Cat news....no Kat news

Our very sad cat news is that after 18.5 years of loyal service protecting his siblings, moving with us to 8 different locations in 2 countries, and, 6 weeks barely surviving on bugs on his self -imposed sabbatical in urban Calgary at (15 years of age), Dippy the Brave has passed on. He can now resume protecting his siblings (and his own pet Mr. Mistopholes) on another plane, as they have all preceeded him.

Dan and I were there at the beginning, when he was born in my sock drawer almost two decades ago, and we were there when he was stricken last night. He was a big, tough guy to the end- he had a stroke or heart attack, pitched off the table and was gone within three minutes. When it was over, Ben lay next to him, both in the house and then in the yard as we (Dan) dug his grave. And Ben was the principal mourner once the hole was dug, he was laying there with his paws in the hole, trying (I think) to figure out why we were burying his cat. That was really interesting to see... He will be missed. He already is.

As for the human Kat, we know nothing. I will call this week to see if there's any news, though I'm confident that they'd let me know if there was. I have heard/read that the new gov't/program is installing its own corrupt officials and that the whole PGN/court system has ground to a halt. If there's any truth to this rumor, I am very happy that at least we've successfully completed that step. Or even if there isn't, I'm still happy about that. We'll try to get some idea if they know anything, as Dan's going to be traveling in mid-May for almost 2 weeks if it looks like we won't be heading to GC in that timeframe, and I think it unlikely at this point.

That's all the news from here. Thanks for reading and I'll keep you posted.

BTW, we went to the pound and brought home a new feline cat today....... Emma. We had a vacancy. With any luck, the next Kat we bring home will be human.

New Pics

Well, at 7.5 months, she weighs 19 pounds..... I guess she has been making up for starting out so tiny. We have no news, no update on how this new step is going , nor how long it will take. I just looked at a growth chart and 19 lbs at 8 months is dead center in the middle. I thought it might be on the high end.

We have had a great time skiing in Whistler. Conditions the first 2 days were great, even saw a little sun. Third day we got snowed on a lot, had some clear weather and some good skiing. Today, winds and temps of -19C at the peak (thus guaranteeing that the snow would NOT soften up) kept us off the hills. But we drove around the mountains a bit and found the bobsled/luge sliding center, so that was cool. And we saw the doggie dancing competition--today was the "dog day" of the Snowboard Festival taking place in Whistler. Dan has a new goal- teaching Ben to Samba. Or waltz, I'm not sure if he has decided yet.

I'll let you know if there's any news.

No news, we're heading to Whistler

Hi all,

Well, nothing new to report. And there probably won't be for a while. The good news is that we will make our Whistler trip with no problem. And we won't have to travel to GC immediately after our vacation. We'll have some time to decompress and Dan can recover from tax season (which he could really use, the last week's been pretty rough).

John is here and we did DT Seattle on Saturday- it was a rare and wonderful 72 degrees! It didn't last, but it was a perfect day to be outside and DT. We ran the Whidbey Island marathon on Sunday. Well, Dan worked; John ran the whole and kicked butt with a 4:02 time; and I "ran" the half with a 2:40 time. the course was EXTREMELY hilly- there wasn't a mile on the half that was flat (and thus I walked a lot). We leave for Whistler tomorrow and the boys head to the spa.

Look at that form.....very impressive after 26.2 miles. I don't think he even broke a sweat.

Good News...and Bad News...

Well, the agency just called me and the good news is that the birth mother finally signed off (she now lives in Mexico and they had to track her down) for the third (fourth?) and final time and in Guatemala's eyes, she is now our baby. This took (much) longer than expected.

The bad news is that Monday is probably NOT my last day of work (we're heading to Whistler to ski with John on Tuesday), as the Guatemalan government has implemented a new pilot program in some smaller locales just the slow down the process. Well, maybe that isn't the intent.....

The City Hall in the town where Kat was born is one of the agencies piloting this program. I don't know exactly what the program entails, nor what they're trying accomplish. The program is allegedly called RANEP, though I couldn't find anything on-line about it at all (if you do, please mail me the links). Anyway, the very first adoption to go through this program took two months to get signed off under RANEP. We are not the first, but are among the first, so they are estimating from two weeks to two months, likely on the shorter side, but who knows.

The Agency said they would ask the lawyer to start translating our file documents now, so that there isn't an additional three weeks for translation AFTER this new step. So we are back to....we don't have a clue when we'll be traveling and when we will bring her home. The remaining steps after this new one, are file translation (about three weeks-hopefully much less), final DNA test (about a week) and then the Embassy appointment scheduled ten-fourteen days from the Embassy's receipt of the hard copy results of the DNA test.

That is the update. No news on when Kat's first plane ride will take place. It looks like we just may be reverting back to a late May to June-ish pickup date.

I will keep you posted.

It still doesn't seem like spring here, though I have cut the grass twice already. And we didn't have snow this weekend, so that's a plus.