The Syme Family

Misty joined me around March 2003 prior to the boys coming from Sierra Leone.  A friend of mine had owned her since birth, but since marrying a blind man, couldn't keep Misty (Minnie as she was originally called) as she kept darting out in front of her husband and surprising him.  I was happy to take her in as I hadn't owned a cat for a while.  Misty amuses me no end as she is somewhat psychotic, and I am sure has that disease where she loses her memory every day.  At night she is very loving and smoochy and wants to sleep on my bed, but in the mornings she looks at me as if to say 'who are you and why are you patting me?'.  She is still quite playful but is fearful of going outside so ends up being an indoor cat most of the time.
UPDATE:  Misty finally went to the cat playground in the sky in May 2015.  She was old, skinny and sick and her quality of life was suffering.  She died peacefully in my arms and is buried in the back yard.

Smokey joined our family as a result of Dawn taking in a ferral cat who subsequently had kittens.  I am a sucker for kittens so I was happy to take Smokey and the kids were looking forward to having a kitten to play with (a cat who didn't bite or scratch them as Misty sometimes did for no apparent reason).  Smokey was quite independent from the first and stood her ground with the dog,  Cody.  She is the opposite of Misty in that she loves the outdoors and spends very little time inside - mostly overnight where she likes to cuddle up to the boys in bed.  She is quite a hunter and used to bring us little 'presents' until she realized that I would catch them (if still alive and throw them out), or throw them out.  Now she brings the neighbors presents as they haven't worked out how to stop her from doing so.   We enjoy Smokey a lot.
UPDATE: Smokey suprised us a couple of years ago with one kitten (thankfully) after which I got both her and her kitten spayed.  The kitten is just as entertaining as Smokey is - also a prolific hunter.  She used to scratch a lot as a kitten and we were watching the Simpsons marathon at the time so we called her 'Scratchy' of 'Itchy and Scratchy fame'.  Even though she looks like Misty is her mother, she is Smokey's kitten.  Go figure.