So tonight we had to say goodbye to Moo Kitty. He would have been 11 this year. He’s the first cat that was really mine and John’s, as John already had three cats when we met. Two of them are gone as well, and I fear the last (now 16 . . . maybe 17?) probably won’t make it much longer as he has hyperthyroidism.

Moo was in advanced kidney failure, and try as we might with meds, we couldn’t bring his values up (or down) enough so that he was in the good zone. He’d been on an IV drip for 4 days, but wasn’t improving fast enough. The vet worried because he was no where near the good zone in terms of his values, that taking him off the medicine would make him relapse, and keeping him on it probably wouldn’t do much good either as he was getting better so slowly that he’d back slide once off the IV. When we took him into the vet he was pretty much a slug and barely moving from his bed. Tonight when we went to say goodbye he was more of his old self, which made it even harder. I wanted to scream “he clearly looks and is acting better!” However I knew he was on borrowed time, and I guess I should be thankful he was feeling better when he went to sleep forever and not in the pain he was a few days ago.

I do wish I snuck him a last meal of sinful cat food though.

Now the challenge will to be keeping John away from the shelters and adopting another cat! Every time one dies, we seem to end up with a new one.

So we have been home for almost week from our vacation. I have to say with this most recent “Polar Vortex” and the snow, and more snow coming, I’m ready to get back on a cruise ship! Now don’t get me wrong, I love snow, love it! However I don’t love it that much when it’s -15 with windchill and I have three dogs to walk several times a day. At these temps, I want to just admire the snow from inside. More is on the way though, and the temperatures aren’t rising until next week.

Back to the vacation… Before the cruise we were in San Juan, Puerto Rico for two days. It had been awhile since we were there for an extended stay (2005?), but we were delighted to find our favorite little restaurant was still working. If you ever hit Old San Juan, check out Cafe Berlin. So yummy! We also found my future business, a store devoted to nativities! Well not entirely, it was a folk art/craft store. I guess as it was still so close to Christmas, they were still overflowing with them. We bought some goodies there. Check out my Tumblr for the images of our two awesome purchases.

This year we took Royal’s Adventure of the Seas. It is an older and smaller ship than our recent cruises, but not a dwarf by any stretch of the means. It was a nice change, and for once I don’t have any complaints about the rude guests on board. We visited Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Johns, St. Marteen and St. Croix. It was a lot of stops! Honestly I can’t remember what we did on each. I tried to label photos below with each stop as best as possible. We only walked around St. Johns and St. Marteen. Both are mainly just shopping ports with some beaches. We also walked around St. Croix, there was just more to see there and take photos of. At St. Croix we also went to beach. Yes, I got into the ocean. Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Croix were all new to me. We went to Harrison’s cave in Barbados, and La Soufrier, the only drive in active volcano in the world at St. Lucia. I am hoping to finally post all my current and past photos to Flickr, especially given the snowed in days I may have coming up. I had them all on Webshots, which folded last year.

So enjoy a smidgen of the photos I took below (over 1000!). A lot were just multiple shots of the same thing though. I’ll have some more posts up soon with updates on the house renovations, snow and the animals.

Our 2014 vacation has begun! The best shot to get updates is either through my Instagram or my Tumblr pages. I can post photos instantly from my phone there. Otherwise I have to transfer them off my camera, onto my very slow netbook, and then upload them through free wifi. The phone is just much easier until I get home!

We’ve been in sunny San Juan, Puerto Rico for two days and will be getting on a cruise ship tomorrow. It’s a ship we’ve never done, and even though it’s an older ship, it’s new to us! We also are going to some places I don’t think we’ve ever been before. It’s a Southern Caribbean cruise, which I think we’ve only done once before. We normally do Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises. Next year we are eyeing a 12 day Southern cruise. Someday we want to do the South American cruise so we can go see Inca ruins. Anyway, as we are getting on the ship tomorrow, and it’s an older ship, I don’t know what my internet connectivity will be to post photos. I lucked out last year as it was the first year they were testing unlimited internet for a fixed price. It was only offered on their newest ship as a test run, which we were on. I’m hoping they have implemented it to others! Below is how we have spent our last night here in Old San Juan… I have MANY more photos of the birds and the forts in San Juan as well to eventually post.

So the work on the house continues, as does our cleaning house and getting stuff thrown out that needs to go. We are making great progress with the cleaning, the housework is coming along too . . . just not as fast as I would like. It seems like everyday the plans get bigger and more things torn up. Apparently I am being told on an as need basis at this point so I don’t get too stressed and flip out 🙂

Case in point, I found out that in order to put the new back door in, the whole landing had to come out, and suddenly we were getting all new steps and some closets built in the basement where the laundry room is. This was apparently going to happen perhaps when we were on vacation, so as not to inconvenience us. I thought it might be better to do it while we were here, so we could watch over the cats, who normally go into the basement to eat, pee and poop. Well apparently it all got ripped out today!

Our yearly vacation is coming up soon, and the workers will continue to work while we are gone. I’m just choosing to believe we will come home to so much having been finished. I know that’s a fairytale 🙂