Time To Meet The Family

I have been writing a lot about me. But I am not a one man show. Let me introduce you to my wonderful little family.

If you have read the "About Me" section on this handy dandy website, you will know that I am married and have three fur babies. I purposefully did not highlight them too much up to this point because I have been known in the past to be overly doting. But I simply cannot hold it back any longer. While struggling to think of what to write today and being caught up in the cuteness of my kitties, my sister pointed out that I could do an intro to the fam. Genius. So, without further ado let me introduce to you: The Welliver Family!

Let's start with the one that made us a family, my amazing husband: James.

Selfie by: Me

I am truly blessed to call myself this man's wife. James and I met the first day of our freshman year in high school. Back then we were full of drama and angst but an amazing thing about marrying your high school sweetheart is getting to grow together. God has carefully woven our story into something beautiful, that I find myself grateful for every single day. James is my best friends and my biggest cheerleader. He is abundantly patient and kind to me. He is so creative and smart though forgets things easily. As cheesy as this line is, he genuinely is my rock. I hope to one day write our fully story for others to read but for now I'll just lay this out: we met at 14, got engaged at 19, married at 20, and have been adventuring together ever since.

Next up is our first fur babe: Anchor [Who as I typed this, walked across and sat on my keyboard. It's like he knows I'm talking about him.]

Look at that handsome face. Our little black panther, but honestly he is just a big cry baby. He is a complete momma's boy who just wants to be held, to lick your shirt, and whine a lot. None of my other cats steal people food but Anchor will take Doritos and popcorn if you don't watch out.

James and I married in August of 2016. When we got married we were faced with the question of whether we should have pets or not. I had grown up with dogs my whole life but James had never really had any pets. On top of that James had severe animal allergies. We decided we would wait and revisit the topic around Christmas [2016]. We found Anchor on Labor Day 2016. That's right, a month later. We were out on my grandfather's boat, driving around the lake, when my sister asked to stop at a sand bar. My mom went to the back storage compartment to grab the anchor and screamed slamming the container shut. She stammered that there was an animal in the storage area. James and I were volunteered to try and figure out what it was and what to do. Thinking it was a opossum or a raccoon based on her reaction, we approached cautiously with a beach towel to hopefully catch and restrain the animal. We counted to three, threw the container opened and tossed the towel onto the animal. We were shocked to find that, whatever this "wild animal" was, it was only about two inches long. Not exactly proportionate to my mothers reaction. We lifted the towel to find a furry little black bean that would end up being my baby boy. We named him Anchor since that was all he was supposed to be.

Next is our little girl with big personality: Stowa

She's so pretty, isn't she? But don't be fooled, she is the boss. She is fierce and will be quick to let you know if she is displeased. She is a daddy's girl and enjoy's perching on peoples shoulders like a parrot. Her favorite thing, by far, is catnip.

To continue where Anchor's story left off, we were very frightened that there could be more kittens in the storage containers. Or worse that they might have fallen out into the water... Not wanting to think about that we started searching the storage areas. In the last, we opened it up and found that it was just filled to the brim with tarps. We knew it was a long shot but we decided to take each tarp out very carefully, just to be sure. And sure enough, at the very bottom of the container, under all those tarps was an itty-bitty, smooshed kitten. At first we just couldn't see how she could possibly be alive. But she was. We named her Stowa, short for Stowaway, since we found her hidden under the boats tarps. Neither of them had their eyes open and they were so small. We wrapped them in towels and drove to shore. My grandfather informed us that a stray had gotten onto the boat from the dock and had kittens but had moved them to another location when he went to investigate. We think Anchor might have been the runt and she didn't think he would survive, so she left him. As for Stowa, she was definitely out of the mothers reach, we are still very unsure as to how she managed to get under there. But I digress, we looked for shelters, but everything was closed due to the holiday. Now, we were in Indiana and we had to head home anyways, so we brought the kittens with us because we knew an emergency clinic that would be open near our house. We drove them there and had them evaluated. Once they were cleared, we were given dibs on them since we were the ones that found them. On the fly we decided to take them. We bottle fed them every 3 hours until they could eat on their own. They really were our little babies.

Now enter the, actual, baby of the group: Choji

Our mighty lion! Embrace the poof! Choji is the baby of the family and, also, the floof of the family. He is the cuddliest of the three, he needs to be touching you in some capacity at all times. He loves everyone, whereas the other two definitely bond with specific people. He also is the only one who does not like treats.

Now, if you don't remember, at the beginning of their stories I told you that I grew up with dogs. I also said I was 20 years old when we first got Anchor and Stowa. Well, I point all this out to say: I was a bad cat parent. I took Anchor and Stowa to the vet and got them their shots and check ups. What I didn't do was get them fixed. I intended to, but Stowa was too young when I first brought her to the vet. By the time she was old enough I had, well, forgot. Needless to say, Stowa became a sisterwife and had kittens. James was a wonderful midwife. Fast forward a bit and we were able to find all the kittens nice homes except one. We were wanting to find him the perfect home. Before I knew it, we had subconsciously decided it was us. And with that, Choji became our final fur babe.

Our bonus babe: Pikea!

This is Pikea, our gold fish. She likes greeting us for breakfast time and swimming through her hoop. We got Pikea at a baby shower with two other gold fishies but Pikea was the only one that made it. She is our little survivor. We love her very much and our hope is to get her some siblings soon.

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And that folks, is our little family. Thank you so much for tuning into this fun little episode of The Mess here on My Mess. Though I will say, this is the best part of my mess. I love my pets and I love my husband and wanted to share them all with you. Families and pets might be messy but they are worth it. Give your families a squeeze for me. Get yourself some toe beans and I will see you back on Wednesday for some Nerdom. Start your week strong and stay messy!