Category Archives: Life and Family

My wife and I love our furry children but SHHHHH, don’t let them know. They are spoiled rotten!

J.C. is the blessing we never imagined

Posted on by
Reply

Brandee and I continue to be amazed daily, how lucky we are to have been able to re-home my mom’s cat, J.C.  J.C. (“Just Cat”) truly is a remarkable gift from God that came to us in uncertain times, but has worked out the best.

For those who might not have been following the story, Brandee and I already had four adopted animals with our two dogs of Gracie and Finn, but also our two cats of Bleu and Ella. While our dogs didn’t give us too much concern about integrating J.C. into our home, the unknown of having our two female cats was something we had to take very seriously.  We just couldn’t predict exactly how everyone would interact with each other.

Fast-forward one year later and I’m happy to report that J.C. has assimilated into our family so nicely and I think he’s found his happy place in life.  J.C. is the type of guy that you can sense his feelings, and it’s pretty apparent that he misses my mom and dad (who raised him for his first 10 years), but he also enjoys that zany-nest of his new family with Gracie, Finn and especially Bleu and Ella.

Brandee has given J.C. a new nick-name of “Bubba” which I think fits his funny personality very well. Bubba likes to spend most of his days lounging-around his bed, which Brandee constructed of many fluffy pillows, and leisurely exploring our living room area with the rest of us. Bubba never makes a fuss about himself and he just generally goes with the flow watching the action such as Daddy throwing the ball for Finn to fetch like 200-times nightly!

In summary, I’m so glad that J.C. is part of the Neal Barnhouse Family.  He is such an interesting character that makes Brandee and me so happy plus he’s a good example of an older brother for his four other siblings. It’s also amazing that J.C. is an angel in our house that has experiences with my mom and dad that is only known to him.

We love you J.C.!

-Mommy and Daddy

Ella and The Hand

Posted on by
Reply

Ella and The Hand

I don’t know why but I’m feeling a strong desire to write this simple message of appreciation for someone that will read this message.

Recently I went on a routine business trip for only two days. While I sincerely enjoyed my trip, meeting new people and getting business done; I missed my wife and our five furry children more than ever. And, frankly, the biggest highlight of my travel was coming home instead of going to the event itself. 

The instant I came in the front door upon getting home, Gracie and Finn “embraced” me with their waggy-tails, big barking mouths and jumpy enthusiasm. I was so happy to see them, and I think they were happy to see Daddy again.

After Grace and Finn finally got settled a little bit, it was time to see how my youngest daughter, Ella Bean September Neal, was doing because she’s a very independent spirit and doesn’t pretend to make a fuss about anything.

So, I headed out to her lazy daytime sleeping bed in our office where she likes to nap in the sunshine and I said ‘hello Ella-bean’.  She responded ‘meow…’, and rolled on her back as a direct invitation for me to rub her tummy like she enjoys so much.

I reached out my hand to scratch her tummy, back of her neck and chin, but I stopped because she was in such a frenzy for me to rub her with my hand that I didn’t know which rub-part was her priority.

So, I just held out my hand and appreciated the gift the God gave me. 

A Hand, with five-fingers, that can move in various horizontal/vertical directions, have nerves to feel sensation such as heat and cold plus effortlessly interoperate with the rest of my body. 

Basically, I had taken touch, with my Hand to scratch Ella’s furry-chin, as sort of an entitlement instead of the gift that this is.

As I held my Hand still for 30 minutes, Ella made the decision whether her chin, belly, neck, ears, back, or wherever she wanted rubbed. It was her choice, not mine, which was really cool.  I spread my fingers out so that she was able scratch several areas in the same pass (she’s so small that she can get a neck, chin and back scratch in one fell-swoop). It was 30-minutes of great reflection that a simple gift, that I don’t appreciate enough such as a Hand with five fingers, can provide such happiness to others.

This 30-minutes also allowed me to consider how Ella’s paws (a.k.a. her Hands), with five nails, are specially created for her purpose in life. She has claws to be able to scale high-fences, climb on roofs as well as defend herself from attacks.

So, while we both Ella and I have similar features with Five digits, we are gifted with specialized purposes with our Hands. The commonality is that Ella and I can touch our Paws/Hands and be bonded forever in our love and happiness for this wonderful gift.

Neal Family Barnhouse Update, 07/29/2023

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been awhile since our kids latest update, so here goes:

Bleu-Berry!

