Fly free sweet boy

This morning, our Sasha was re-united with his fur-sibs, Silver, Sami, Shady and Silas.  I am grateful that he passed peacefully in my arms at the vet's office.  I was able to reassure him that he was, and is loved, and his spirit will always be with us.

Sasha was the first cat we adopted when we bought the old house in 2000.  He has been a constant in our lives ever since.  While never a loud cat (unless he was demanding food or attention), the house feels empty and quiet without him.  I'm not certain Saku realizes he isn't here but did spend some time on my lap when I arrived home.  

About six months after Sasha joined the family, we adopted Silver.

The two were inseparable, at least until Sami joined us a year or so later.

I like to think the two are together again and curling up for a nap as they did so often then.

Sasha was always the patient teacher of all the cats who came after him, and they all loved him for it, and wanted to be near him all the time.  Well, except perhaps Saku, but the two did learn to tolerate one another.  I think there were just too many cats hogging Sasha's attention when Saku was a kitten for the two to bond.

From left to right: Sasha, Shady, Silas, and Sami.  

This morning as we sat in the car waiting for the appointment, I picked him up and he looked out the window at the sun.  Sasha was always happiest napping in the sun. Sadly, these last few days he hasn't wanted to be out in the sun room even when I had the door open.  He spent most of his time sleeping on the couch instead.  

The last two days were difficult as he had quit eating much, mostly licking at his food, though he was still drinking water.  Sasha hadn't been able to get up on the bed on his own, but I heard him coming down the hallway and lifted him up each night.  I had vacillated as to what to do, but this morning as he walked down the hall he staggered a few times.  I suspect he was weak and I knew the decision couldn't be put off any longer. 

I know that all of you reading this, understand how difficult this decision is and was.  If I could have, I would have kept Sasha with us forever.  We were so very blessed to have this special cat in our lives, and there will never be another like Sasha. 

Fly free, my sweet boy. 

Thankful Thursday

Hi efurrybody, we`re all here today. 

It's not only Happy New Year but today is also our second blogoversary!!  We are so thankful to have found this place.  We've met so many wonderful kitties (and beans too) over the past two years.

You might not know but our mom bean is a bean counter.  Well, she doesn't count beans like her but she does count numbers.  So we thoughts we'd share some numbers with you (it will make her happy and it may keep her tippy tapping for us)

In two years we've written 475 posts, with 1035 pictures (some were repeats), over 19100 visits (some are mom bean's checking the post), and more than 1920 comments from our furriends.  We have 28 followers that we can see and mom bean says there may be more that we can't see.  

Meowser, for three kitties with a lazy mom bean that's pretty amazing.  We truly could not have done it without you and we hope you'll come back for more in 2015.

Which brings us to some bad news.  The mom bean is abandoning us (again) for a furry long time (an entire month!).  We'll be okay 'cuz the bean brofur is staying here to take care of our efurry whim the house and us kitties but we probably won't be around much.  Mom bean says she'll pop in to visit our furriends but unless we're on Skype with her we'll have to see you all later.

In the meantime, here are some a lot of our mom bean's favorite pictures of us to remember us by.

From 2013

From 2014

Thanks efurryone for being part of our lives, we lubs you all!