Pretty flower and climbing cat

Several years ago we moved into our house in the middle of the winter - New Year's Eve to be exact. It was really fun to see what bloomed that spring. We had no idea what some of the plants were going to be. Imagine how excited we were to find fragrant jasmine, roses, flowering trumpet vine, and this.....




Each summer we are graced with these HUGE dinner-plate sized hibiscus blooms. Each one lasts for about a day. This bush is planted in our back yard, next to the fence. We thought it was some kind of weed for the longest time...then one day it bloomed. Such a nice surprise!

Totally changing the topic now. We have two cats - Della and Ollie. Della is strictly an indoor cat. She thinks she wants to go outside, but she takes two steps out of the door and runs back in. Ollie, on the other hand, is our adventurer. I think the only thing he loves more than the dog (more on that some other time - this cat has identity issues) is climbing things. The other day, I happened to look out side and see the following sight:



It's kinda hard to see, but that's Ollie standing on top of the arbor. When I first saw him he was laying down, batting at the red lights we have strung up like they were a super-cool toy we had hung just for him. Dumb cat. I couldn't figure out how he got up there. He must have read my mind, cause he continued to show me how he did it!