Bleu, is our wonderful chill baby. She is a 6-year old rescue kitty and her days are spent mostly sleeping and minding her own business. Bleu is mostly active at night where she likes to cuddle with Mommy and be a big baby. She is strong as an ox with a great personality.

Bleu is strong as an ox and is like a little black panther kitty. She is the mature feline amongst our other children and she’s the responsible adult most of the time. Occasionally, late at night when no one is watching she will come out and run around the living room as daddy shines the red-laser pointer thingy for her.

The Grace!

Gracie, who we adopted on the same day as Bleu, is our crazy Chiweenie. Gracie is also 6-years old and she’s a lot of fun. She spends her days barking at everything as if her little stature will be intimidating enough to do something.

“The Grace!”, as Mommy likes to refer to her is always full of energy. Her spunky attitude is very relatable to Brandee so I think this is why these two characters have such a tight bond :-).

Gracie’s greatest strength is also her greatest weakness as her curious nature tends to get her into be trouble….especially when chasing skunks in the backyard. She’s gotten sprayed several times but keeps running after them nevertheless.

The rescue sissies!

As I mentioned, Bleu and Gracie were adopted on the same day, so they are forever sissies. These two are totally trusting in every way that it’s so heart-warming.

It’s truly wonderfully remarkable for me to see cats and dogs getting along so awesome. It’s so refreshing to witness everyone getting along so nice and I just wish that people could do the same.

You can’t imagine the incredible bond between these two. It’s an amazing display of love and it’s most evident when either of them isn’t feeling well, then the other instinctively protectively cares for the other.

Ella-Bean

Ella, is our 5-year old, crazy-beyond-belief Tortoise Hair beauty. Ella is full of energy and runs around the house at light-speed. She has a crazy look in her eyes and her personality is a match!

Ella has a very independent personality and doesn’t mind spending time on her own. However when she does make an appearance, she always has to be the center of attention!

Although Ella is only 10 pounds, she thinks she owns the world. I guess good things come in small packages?
She loves to be friendly with other animals like the birds, squirrels and raccoons in our backyard.

Finn-Ster

Finn is our nearly 2-year old rescue, 71-pound, black lab, who commands the most attention. While he’s the biggest of all our animals, he’s bar-far, the most attention-demanding guy of all! We love his energy, but he’s a lot of work, for sure!

Just like Bleu like to chase the red-laser pointer thingy, Finn is a huge fan of flashy-lights! He also loves for Mommy and Daddy to toss his catchy-balls way up in the air so he can jump and catch them skillfully in his mouth. We can do hundreds of catchy-ball throws per night and he never gets enough!

Finn loves to play with Ella especially and, believe me, she loves to reciprocate! Finn and Ella love to tease each other and it’s so cute. Ella will hide under the couch and every time Finn sticks his nose under the couch, then Ella swats in the stout….with love of course :-).

Just Cat (J.C.)

J.C. (“Just Cat”), is our latest re-homed baby and we are so grateful for him!!! He was a gift that we weren’t sure would be compatible with our four other babies, but he’s been a perfect addition to the Neal Family Barnhouse!

The phrase “Last, but not least” has never been more appropriate than with J.C. He truly is a gift from God. As you’ve read with our other furry children, we love them all. However, as much as we wanted J.C. to come home with us, it wasn’t right to disrupt our current furry children, so this was a major concern.

Overall, Brandee and I are so happy to give our children such a wonderful life. We are proud parents with all these waggy-tails, stinky-breath and deadly-claws! We love them all so much that this is our purpose in life.

God Bless and Please Adopt,
Kevin

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Santa Clara County

Posted on by
Reply

Friends, family and strangers reading this blog today, tomorrow or in the future,

I’m writing this blog post to try and capture the mood of our local community in Santa Clara County, but also though out the world wide. To sum up the situation, all businesses that are deemed “non-essential” are closed to any in-personal interaction. This includes dine-in restaurants, schools, parks and anywhere a group of 10 or more people are likely to gather.

The Coronavirus (a.k.a. COVID-19) is a highly infectious virus that, as far as we know at the time of this blog post, originated somewhere in China and has spread across the globe infecting millions and killing tens-of-thousands thus far.

