This morning Jon and I attended our first ever funeral together. So strange that after eight years, we’ve never gone to one with each other. He’s lost a couple grandparents, and an uncle of mine has died since we met, but one of us has always been out-of-state when the other joins family to grieve.

Today’s service was in honor of a great pastor at our church, Andrew. He was the first staff person at the Vineyard to introduce himself to us, and for weeks on end he would greet us cheerfully and help us get acquainted in the community. I know I’ve raved of this church before, and part of it is the intensely personal feel of any given Sunday’s worship service. The community is surprisingly extroverted and interested in befriending new visitors - we were really touched by that with Andrew and are still very sad and surprised at his early death. He is greatly missed, and remained an incredibly strong follower of Christ until the end.

Would it be immature now to transition to a completely different topic that rhymes with KITTENS? Probably.

Meet Bandit. She was surrendered just yesterday to a local animal shelter by a family who (we’re told) spoke no English. So, it’s a mystery how she came into this world, but Jon and I are very excited to bring her into our home and cuddle her to pieces. Forever.

She has to get fixed tomorrow, and will be ready for pick-up on Tuesday afternoon. This will be our last animaless weekend! Yipes. I’m fully aware she could live to be a million years old, and that kittens are a mighty handful, but we’ve been scouting the babykittyscene for months now. We’ve finally met our match.

I am thrilled to share this summer with such a lovely feline, since it contains the longest period of free time I’ve had since childhood. These pictures were a hasty afterthought, as she was being carried by staff off the adoption floor and into the uterus-removal-center. Count on higher quality portraiture to come.