Tea Time!!

This year's Tea with The Bean was an international affair. Our guests Stevie and Kara came all the way from Vancouver and Toronto, Canada to spend the afternoon with us!

They had a great story to share about being questioned by customs while coming over the border. Imagine having to explain that you were coming to the US just for the day to have lunch with a cat you met on the internet.  I'm sure the customs agent had a good chuckle over that one!

Cheryl and Victoria were sitting in the front window and Charlene was napping on one of the pink chairs when Stevie and Kara arrived.    After introductions were made, we played with the kittens and Charlene for a while before sitting down for lunch.

Here's Kara saying hello to Bean.

 

Each place setting had a name card with one of the Batsell's photograph.  Our guests received a pack of kitty cards and sparkle balls too.  The package was trimmed with a Kitty Wigs pin.





Our centerpiece was a vaseful of sparkle balls and paper flowers.  The tiny telephones from our fundraising set were placed on the table too.



Our lunch was completely vegan.  We had an edamame salad with roasted corn and tomatoes,  a citrus spinach salad with figs, roasted asparagus, fruit salad with a lemon and ginger dressing and mint iced tea.





We lunched and chatted and cuddled the kittens some more before heading over to the shelter for our tour.





The Humane Society van was parked outside, so Stevie (left) and Kara (right) posed for a picture in front of it.  There's our Charlene in the middle, larger than life!



Marguerite, Director of Development, met us inside for our tour.   We started with the cattery, then moved on to vet treatment, Butterbean Quarantine,  and then the foster room.  You'll never guess who was there.

"Kisses" the kitten!!!



Kisses was all ready for adoption so her mom Katherine, who runs the foster room, brought her into the shelter that day with hopes of finding her a perfect home.  Later that day she found that perfect home!

We met a few staff members, volunteers, and even some dogs.    It was fun and informative and the HS really rolled out the red carpet for our guests.

Afterwards, we headed back home to find Ed, Cheryl and Victoria's Pa, waiting on our porch!   We weren't expecting him until later that afternoon for their adoption, but traffic was kind, and his journey was a little shorter than he anticipated, so he arrived early.

Stevie and Kara entertained the kittens and Charlene while we completed the paper work.

 

 Once we were done, we loaded up the girls, said our good-byes and helped Ed out to his truck.
   

It actually worked out well having Ed arrive early because it gave Stevie and Kara a little more "behind the scenes" than we originally planned - they got to witness the adoption!  

Off the kittens went and we headed back inside and had dessert - a super delicious chocolate cake made by my friend Sarah (you know her as Sarah in T-Town in the comment section).

Next, Bean opened the gifts.  Inside were lots of awesome cat toys and a feather wand too.  Of course, the tissue, ribbon and bag were just as exciting as what was inside !

We chatted a little longer and then said goodbye to our wonderful guests.   It was a really great day!

Thank you so much Stevie and Kara for coming to see us!   We appreciate your generous winning bid and were so impressed you traveled so far to spend an afternoon with us!

I hope next time you're in our neighborhood, you will stop by again!

Now, I know you're all itching to hear about the wonderful people that adopted the girls,  but I think I'm going to have to write that up in a second entry.  It's a long tale worthy of it's own post on the blog.    So please stay tuned for that!