According to most experts, the ‘surge’ of cases for infection and death of Coronavirus is predicted to dramatically escalate over the next few weeks. Santa Clara County has been on a voluntary ‘shelter-in-place’ order by our local government since early March 2020. Since then the county has begun to enforce the order for places such as restaurants who continue to offer dine-in services or beauty salons who continue to serve their customers.

It’s really a tough situation right now because these small businesses cannot survive being without paying customers for even a short period of time so they push the limits of a public safety order. On the other hand, people’s lives are a top priority and some people question whether such drastic extremes as ‘shelter-in-place’, instead of just ‘social distancing common sense’ are really necessary.

Fortunately, there are now some federal government stimulus money being promised to small business owners, however they are already having major problems with implementing a simple approval process and/or approval workflow.

I, personally, just cringe at how ineffective our government is when it comes to offer services back to the very needy taxpayers because my business is all about work-process automation. These problems I see every day, plain as day, can be easily solved at a fraction of the budget; if you just remove the politics. So I won’t hold my breath.

As you can image, it’s an unreal situation trying to live your normal life with so many restrictions but if it’s for the greater sake of humanity then, from at least what I’ve observed, most people have been totally compliant which is absolutely heart-warming to me. It’s an unbelievable time that you need to have empathy, compassion and patience with others.

After being locked in the house for nearly 1 month solid I told Brandee I wanted to take a night-walk to the store just to experience the activity level on a Spring night, on the weekend in California. I can tell you what I experienced in my walk to the store was remarkable! There is little activity on a usually busy Saturday night. I walked down the middle of what typically is a busy road, with only one car encounter. Also, there was only one airplane that I noticed taking-off from the San Jose International Airport and there was general no sign of life in the outside world.

I’m proud of my fellow community to observe the shelter-in-place order to help slow the spread of the virus. However, at some point we have to balance the risk versus the negative impact to society for social isolation. As I walked to the store this evening in the silence of the night all I could think of was this song remake from the band Distributed entitled “The Sound of Silence”.

Stay safe, stay healthy and stay positive everyone!

Sincerely,

Kevin

Charles Edward Utley (September 1, 1926 – August 14, 2018)

Posted on by
Reply

Chuck Utley

Chuck Utley

Charles “Chuck” Utley, passed away peacefully on August 14, 2018 in Los Altos, CA. Chuck was born September 1, 1926 in Buffalo, NY and was the devoted husband and best friend of Cornelia van der Voort, who he affectionately called “Neil”. He is survived by sons, Robert B. Utley, and his wife Elisabeth of Sydney, Australia, Nelson V. Utley, and his wife Barbara of Cupertino, CA, and Charles A. Utley, and his wife Teresa of Campbell, CA. He also leaves behind much-loved grandsons, Nicholas and Lucas and precious granddaughter, Emily.

Chuck was the son of Charles Bach Utley and Kate (Phelps) Utley. As an only child, he grew up in Buffalo, NY until enlisting in the U.S. Navy during WWII and serving as a signalman on landing crafts in the South Pacific. He graduated from Williams College, Willamstown, MA in 1949. Chuck began his marketing career in Buffalo at Sattlers, a pioneering discount department store, moving later to building products manufacturer National Gypsum Company. He then joined Whitney Seed Company, maker of lawn and garden products, where he was responsible for marketing and advertising. He met his future wife at the wedding of a mutual friend in 1950 and they were married three years later at Neil’s family home in Fredonia, NY and then settling in East Aurora, NY.

In 1963 he moved his sales and marketing experience from Buffalo to Rumrill-Hoyt Advertising in Rochester, NY, where he became an account supervisor and vice president. Feeling the need for change in 1970, Chuck joined Robert Ebey Company Advertising in Menlo Park, CA but not before the family made a memorable cross-country automobile trip to their new home in Los Altos. He spent the next 20 years helping guide what became Ebey, Utley & Company through the economic ups and downs of Silicon Valley and assisted in the marketing successes of many of the area’s important commercial, financial and technology companies.

Throughout his life, Chuck enjoyed travel, barbershop quartet singing, skiing, musical theater, reading, cheering on the ’49ers and attempting to master the banjo. He was a consummate handy-man, ready to take on anything around the house. Above all, Chuck loved his wife, his sons and their families, and admired the character, accomplishments and joys they continually gave him. He will be forever remembered as a caring husband, extraordinary dad/granddad and passionate community volunteer who lived life to the fullest.