Kerry

Kerry is a great cat. Although, maybe we chose too affectionate and playful. We alternate between purring at our heads and flips on the bed at 3am. He is keeping us up a bit. Another little problem is he has started taking his poop out of his litter box and playing with it like a toy. This is rather disgusting. We have one of those covered boxes, too. I'm quickly cleaning out the box, now, but do hope to have him outdoors as well. Then we could remove the litter box for the daytime. I'm a little worried about the outdoors thing, thinking he might run away or the coyotes might get him. I've seen them during the daytime. We shall see.

The New Year

Here we are in FREEZING So. Cal. Boy, it got down to 27 degrees last night. We spent the day looking for a new cat. Our other cat, Gypsy was a wonderful cat. She was sweet and fun. She never scratched the kids, even though they each spent times carrying her around in highly uncomfortable ways. She never went to the bathroom in the house and we never had to keep a litter box inside. She would follow us on walks. She had either heart disease or cancer, and they couldn't even figure out if they could possibly help her without extensive surgery so she was put to sleep. It was very sad and we miss her. She was put to sleep last summer. Below is a picture of Lydia and Gypsy 3-4 years ago.




Today we decided to go to the animal shelters to see if we could find a new cat. We went with the criteria that it be a female who was around a year or a little younger. Lydia's criteria was that she could take her home today. 5 hours and 3 sites later, we came home with a 4 year old male. It was the only cat with no skittishness at all who was also playful. His name is Kerry and he was named by Lydia. She had the name "Custard" picked out, but Kerry is black and white, so she didn't think the name went with our new cat. He has been exploring the house this evening, and even visiting with us. He seems to be a good and affectionate cat. Let's hope he uses the litter box.



Oh, and Ryan just introduced me to his toy frog, "Fluffy." Yup, Fluffy the frog.

More Christmas

Before our delightful trip for the holidays, my Mom visited for a week and we celebrated Christmas here in CA with Tony, Tony Jr., Marguerite and Ben.

The elves were very busy working in Samtas Wroksop, and were a little wild throughout this season.

Ryan received many a Thomas train and tracks AND a train table from the Grandmas and Grandpas. He was very excited, especially about having a bridge...for whatever reason he had been longing for a bridge.

The visit to Santa showed a very, overly loving Lydia and Ryan. Lydia had pushed Ryan over right before we left the house. Against my normal judgement, I used the old "Santa sees everything, and we are headed to see him right now." Ryan was then driven crazy by all of the hugs and kisses from Lydia. We had a good visit. Lydia wrote letters from her and from Ryan that we delivered.

Lastly, is a picture of a sunrise from my backyard that my Mom took. Whatever were we doing taking pictures of a sunrise? Craziness. It was so nice to have my Mom here to really begin the holiday season.