Here’s her new sleeping quarters….(we checked in the middle of the night last night, and she was still right there next to Fiona.) Notice that the cat is UNDER the covers with a PILLOW for her head. Sure beats sleeping in the garage in a box with old blankets!!!

I’m sure Granby is happy, but I think Fiona is probably even happier.
Meet Granby (named after a wrestling move.) She’s our new cat.
Granby appeared just before Christmas. We really didn’t want to encourage her, but it was in the middle of a very cold spell, so we fixed her a box in the garage with lots of fuzzy blankets and put out food and fresh water for her.
Granby is very friendly and quite social. She loves to cuddle and is amazingly tolerant and good natured. She’s put up with “dancing” the Nutcracker standing on her hind legs with Fiona and being worn like a scarf by Fiona without ever getting upset. She and Molly avoid each other, but she and Spartan always nuzzle when they see each other (I guess they have a lot in common, both are black, both eat rodents, both get bossed around by Molly).
Six weeks later she’s still around. We decided we either needed to find her a “real” family or take her in ourselves. She couldn’t live her entire life as an outside cat. It was torture to watch her looking in the window and to hear her mewing.
Guess what we decided?
Last night was supposed to be her debut as a house cat because we were getting back too late from a wrestling tournament to pick the dogs up from the kennel and she would have the house to herself. Because of a poorly organized tournament and white-out blizzard conditions for 100 miles, we got home much later than we expected and Granby wasn’t around.
Even though it was almost midnight, even though he had his pajamas on, even though (he claims) he doesn’t like pets, Kevin went out into the freezing cold night and walked around and called until he found Granby so he could bring her inside.
Welcome home Granby!! You’re already loved very much.
We had a wonderful Christmas, full of surprises and wishes granted. Santa was very good as was everyone else. We had great meals and better company.
A quick set of photos are here.
The kids are pictured below in their new “safari” gear (thanks Aunt MJ) that they will use in Africa in March.

Since I’m never going to have time to blog about any of these events individually, I put them all together. I put captions under most of the photos to explain them. There’s even a bizarr-o photo in the collection!
Selection of photos from December.

Owen and Fiona are touching and smiling and NOT fighting. (Photo taken in Philly before the Nutcracker ballet. More to follow later.)

For some reason, the quick time movie didn’t work for everyone, so try clicking here to see a video of Owen the woodworker in action.
It takes a minute to load, and you can’t really hear him at the beginning, but the audio gets better about halfway through.
Jack and Owen are playing some game upstairs that involves lots of yelling and thumping. A few minutes ago, they came down to the kitchen, rooted around in a drawer and ran some water.
Jack said something I couldn’t really hear. Then, I heard Owen say, “I think we should wait to start playing again until I staunch the flow of blood.”
******
Update about 10 minutes later: I hear them come clomping down the stairs. Jack is breathing heavily, kind of gasping. Then Owen says, “Jack, you’re not screaming in agony, so I don’t think anything is broken.”
Jack’s class has been studying major 20th century events. This was what he wrote for one of his assignments.
A Polish Cavalryman Remembers WWII
The tanks came over the hills like iron mountains.
Planes in swarms like hornets filled our skies.
My brave Polish brothers swept back like unwanted leaves.
The Germans came into our land.
Their put their chambers of death on our land.
Fellow citizen who were only different in German eyes, not ours,
Annihilated by the invaders, but not forgotten by us.
The Germans put death on our land.
I had been trained to fight with my bay stallion.
Together we went to war.
Flesh and blood fought iron and steel.
We fought the Germans on our land.
Against their tanks, we stood no chance.
But, sabers aloft, we charged them full force.
So many died, but their spirits still live.
Riding away, rivers of blood followed me down the hill.
The Germans could never take the soul from our land.
They may have held our land for many years,
They may have killed many of my fellow Poles,
They may have caused a never-ending circle of death,
But as long as we kept hope,
The German never took over our land.