Nehala

On our trip to the coast last month we made our way to the Nehalem Bay Winery but when we got there the boys had all fallen asleep in the car. The boys aunt Janet volunteered to stay in the car with them while the rest of us went inside to do a little wine tasting. When we got in we heard a loud meowing just outside another door. Being the cat lovers that Phil and I are, Phil opened the door so we could go see the kitty and get a good petting out of it. To our surprise the kitty just jumped right into Phil's arms and wasn't afraid of us at all! We talked to the owners and they told us that she had just appeared there about a week ago and they tried not feeding her to see if she'd go away but after about three days they didn't have the heart anymore and started feeding her. They jokingly asked if we wanted to take a cat home with us. Since we'd been wanting to get a cat anyway we agreed! She was just the type of kitty we'd been looking for, so friendly and brave. We couldn't take her home that day since we had one more night to spend at the coast but we agreed to pick her up the next day. The winery people graciously found us an animal carrier and gave us two free bottles of wine when we came to pick her up, what a great deal! We named her after the winery we got her from, Nehala (pronounced Nuh-hay-la).

As some of you know we've been sweet kitty deprived since our cat Lankston died two years ago. We were only left with Pachacutti, which many of you may know is crazy. You can pet her twice after which she will proceed to scratch your face off if you pet her anymore. Needless to say, she does not tolerate the boys. It has been soooo nice to have a normal cat again.

Nehalem Bay Winery on the Oregon coast

Family picture before picking up our surprise!

Here she is! We think she's about 6 months old and she's smaller than she appears in pictures, I don't think she even weighed 5 lbs when we got her.

The boys, being the cat connoisseurs that they are, just love her to bits!
They can be a bit rough with her at times but she just learned to run away and hide for a while (unlike our other cat who'd scratch their faces off if they got fresh with her).

About as close as these two will get to one another. It's a cat paradox, Pacha hates people but loves other cats and Nehala loves people but hates other cats! Pacha is easily three times as big as Nehala but Pacha is scared of her! This was not what we were expecting, ha!

The grown ups are enjoying her as well!

Loving their kitty!

Just chillaxing with her boys as a good family cat should : )

She can do neat tricks like roll up into a perfectly round ball

and fold herself in half!

And she even does impersonations, this one is of Falkor from The Neverending Story, ha!

Caleb and Nehala : )
Excuse the toilet in the background, haha!