We have had Cricket for about two and a half years now. When we got her, they estimated that she was born in February. Therefore, we usually mark the first week of February as Cricket’s birthday.
Happy Birthday Cricket!
(To help you to keep up with the Adventures of Cricket more regularly, she has her own social media accounts! Find her on Instagram and on Twitter)
This is your periodic reminder that we basically have the cutest cat on the planet.
Clockwise from top left: Cricket trying to help with sermon writing, exhausted from a particularly good play time, quiet time together reading on the comfy chair, and calm assurances that I probably did okay on my first Sunday as a priest.
She has been a little precocious as of late, and delights in waking us up in the morning. She is always underfoot, especially when we’re in the kitchen, but is never too far away when we’re sitting down either. Sometimes she thinks we starve her, but I’ve never met a cat who thought they had enough food to eat. She periodically gets freaked out by her reflection in the fireplace or dishwasher, though she is just fine when we take pictures or look in the mirror. All in all, she has brought a lot of joy to our lives and we’re pretty happy to have her.
In November 2015, we welcomed a small furball into our lives.
She came to us via some friends from seminary when she was about eight months old. She had been picked up as a part of a program that sterilized feral cats in London – apparently our little furball was a gangster for the first few months of her life. You wouldn’t know it, however, which is likely why the vet who picked her up decided to adopt her out rather than re-releasing her with the feral cats. We don’t know her exact birth date, but the vet estimated that it was sometime in February.
Matthew and I started dating in February. So this week, as we celebrated three years of being together, we decided to declare it Cricket’s birthday as well.
So, happy birthday little love! You still don’t do much more than squeak and whirrr at us, and you have a tipped ear that hints at your first few months, but you are cute and loving and we couldn’t ask for a more affectionate cat.
Apparently it is May.
In the last month, Matthew and I have: completed our Master of Divinity degrees, finished up my work with CMHA, said goodbye to family and friends in London and surrounding cities, packed up our house and overseen it being loaded onto a moving truck, and packed up the corolla and driven through six states and five provinces with ourselves and a cat.
After 4500km, we are in Victoria!
It is a bit surreal. A month ago, we were both finishing up our last week of classes and looking at spending the next couple of weeks writing papers. It is hard to believe that three years (2.5 for Matthew) are over and done already. In so many ways, it feels like just yesterday that I was packing up everything in Victoria to move to London. And now it is all in boxes again…
The boxes remain on the moving truck and we are eagerly awaiting their arrival sometime in the next week or so. Meanwhile, we drove ourselves across the country, stopping in Minneapolis, Brandon, Lethbridge, and Sorrento before heading over to the Island.
For Matthew, most of the drive was new. For me, the entire route south of the Great Lakes was a new adventure and the cross prairie trek was a lovely reminder of the beauty of our country, as it has been 20 years since my family made our first major move from Belleville to Lethbridge.
We crossed Manitoba and Saskatchewan in nearly one day, flying along the prairie Trans-Canada highway. Matthew marvelled at the flat flat flat of the land, attempting to see the horizon at every turn (who am I kidding: there were no turns in the road) but continuing to remark instead: “Nope, it’s still very flat!”
I drove from Swift Current to Lethbridge. Once we turned onto Highway 3 from the Trans-Canada, it was remarkable how familiar things began to look. I learned to drive in Lethbridge and it showed. I was still able to navigate the city quite well, taking Matthew by my old home, down to the Oldman River Valley to see the famous high level bridge, and around by my old high school.
Then it was off north through more prairie to foothills, through Calgary to the mountains. We could see the mountains from Lethbridge, but it never ceases to amaze me how one can drive all day and not seem to get any closer. Three hours from Lethbridge, however we finally entered the Rockies.
Their majestic peaks were still topped by snow and there were some valleys thick with snow alongside rushing streams as we wound through the mountain passes. Then we were out, into the Interior.
We stopped the night in Sorrento, BC, about an hour outside of Kamloops. The Anglican Church has a retreat centre there and a good friend works there full time. The last time I was at Sorrento was exactly three years ago, when I attended “ACPO” – the Advisory Committee on Postulants for Ordination and was recommended for theological training in advance of pursuing ordination in the Anglican Church of Canada. Talk about full-circle. It is a beautiful haven on the Shushwap Lakes with amazing programming all summer long.
From Sorrento we drove down the Coquihalla, through Vancouver (waving at Dad and Colleen as we travelled the new South Fraser Perimeter Road to the ferry terminal. After a one-sailing wait, it was onto the Spirit of Vancouver Island and over to Victoria.
We are blessed to have wonderful friends and colleagues in Victoria with whom we are staying while we wait to be able to get into our new suite. It has been an adventure and we are looking forward to what comes next!
Hello world! I’m Cricket!
Meet Cricket!
Matthew and I adopted an 8-9 month old kitten on Friday. She is a rescue cat who came to us by way of the parents of a friend.
She is still getting used to us, and is a little skittish, but is quickly warming up. After spending her first day entirely under our bed, she is gradually taking over the house. This morning I woke up and discovered her on the kitchen counter. She then discovered the gap between the fridge and wall and proceeded to fight with my apron which hangs there. While still easily startled by quick movements, she has just started to climb over me to get places, pausing for a chin rub on the way. Her meow is not much more than a little squeak but she has a loud purr box! She is quickly becoming a big part of our little family!
gillian's island 