Nala

Yesterday John and I celebrated our third anniversary together. It's hard to believe that three years have gone by since we started dating. Life seemed so carefree three years ago - he had just returned from his deployment to Afghanistan and was not working, I was still working for Disney and in school, we both lived at home and had virtually no bills.

One year later he was working as an independent contractor for Fed Ex and I was just starting my new job with a construction company and we had a nice little routine of spending our weekends together. Our first year also brought us Milo who quickly stole our hearts and became our gentle giant.


Our second year started off with an engagement ring and our first apartment. I was finishing up school and John was working as hard as ever with his route. It was an adjustment to live together but it was an exciting time to be thinking about our future together and booking our wedding. This year also brought us our spunky little Marley who continues to melt our hearts everyday.


This year did not bring any major milestones. Not much has changed in our lives; we still work at the same jobs and we still have too many bills to pay each month. John likes to spend his free time with his new X Box while I like to experiment in my new (and bigger!) kitchen. We don't have a lot of extra money since we are planning our wedding that is less than ten months away (!!!) so John decided we should spend our anniversary wisely. Instead of fancy gifts and an expensive dinner, we paid a little donation to the Connecticut Humane Society and brought home this beautiful little girl:


I swear it wasn't even my idea to get another cat - John was slow at work one day and stopped into a humane society and saw how many little kitties were without homes and being the softie that he is, he came home and told me that we should get another one for our anniversary. We were both a little hesitant at first. We didn't want to disrupt Milo and Marley who got along so well - Milo was John's baby and Marley was mine. What would a third cat bring to the table? We went to one shelter and no one really stood out to us. (Of course, in a perfect world I would just love to give all of the homless kitties homes). We didn't want just anyone, we wanted someone who would complement our boys (and I secretly wanted someone who would cuddle with me). We left the first shelter convinced that getting another cat just wasn't for us. As we continued on with our day I remembered that there is another shelter near the curtain store where we were headed. We stopped in there not expecting to find anything as it is much smaller than the other shelter. We got to the last row of kitties and John spotted her. She was in a separate room because she had a cold and she was also recovering from hernia surgery. We instantly fell in love and asked one of the workers how we would go about adopting her. Less than an hour later and we were in the car heading home. Needless to say, we did not get curtains that day!

She is such a love. She sleeps in between us every night and she loves to curl up on my chest if I'm laying on the couch. She has a ferocious appetite - we think her previous owner failed to feed her enough everyday because she is VERY small. She wants her brothers to play with her but they are taking their sweet time getting used to her. I think with time they are coming around - Marley already plays with her once in a while and today I even caught him sleeping near her on our bed. Milo is his laid back self as always, observing from a distance and keeping an eye on things.

I can't think of a better anniversary gift.