We're on our way to Nana's Ranch!

So on July 17th, 2010....we decided to go on a trip for the Summer holiday!
I gathered my Babyz, Saskia, Jaunie, and my new twins Kasseopeia and Genovefa, and we piled into the car. We drove off to our Nana's Ranch, that fine day, singing to the tune of "We're on our way to Grandpa's Farm" the whole way there. Only later did I realize what a mistake that was, getting them into that horrible song. We stopped on the way to pick up Nadia, whose mom adopted Jaunie to me.
So now with five little kids singing in the back, I couldn't get to Nana's Ranch fast enough.

However once we arrived, it was quite dark. The kids all said a sleepy hello to Nana, who insisted they get inside to bed. She showed me to where they would sleep, so I put them to bed. (The bed is much longer out then it looks. :P)

Where do I sleep? Nana decided to have me bunk in the cellar. Somehow I feel like she likes the Babyz more then me, hmph.

Before I fell asleep, I got a call from home. Portia had been crying because she'd wanted to come, and we left her home! Since Jaunie had been crying on the way here, because we also forgot to bring our dog Rory, like I promised, I asked if they might bring Portia and Rory in the morning.

~~~

The next morning, Nana is in the kitchen making breakfast. I was watching the girls play with Nana's four Chihuahuas, and as I leaned against the open kitchen door, chatted to Nana. I commented on her Chihuahuas, saying how beautiful they were. Nana talked so lovingly about them... "Oh, they are AMAZING dogs! I suppose their only faults would be that they get snippy around new people, Why, the only time I was ever bitten by any of them, is when I tried to take Brooke's bone, the dear is so attached to her items." I felt my heart skip a beat.

I whirled and eyed the girls, horrified.

"I-Is that so??" I stammered, trying to keep Nana talking, while I gathered the girls up and away from the snippy dogs.
Later on, Nana told me that the only dog who WASN'T snippy, was Bluey. Her black and white Chihuahua. He was scaredy with new people, but he'd warmed up to us well. So I didn't mind the girls playing with Bluey, but the other dogs were off-limits.

After breakfast, the girls went out riding on ponies! While they were out, Portia and Rory arrived, so I sent the two to catch the others.


When the girls were putting the ponies back in the stables, later on, they found tons of barn catz! And the dog, Chuckie, who helped herd sheep. Nadia saw some newborn kittens, and started thinking of ways to get her mom to let her have some...


Later that day, we even visited a little yard where Nana's bunnies played.

Saskia was a little pouty because she wanted one...Nadia and Portia were getting hyper and silly, and were fighting over who held the baby bunny. I told them to take turns, and they calmed down though, thankfully. No bunny scratches for us today!

We heard barking over the fence, in the distance. We went to see what it was, and we saw three dogz herding sheep! Saskia was delighted to see Chuckie with them. As we sat nearby and watched, I saw a fourth dog shoot past us, barking wildly... Uh oh. We forgot to fence off Rory from the sheep! Rory tried to help, but really she just made a mess of things, hehe.


Sheep herding wasn't all Rory made a mess of...somehow the four dogz had got very muddy trying to regather the sheep. Since it WAS the fault of our dog, we decided to clean them off for Nana!

To say the least, Rory was not happy.

By this time, Nadia wouldn't stop talking about the kittens, asking if I thought her mom would let her keep one, and so on. So I took her picture with all the kittens she liked best.

And we put it on a postcard, and sent it home.


And Nadia told me exactly what to write on it. However, little did I know the trouble it caused at her house...


Now all of the Babyz back home wanted a kitten as well...hmm.

~~~

Later that night, Nana and I got into a little fight when the kids were playing in their playroom. Nana had plans to breed her Chihuahuas...in fact, the females had given birth earlier this week! I kept telling her this was a bad idea because her Chihuahuas were very badly behaved, nobody would ever take the puppies, if they were raised by Nana. Since she'd raised her own, and they weren't nice. Somehow, the discussion started to turn into, "What would you do if they came here and took your dogs?" And I also added how unfair that would be for the kids and Bluey, since he was a good dog, and they'd be sad if he was taken. And eventually...it led to...
"Nana, don't you think Bluey could stay with us? I'd like the puppies too, because they shouldn't stay in this house with your other Chihuahuas." She was annoyed with me by this point, and just told me she'd think it over.

It didn't take long though for her to decide. We went to check on the kids.

All of the girls, except the younger twins, were standing and laughing. The twins shot them jealous looks. Bluey leapt onto his front legs, as if trying to out-do the girls. Brooke and Cherry, the two mommy dogz, watched them anxiously. At one point, Bluey went to close to his own pups, and Brooke went crazy and attacked him. Bluey never fought, unless to defend himself. He snapped back a little, but Saskia grabbed him and yanked him away from Brooke. At the same moment, I grabbed Saskia, holding Bluey, away from Brooke. She just snarled at us, and went back to lay over her puppies.

Nobody was hurt, but Bluey quivering in Saskia's arms seemed to be a wake-up call to Nana.

~~~

We'd spent about five days here, and I kept getting phone calls from home...we really needed to head home. On our final night, I woke from my sleep to giggling, shushing, and animal toenails against the hard cellar floor. I squinted into the dark, and saw the kids sneaking down into the cellar with Bluey, the pups, and two kittens. The kittens were supposed to stay in the barn! Rory was quite shocked with our sudden guests. I guess the kids were trying to hide the pets they wanted to keep, hehe.


As we were preparing to leave, Nana finally agreed to let me take Bluey and the puppies. Two were his babies, one wasn't. But we needed to get the puppies out of there, or their parents might teach them to behave like them. Nana promised to work on training her dogs. And agreed to no more breeding until then. She also said the kittens were ready to go home...we just needed word from Nadia's mom, and she'd send them over.

Overall, this summer vacation was great! We all hope to visit Nana again soon. Here's the whole gang that left that day...
Looks like we gained a few animals...



The End.