New Family Member

Last Friday night we had friends over for a camp fire, as we were sitting around the fire eating Smore's our dog was franticly doing laps around the yard. Then about a half an hour later Luke yelled from the house to come quick - a kitten was on our back deck staring into the house. When we ran up we startled her so she ran away. For the rest of the night it was constant meowing coming from this freightened TEENIE calico cat. I snuck over to her (she didn't let me get too close) and put a can of wet food on the ground which she immediately devoured.
My friend who is as huge an animal lover as I started in on Tim with me, we both were wanting to let her inside. He kept saying "no way Lesley, no way" : )
The next morning Kitty was back. I fed her again (of course) and then she kept getting closer to the screen, even Mickey (our Golden Retreiver) was begging us to let her in:

The kids and I spent the morning outside petting her and feeding her and the three of us starting working on Tim. About 2 hours after all of this I was almost successful when Tim stated "the only way that cat is coming into this house is if you get her checked by the vet" YES....... PROGRESS!!! This excited me and the kids.
Both kids had soccer games so we left and came back about 2 hours later and we immediately rushed to the back yard to find kitty. Well, we kept hearing meowing but couldn't find her. We look up in the direction of the meows and she is VERY high up in a tree in our backyard. You could tell she was panicked and didn't know how to get down. Tim got out a ladder and we rescued her from the tree..... at this point I could tell Tim realized how vulnerable she was and he officially gave in : )



So we brought her inside and we decided (after a few phone calls from friends with suggestions) that her name MUST be Minnie : ) So now we had a Minnie and a Mickey. We spent the rest of the weekend getting to know her, watching her explore the house and interact with our other cat and dog. All is going as well as can be expected.
Lauren and I took her to the vet last night for an FIV (feline AIDS) test, LUCKILY she tested negative but she had everything else you could imagine: ear mites, flea eggs, and worms. Here she is lounging in the vets office (she is such a diva):

A hefty vet bill later (and I haven't even gotten her shots yet) we came home with a clean kitty. The vet said she is already 4 months old even though she is so small which is a result of malnutrition. We are fattening her up and showering her with love. The kids have never had a kitten before. I came home from school yesterday to see Lauren carrying her aruond the house like a baby. Tim and I are being reminded how cute, cuddly, and EASY kittens are (especially compared to puppies).
I sure am glad we found her, WELCOME HOME MINNIE!