Heaven is in...Hawaii?

The family has been running on empty for this past week, with Todd being sick, the holidays, end of school holiday stuff and then me getting sick to top it all off.  I ended up going to the urgent care center on Saturday (thanks to several notes from friends on Twitter and Facebook), and I'm glad I did -- I have strep throat and am now on antibiotics to kick it to the curb before the holiday crowd comes around.  I suspect at least Connor has it too -- he had a low grade fever today, didn't eat all of his first plate of pancakes for breakfast (and if you know the boy, this is a *real* sign), and came in early from playing outside in the snow and then fell asleep on the couch before eating lunch.  Poor guy.

But now on the story I eluded to in the title of this post:

Some of you may remember that our family cat, Bingo, didn't come home one night in mid-October.  The kids were so so sad.  We made flyers and stuffed them into the neighbors mailboxes and they called in a few "sightings".  But nothing for a long, long time.  When we took out the holiday decorations and saw Bingo's stocking and the brand new pack of cat antlers I picked up on clearance post-holiday last year...we talked about the situation again.  Todd was trying to explain to the kids that maybe Bingo was not out in the woods or helping another family get rid of mice, but in heaven. 

Zach says, "Oh.  I get it Dad.  You mean Bingo is in HAWAII!"

Where the boy made this connection, who knows.  But I'd like to picture our cat walking along the sandy beaches of Hawaii too.  He has been known to frolic in the water!  Here's a photo from last year, when Bingo was staying at my parents house in VT while we were in the condo and could not have pets with us.