This is Gracie.  She's our chocolate lab who was born on May 10, 2002.  There's not a whole lot of interesting stuff to tell you about her, except that she is a very good dog.  A lot of people associate hyperactivity with labs, but she's one of the most mellow & well behaved dogs I've ever met.  She's been my buddy through military separations from Nathan and all sorts of life changes.  She's protective of us and has been known to police our cats, from time to time (it's funny, she seems to understand "bad" behavior - and will go after them if they're being "bad.")  I was a little worried about her adjustment to Iliya (because change has been known to be a little more difficult for her), but she's been perfectly fine.  She is very long-suffering with him - not playful, just patient.  She loves her family, and we love her.

This is Heathcliff...he wouldn't stay still long enough to get a decent photograph of him, so I resorted to one taken from the back.  He loves looking out the window.  Anyway, I have no birthday for him, and no real sense of his age.  About 4 1/2 years ago, my friend, Ginger, opened her front door, and there were 2 German Shepherd Dogs - a black one (a boy) and a black & tan one (a girl) - sitting on her front porch.  They were friendly dogs, and seemed to have been dropped.  I named them Heathcliff & Cathy (hmm...yeah, naming other people's strays...one of my more interesting traits) and convinced Nathan to let me take them home with us.  Only problem was that a tornado had demolished our fence, and I just didn't have room to have both of them & Gracie in the house.  So we ended up taking them to the animal shelter.  I kept in touch with the workers, to see if anyone claimed them and to see what they decided to do with the dogs when no one had claimed them.  Behavioral tests were conducted, and it was determined that they only had the space to keep one of the dogs...and that they were going to keep the one that was more characteristic of a German Shepherd.  Cathy ended up passing the test (Heathcliff's personality was more passive) and I was told that the shelter would be putting Heathcliff to sleep.  I asked them if we could adopt Heathcliff, instead of them euthanizing him...and they let us ( I later found out that Cathy had been adopted almost immediately after being put up for adoption).  We had intended upon fostering him but the months turned into 4 1/2 years, and here we are.  

And we are now in living arrangements that make it almost impossible to have 2 big dogs and we are contemplating trying to find him another home with someone who will love him as much as we do.  He needs a little more space than we can currently provide him, and so we're hoping to connect with someone who has a little more room for him and as much love for him as we do.

And this is Mia, our Bengal cat.  She was born in February (I never can remember the exact date) 2002.  She's known as our "loudmouth."  If she's hungry or thirsty, she won't hush until we have taken care of her need(s).  She doesn't like for us to go out of town, and when we come back in town, she will follow us around and tell us all about her displeasure.  It's irritating at times, but really, pretty funny.  Where Jay tends to be a little more shy with strangers, Mia will come right up and start "talking."  She likes to sleep under the covers, way down at our feet.  She's fairly patient with Iliya - mostly just tries to stay out of his reach.

And there you have it...an introduction to the less-blogged-about members of our family.