Happy Gotcha Day X 3

Today, November 5th is "Gotcha Day" at  our house. Not just for one of our pets - but 3. This is completely coincidental and unintentional, and none of them came to be part of our family in the same year.

First there was Ozzie/Oswald the cat. In 2000, my childhood cat passed away at a ripe old age of 20 years. I was sad and missing him (even though he had always lived at home with my parents, and I hadn't lived there for over 3 years), so I decided to get a cat of my own. Enter, Oswald. He was a total sheister of a kitten, but has been the best cat that anyone could ask for.  He is now amazing with my kids - puts up with way more than I could ever expect him to, and he is amazingly loyal and affectionate.  I'm convinced that he thinks he is actually a dog.  I've never met another cat quite like him:)

All of my old photos of Oswald as a kitten are packed away somewhere (we moved in March), and when he was a kitten digital cameras were still pretty new, so since I can't find them right now, here is a more recent one.  

Then, one year later, I had just moved into a new place, with a back yard, where I was allowed to get a dog. (The only reason I moved into that place:) So, along came Belle. Just thinking back to that day makes me smile - She was so scared on the drive home, but then she got do excited when we brought her into my living room - she just seemed to instantly know that she was at her forever home. We have both come so far and changed so much since then. 

Here's a picture of me and Belle.  I don't remember exactly when this was taken, but it was probably within a month of when I got her.  

It was a few months later when I was looking at both her & Ozzie's vet records that I realized that I had brought them both home on November 5, just one year apart. 

Then, onto 2005 and things have changed - a lot. Since getting both Oz & Belle, I got married and we moved to a different city. We had thought about getting another dog quite a bit, then we met a friends' 2 goldens (brother & sister), whom we fell in love with. Then we found out that there was a brand new litter of pups only 5 weeks old - so of course, I had to go look. Well, that was silly! I laid claim to one of the pups - Duke - but had to wait a few weeks to be able to take him. Finally, it came to the day when we could take him home, and it wasn't until we were pulling out of the driveway with our new puppy that I realized the date - November 5th! 

 (I'm astounded that I couldn't find any puppy pictures of him!  He was about 4 months old in this photo, so it will have to do:)

So, needless to say, every year as November 5th approaches, I get a bit nervous. Today, I've been watching out the window to see if there are any stray cats around, or if out of nowhere a new dog will find and adopt us.

I think it would have been really funny if my kids were born on November 5th!

So, here is the photo that I took today, for my 52 Weeks of Belle Project for Flickr.  

I had wanted to get a photo with all 3 of them in it - and it was a challenge.  Oz was less than impressed to be involved with this endeavor, so out of about 20 shots that I managed to get with him actually in it - this is as good as it got!

I hope you all have a great weekend!  Happy Friday!

~Kristy~