family members. The Painted Plate is a 'paint-your-own' ceramic shop, offering a variety of greenware, glazes, sponges, stamps, templates and other tools. Ever year, we take a day and get creative, applying glaze to greenware. For the past 3 years we've gotten Zelly involved.

-- gold and blue plate by Wendy, handprint by Zelly

-- sponged yellow and rust red plate by Wendy, handprint by Zelly

-- polka dot picture frame by Wendy

-- green mitten by Wendy, handprint by Zelly. Note the layered snowflake motif.

-- square platter by Camey, artistic inspiration provided by the Keringke style of contemporary Eastern Arrenrnte Art (indiginous Australian)

-- fish platter by Camey, inspired by Keringke

-- cup and saucer, mitten motif, by Wendy. Note that the placement of mittens on cup and saucer match.

-- Keringke inspired cup and saucer by Camey

-- sponged green picture frame by Wendy

-- globe tree ornament by Zelly

-- teddy bear tree ornament by Zelly

-- bowl, Keringke inspired design by Camey

-- rice bowl by Wendy

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays to you from the Amorsleys -- Camey, Zelly and Wendy. Hope you had an enjoyable holiday season and we wish you a very happy new year.

The Morissette Women

Dawn, Sharon and Wendy share the love and giggles on Christmas Day, 2002.

Hugs Altogether

May 2002

This photo captures our family right after one of our frequent "hugs altogether." This practice was instituted by Zelly as a way to bring the family closer, literally. Now she wants everybody to do "hugs altogether" -- family, friends -- anybody within reach.