Meet Ricky, one of three pets of the feline persuasion to join in on our chaos experiment known as the Dunham family. The other two are Lucy and Ethel. We have yet to meet Lucy because she’s been hiding in the basement ever since she arrived. Ethel is a bit on the cold side (as in she’s been rather mean), but we hope that will change as we win her over with our charming, gentle, cat-loving ways.

The girls are pretty excited, at least about Ricky. They are rather scared of Ethel because she growls (and I mean growls as in like a dog or bear growls) whenever one of us walks by her. Craig is in the basement right this second with a flashlight trying to find Lucy. I’m hoping that’s all he finds because you know how we have a propensity for being surprised by cats and all.

Now then, the obvious question here is why? Our pet excuse for so long was that the girls were too young. After that we rented for three years, which became our excuse. Now the girls are older, we own a house again (as trying as that has been), and they’ve been begging for a pet since July. Thus, we gave in.

We tend to think of ourselves more as dog people, but not the kind of dogs that make better footballs than pets. Big dogs. Unfortunately, we don’t have a fence, so we can’t exactly get a big dog right now.

However, a teacher at Craig’s school is moving to Colorado soon and can’t take her furry friends with her, so she gave them to us under the condition they stay together. So there you have it: the story of how the Dunham family grew by three in one short day.

Here’s hoping none of them find our tents.