Katie was so happy when her Aunt Debby's gifts arrived. It was fun because they came a few days after Christmas, so they felt like bonus gifts!
After Mr. Limpet got home, Katie had a lot of catching up time with him.
Once Mr. Limpet was back home, he spent a lot of time catching up on his warmth. When he wasn't getting petted, he was almost always in front of the fire or buried in a blanket.
After missing for five days in the freezing cold, one of my neighbors called to say she thought she saw Mr. Limpet behind her house. We have green space behind our whole row of houses. It was so hard to look for him because we were either trespassing on someone's property, or we would have to be in the thick, thorn-filled blackberry bushes.
I was so grateful to our neighbor who called because she said we could be in her backyard anytime to look for him. As soon as she called, I went to her house but didn't find any cat. My neighbor said she'd put out tuna to see if he would come out again. While I went to work, my sister went over a few times to check.
We were starting to feel down again, but Katie and I decided to go out one more time at about 9:00 at night. We took a blanket that Mr. Limpet likes to lay on and a flashlight. We got into our neighbor's backyard and started calling for him. That night, there was a huge wind storm and it had been raining throughout the day. The wind was blowing the tall trees behind the blackberry bushes, and they were creaking which sounded almost like a cat. It was so hard to hear.
After a bit, I thought I heard a meow. I called Katie over to see what she thought and she heard it too. We put the blanket down in front of the blackberry bushes, sat in the mud, and meowed back to Mr. Limpet. The meowing was loud and constant but we couldn't see him. After what seemed like forever, he made his way through the blackberry bushes enough that we could finally see him. Katie kept her flashlight on him, and he went right for Katie.
He finally came out of the thorns. I sent Katie a bit away from me to try to trap him. A few steps out, he got scared and ran back under the bushes again. The whole process started all over again and he finally reappeared and climbed onto his blanket. I moved my hand slowly toward him to try to keep him from running. As soon as I got a hold of him, Katie helped wrap him up in the blanket, and we got him back home. We were so happy! We separated him from General Washington until we could take him to the vet to be checked out. We were lucky to get an appointment the next day. The vet gave him a clean bill of health!
We all felt so bad about Mr. Limpet being missing, but General Washington made us feel so much worse. After looking and looking for Mr. Limpet with no success, he got very, very sad.
When Katie got her braces, she started using a waterpik at night. There was a definite learning curve.
When Mr. Limpet went missing, we had constant hope that he would come back. That was surrounded with constant worry because of the very cold weather and the knowledge that he was last seen heading to the green space behind our house where coyotes are seen quite a lot.
A few days after he disappeared, I got notice from one of the online places that had posted his missing poster that I should check the "found" cats. The very first cat I saw looked exactly like Mr. Limpet. My hopes soared until I realized that this cat was probably too far away to be Mr. Limpet.
After Mr. Limpet ran away, General Washington was very, very lonely. He spent lots of time yowling and looking for Mr. Limpet. He'd wake us up throughout the night with his loud meowing. It was very sad.
When we were waiting for the new year to begin, I asked Katie if she had a New Year's resolution this year. She said she didn't. Then she said, "I'm happy with who I am. Why can't people appreciate themselves instead of trying to change every year?" I agree, Katie!
With Mr. Limpet missing out in the cold, our New Year's celebration wasn't all that upbeat, but Katie still wanted to watch the year start with the New York celebration. She came into my room, so we could watch it together.
Our New Year's Eve did not start the way that we wanted it to start. When I went outside to get our newspaper, Mr. Limpet slipped out the front door. When he realized that he was outside and not in the garage, he got spooked and ran. I heard him meowing between the two neighbors' housing, but his meowing stopped and the sun hadn't come up yet, making it hard to see anything. We spent the whole day looking for him, putting out posters and hoping he would come home, but we didn't find him. We were so worried about him in the cold weather. He also had to suffer through the New Year's fireworks that night. It's awful to have a missing pet.
Katie always likes to catch the cats in the gingerbread house.
When Katie is over at my sister's, she loves to get pictures of the dogs.
There's usually a time on Christmas morning when the tiredness hits, and you just have to relax for a bit.
On Christmas morning, one of Katie's friends surprised her by coming over to our house to drop off a gift.
After opening gifts, it's always nice to relax - especially in your new chair.
The cats don't pay much attention to Christmas. They just like to lay in front of the fire and relax.
Katie's Christmas had quite a few art products.
Katie also got a comfy chair for her bedroom, so she could relax there whenever she wanted.
The next gifts Katie went for were her sketch books and her Pusheen stress ball.
When Katie first saw her gifts, she was laughing at the stuffed animal because she had never seen one that long. It is actually more like a body pillow.
When Katie came downstairs on Christmas morning, she has a very big smile with somewhat of a shocked look.
One of the projects in Katie's advent calendar was diamond art, and she loves that. When she saw it, she knew she had to do part of it before she went to bed.
This year Katie decided to save her Advent Calendar for Christmas Eve. She didn't open any of the boxes, so she would have a lot of little gifts that night.
We always watch A Christmas Story throughout it's 24 hour marathon starting on Christmas Eve. Katie has been very excited about that movie this year.
It barely happened this year, but Katie still was able to get somewhat in the stuffing pot.
Since we were in Disneyland for Thanksgiving, we had our traditional Thanksgiving meal for Christmas, and that meal means the stuffing pot comes out. Yes, it was our annual tradition of, "Will Katie fit in the stuffing pot this year?"
