Tag Archives: Kamloops

They Found our Cat

In July of last year – our big move started. We sold our Kamloops house, invested in a place at Sun Peaks and packed our stuff to go Seattle. Our cats were booked to go into a boarding home in Seattle for the month of August while we did some vacation travelling.

Our cats Raphael on the left, Neko on the right

And with a week to go before we move out, Raphael goes missing. They are mostly indoor cats, but Raphael does wander a field for a couple of hours occasionally. One night goes by, then another, we canvas the neighborhood, no sightings… 6 days go by and we move out of our Kamloops home because all our stuff gets shipped to Seattle. Still no cat 🙁 We all mourn him – assuming he met a coyote on the hillside. But our fabulous neighbours, who love animals, and have spent many a night looking for their own cat gone wandering – won’t give up that easily.

They ask us (!!) if they can go into our yard and keep looking for Raphael. Don swears up and down that he will find him. I am so grateful for their kindness, but have very little hope that they will be successful. The fateful day comes, when the cat “courier” is coming to take the cat(s) to Seattle before we leave the province. At 8am we get a text from Lisa with a photo “Look who we found this morning!”. It is totally our cat – but Jade and I don’t really believe it until we see him with our own two eyes. Incredible – Raphael has been missing for almost two weeks, and 2 hours before the window closes Don finds him in our backyard!? Raphael reunites with brother and off they go to Seattle!

I am eternally grateful for Don and Lisa for selfless dedication to animals – theirs and ours. I have no words. So I drew them a picture 🙂 This is a drawing of their three pets – Maggie, Chance and Marlo. Here are the in progress pictures. And I forgot to take a final photo of the finished drawing – so the framed one at the top of story – is stolen from their Facebook post.

Just sketching everyone out – Maggie’s face is hard because it’s at an unusual angle
Spend a lot of time on Maggie’s face. Trying to work left to right as a new ‘habit’
Maggie’s almost done
Now onto Chance and the pillow. For some reason Chance is much easier – and the cat, with such pure white and black was super quick. I forgot to take more photos….

Here are the photos I used – drawn as one scene.

You can see I moved Marlo over to be beside Chance.

2019 in Review

It’s been a big year! It started with skiing – a lot of it. Jade was part of the Sun Peaks Alpine Club (SPAC) racing team and it was a HUGE commitment for the whole family. As a result we each skied more that 40 days this winter and took in several different resorts to watch Jade’s races. I also managed to get into a car accident on an early morning drive to Sun Peaks for a race, noone was hurt but the car was totalled. I am liking the BMW much better than the Hyundai, so maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Savannah wouldn’t agree though – the Hyundai was destined to be her first car – so it did a leave a big hole there.

Then we move into horse season – Jade and I both fullfilled a dream of competing at one of the best venues in BC (which happens to be in our back yard). Mom on Dharma Queen and Jade on Rodeo – we both made it around our Horse Trials course with a grin our face. This was the first real competition I have entered since I was 14 years old – and it was SO MUCH FUN 🙂

I think at this point Mike was still skiing. Backcountry touring is his new love and his new annual adventure is to hike to a hut in the rockies – the Asulkan Hut which is in Glacier National Park at Rogers Pass. The hike in (uphill, through deep snow, wearing touring ski/snowboard gear) is 3 to 6 hours! The experience and the scenery are spectacular.

Fast forward through summer… camping, fishing, sell our house of 15 years, buy a new house in Sun Peaks, quit our jobs, join Corey and Amanda for their beautiful and emotional wedding, execute on the 8th annual KTW Timeraiser (and my last at the helm… ) and then moved the family to Seattle!

Seattle has been everything we hoped for and more. A really cool city with lots to do and an incredible challenge for each of us. And challenging in ways we never expected. I’m not working right now – which I thought was going to be brutal – but I actually need to the time and space to be able to support the kids. Because the kids are finding it hard. The new school system, leaving the community they grew up in and changing all their free time activities has really been tough. But as we close out the year – each one of us is finding our stride. Mike loves the urban living, Savannah is making loads of friends and absolutely loves the adventure, River has become an avid football fan and gets to play a supervised scrimmage everyday at school, Jade is making friends and has found her stride at school and I am enjoying my time alone and am coming up with loads of fantastic ideas for what comes next.

See the full recap of our year in pictures at our Google album (link)

We love visitors in Seattle and at Sun Peaks. And always make sure we have a spare bed made up and extra food on the table. Please stop by anytime. We have been saving up lots of the tourist activities for when friends visit. We haven’t made the Museum of Modern Pop Culture yet and I am dying to take in an Opera.

If you got here via our annual Christmas Card – it was Mike’s idea 🙂 Happy Holidays – we hope to see everyone in person.

Timeraiser

This past November was the 8th (!!) Annual KTW Timeraiser – and it was the last with me at the helm. Our family move to Seattle meant I needed help making sure the KTW Timeraiser lives on, improves and becomes a real legacy for Kamloops. Spikey Mike and Jennifer O’Brien were stoked at the opportunity to be part of the Timeraiser and I am SO HAPPY to hand them the reins. They share the same passion for art and love of community that I do and I know they will make it their own and grow it with heart and a smart mind.

The event was amazing once again. I loved talking to attendees, the sponsors, the agencies and I am so honored that you think I am responsible for the success event. I am really just channel for everyone’s energy and take care of the to do list (usually at the last minute).

Make sure to continue to check out the KTW Timeraiser of Month features articles each month in the Kamloops This Week newspaper and online at www.ktwtimeraiser.ca

I love Kamloops.