Patrick and I had been an animal lovers all of our lives, in fact, love of cats and art was what brought us together. He was in southern France, I had recently become disabled and was back in school again since my career as a graphic artist came to an end. While online doing homework, Patrick read my AOL profile and sent me an IM (Instant Message) in broken English and we typed back and forth a little while, mostly misinterpreting eachother but that lead to a lot of laughs. We started corresponding in September of 1997. 3 visits, thousands of IM's , hundreds of emails, plenty of huge phone bills and 3 tourist visas later, he resigned from his unrewarding programming job, left his home in beautiful Aix en Provence and applied for his green card in Florida. By Feb 2000, we were married. With his masters in Architecture and a BS in Computer Science, I was sure he'd have no trouble finding a good career here in Jacksonville but after 2 years of high stress dead-end jobs, we decided life was too short and there had to be a simpler way to get by. I sell herbs on eBay and we tried selling prints of his pencil drawings which cost more to have printed than we can get and furniture he designed but after haggling $200 for a chair that took $100 in materials and 2 weeks to make, needless to say, we were open to new ideas. We have delved in the art shows doing fused glass which we enjoy immensely but again, it's difficult to make a living on fine art when there is beautiful imported glass mass produced worldwide and sold for less than we can buy our raw materials for. We live a simple life but the bills still have to be paid. What else do we love besides the art, yep, cats... So what do we do now? Ah, we find another expensive hobby but this one involves the most wonderful creatures we've ever known.Patrick wanted to breed hunting dogs but I'm in a wheelchair and didn't want to roll through you know what. The bengal cats are the closest thing to a dog that use a litter box and have unyielding loyalty, we fell in love with bengal cats! An online friend of mine was always talking about his bengal cat. I suggested we research them as an alternative to the beloved hunting dogs he had as a child. I researched for months online, then we traveled around Florida to meet some in person. We met some nice people and saw some beautiful cats and I can't say we weren't tempted to buy a couple we saw but at the time, we didn't find that special one we couldn't resist. We knew with so many unwanted cats in shelters and rescues, if we were going to breed cats, we had to start with the best of the best bloodlines. We figured OK, if we're going to do this, we can't limit ourselves in any way. We needed to find the most desirable qualities so we contacted the most reputable breeders we knew of with the most well known show cats. There were some beauties out there, I found what I considered to be the epitome of the bengal breed, Gogees Warpaint . We couldn't have him, however, I emailed his breeder, Gene Ducote, and she had Warpaint's gorgeous full sister (same parents, different litter) newly available. A lady in Hungary had put a deposit on her but had changed her mind about breeding so we were fortunate enough to find Nova from Gogees in Louisiana. We have no regrets for seeking out Nova, she is the foundation of our cattery and the joy of our lives. Since those first days, we have worked with several beautiful bengals from consciencious breeders carrying the traits and quality we are striving for. Our aim is to have the happiest, healthiest and friendliest cats available and we invite you to come witness for yourself the exotic magic catmosphere of Etché Bengals.