Whew!  My breakity break is now over — it was actually over on Sunday night, but it was extended by a sick computer.  Fortunately TheManoftheHouse was able to work some magic so now I can post!

Thanks for all of your great comments about my break.  I’ve had fun reading them all.  I’m sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping I was off making fun things to share, but TheManoftheHouse and I have had a fantastic adventure and these two adorable kitties were the focus of our trip:

Many of you may recognize these cuties as the catlets from In This Life.  I’ve long been a big fan of Isabelle’s blog, so in June/July when she mentioned on her blog that she was in need of a catlet cat-sitter in late October, I jumped up and down and begged and pleaded “Pick Me, Pick Me, Please Pick Me”!!!  If you don’t recognize the catlets, you might be wondering why I would spend my vacation cat-sitting catlets when I have a fat catlet of my own.  It’s because the Life Family lives here:

The famous city with the castle on the hill — Edinburgh Scotland!  It was so exciting I could barely stand it all fall long.  A trip to one of my favorite places in the whole world and a BIG blog meetup with Isabelle!  Here we are in one of my traditional Wilson poses (and no, it’s not 2006, my map is old):

I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had meeting Isabelle and her wonderful family.  They were the ultimate hosts.  Mr. Life picked us up at the airport and we spent the evening with them before they left the next morning on their vacation.  I felt like we were old friends who just hadn’t seen each other in a long time.  We talked non-stop.  Isabelle served us tea and cookies.  We talked some more.  Then we met Daughter2 and Isabelle’s mother, and Isabelle made dinner for all of us.  And then, we talked even more.   I wonder if we could have talked forever?  Even the men seemed comfortable.  The Life family was so gracious in entertaining us and explaining our catlet duties and I felt so guilty because surely they had preparations to make for their trip.  (Maybe they didn’t sleep that night!)

And do you know what the best thing was?  Isabelle and her family and the catlets and her home were just how I imagined them.  She’s just as clever and witty and funny as she is on her blog.  The whole Life family is just the nicest family you could ever hope to meet.  I think we both had a lot of fun with the situation with our real-life friends, who all seemed to be scratching their heads.  When I told my co-workers that I was going to cat-sit for a friend on my vacation they looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.  Until I made them guess where my friend lived.  (For some reason most of them guessed Hawaii.  ???.  Do I look like a Hawaii girl???)

Isabelle was so much more eloquent in her description of this whole blog-friend phenomenon than I could ever be.  I love how she expressed it as an intimacy.  You should go read it and you’ll know why I’m such a big fan.  (You should also go see the adorable pictures she took of a catlet and Daughter2 wrapped up in a ribbon just for me.  I’ll take them both Isabelle!)

Now, back to the catlets.  I feel like their auntie.  I’ve been with them since they arrived at the Life household and I’ve watched them become teenagers.  They seemed to adjust pretty easily to our presence.  But then, I arrived with a kitty favorite — yarn.  What’s not to love?  After the first night, Sirius warmed up to me and spent every night thereafter on my legs as I knit.  (I knew to put my legs up from seeing pictures of Sirius happily stretched out on Mr. Life’s legs.)

Cassie, on the other hand, was a little more aloof.  While Sirius wanted to play most evenings, she was sleeping.  In contrast, Sirius went out to conquer the neighborhood first thing every morning, but Cassie stayed around for her time with the yarn ball (not so much me, but the yarn ball).  Don’t worry, the catlets were never left unsupervised with the yarn — I’ve learned that hard lesson with TheEmptyNestChild.

Cassie made up for her aloofness by the end of the week though.  She very politely begged us not to go on the evening before we left.  (Notice the kittycat version of red-eye LOL.)

TheManoftheHouse and I couldn’t have felt more welcome…by the entire family.  And as an added bonus, we met the adorable Daughter1 and her husband.  They came to visit one night and on another night we even had dinner with them and Isabelle’s charming mother.   I was sorry that Isabelle and Mr. Life weren’t there (and that we weren’t able to meet the famous Dr.Son), but really, how cool was that?  If I didn’t have the pictures to prove that the whole trip happened, I might not believe it myself.  When I started my little blog almost 2 years ago, I never, EVER imagined that it would lead to actually meeting a blog friend, let alone a blog friend in another country.  And what the heck — now we’re international cat-sitters!

So, I’ll stop writing now so you can rest.  When I come back I’ll tell you about the rest of our trip (with more bloggy meet-ups).  I took something like 1200 pictures.  !!!.  Don’t worry, I won’t make you look at all of them, but I think it’s an indication of what a great trip we had.  The weather wasn’t always the best, but it was perfect for Scotland.  This occurred almost every day — except for when it snowed.

Isabelle was so worried that the weather didn’t cooperate, but we were so excited to be in Scotland, we hardly noticed.  Besides, when you get lots of rain, you get lots of rainbows.

We’re lucky to see a few rainbows a year here in the midwest, but I think we must have seen one almost every day in Scotland. They were beautiful! Now when I see a rainbow, I’m going to think of The Life Family. I can’t thank them enough for the tremendous opportunity they gave to us. I only wish we could repay the favor. Don’t you want to come to our cornfields Isabelle? I could show you the Ugly Tree and TheEmptyNestChild and Amish people. And maybe my quilty peep Jewels could hook Mr. Life up with a train or two.  Think about it LOL!!!

XOXO,
Anna