An Addition to our Home - Meet Cider

After Gemini died, I knew I wanted another cat.  I found that this was not an easy process.  I tried a lot of phone calls.  Then I started following the Oregon Humane Society and other shelters.  They would have kitties available but by the time I requested adoption, they had already been adopted.  I was not having any luck.  So, I decided to check Craiglist.  I found that the kitties advertised we pure breeds and so more expensive or they were too young (6 weeks).  I did not want to pay $1000 for a kitty.  I gave up on Craigslist and had gone back to the sheltrs.  Out of the blue I got a response from one of the Craigslist listings.  10 week old orange kitty!! Exactly what I wanted. We responded right away.  Yipee! She had 3 of them and they were still available. So we picked up Nathan on our way to Vancouver to choose a kitty.  

White paws.                                       Darker coat/less white

Whiter face and chest

 

We sat and played with the 3 kitties.  We were getting so confused.  Finally the owner pointed out that one had a whiter face, one had white front paws and one had very little white.  That helped.  We ended out picking the one with the whiter face and chest.

On the drive home we settled on Cider because of his color.

We started keeping him in our bedroom unless we were watching him.  We were keeping him away from Blance.  Blanca is not amused.  It did not take long for him to take over the whole house.  He is a wild child.  But then he crashes and sleeps.  He sleeps through the night. We are taking pictures of him all the time.  

Christmas with Madeline, Roman and Ivan

 We did our traditional Christmas activities.  I made a new stocking for Nathan since his stocking got wrecked a few years ago.  

The one on the right is the new one.

Madeline, Roman, and Ivan drove down Christmas Eve but we did not see them until dinner on Christmas day.  Nathan & I had a great time cooking dinner.  It was a "thanksgiving-type" dinner, with sweet potato brulee, mushroom stuffing, red wine cranberry sauce, creamed spinach, teriyaki salmon, bread, and pecan pie,  What a yummy meal.  

1-year-old Ivan

Our get-togethers were around Ivan's sleep schedule.  

Merry Christmas from Blanca.  

We had snow Christmas day!!

Yup, we had snow.

Ivan

The day after Christmas we got together for lunch near the AirBnB that Madeline and family stayed at.  Then they joined us for dinner.  The next day we met for lunch before they headed back to Bellevue. What a nice visit. 

Rebecca missed it since she was still at the San Francisco airport.  She has just been approached once by a security guard, who gave her a free bus pass to a homeless shelter. She ignored this.  It has been 6 weeks.

Zoo Lights

 We met Gretchen on Friday, December 10th to go to the zoo lights. We had timed entry tickets for a "walk through" day. Some days are set up for drive through only.  We met at the front area, thinking that we would do dinner first and then walk through the zoo but that ended out not working.  The restaurant near the front entrance was closed.  So we got hot naughty beverages to tide us over.  

There was a restaurant open, halfway though the walk.  We sat down for a while and ate.  

George, Gretchen, Nathan

It was a nice event.  It is always a pleasure to spend time with Gretchen.

A Sad Day.

 Our cat, Gemini, has been failing for quite some time. She go down hill and then she would perk up, but she finally hit a point when she was no longer eating.  So we decided that it was time to end her suffering. She was 17 years old and had always been a very playful kitty.  It was a tough decision.  We made an appointment for Thursday, Dec 9th.  Nathan was able to come as well.  They normally do not allow 3 people to go in at one time to the vet, but they made an exception. 

We will miss her.  She was a very sweet kitty.

Sunday and home

 We had breakfast at the hotel.  We checked out and headed over to Madeline and Roman's place.  Ivan had just woken up from his morning nap. 

 He had lunch.   

It was time for his next nap, so we went for a walk around the neighborhood and to check out the close park.

Nathan, Ed, Dorothy and George

The clubhouse of the apartment complex

Their apartment.  It is nice that it is so woodsie.

Once we got back to the apartment it was time for our lunch.  We pulled out all of the left-overs and had another feast.

We left about 1 pm to drive home.  We went through sun and rain but at least it was not dark.   

Coming into Oregon

Mt Hood

We got home about 4:30 pm.  Nathan headed off back to his apartment.  The neighbors did a great job of cat care.