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Army Lt. Col. surprises daughter on ceremonial first pitch

(Photo: Chris O’Meara / Associated Press)

There was a touching moment before tonight’s Red Sox/Rays game, as nine-year-old Alayna Adams threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Tropicana Field and was reunited with her dad in the process.

More from NBC Sports.

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Sisters, separated for 17 years, find each other at high school track meet

(Photo: NBC Nightly News)

Robin Jeter, 18, and Jordan Dickerson, 17, grew up quite differently in the nation’s capital. But it’s hard to ignore the similarities: They’re smart, pretty and fashion-forward, and both are also athletic and have double-jointed thumbs. A coincidental encounter at a track meet brought the long-separated sisters together.

Read the complete story.

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Twins Separated at Birth Find Each Other via YouTube

After Anaïs Bordier, a French student living in London, saw American actress Samantha Futerman in aYouTube video, she noticed a striking resemblance to herself. She found one of Futerman’s personal vlogs about being adopted, leading Bordier to find the two girls had the same birthday. After sending Futerman a Facebook message, the two realized they might be long lost twin sisters. Through Twitter, Skype and Facebook messenger, the girls have been using social media to cac]tch up on the first 25 years of their lives. They have since launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a documentary about their first meeting, as well as a DNA test to confirm their relation.

Couple reunited with missing cat after 13 years

A cat has clawed his way back into the hearts and home of the owners that lost him 13 years ago.

The Corsos lived in Las Vegas when their pet, Bandit, disappeared one day when he was let out of the house. Imagine the surprise of Elizabeth and Dante Corso to get a call in San Diego — where they now live — that Bandit had been found circling around in their old Vegas neighborhood.

A microchip implanted in the feline enabled someone at Bonanza Cat Hospital to find the 15-year-old cat’s owners and get them all back together on April 4, according to KTNV.

“This cat here has an amazing story. Yeah, I wish I knew it. All of it; who he’s [been] with, where he’s been,” Elizabeth said to NBC San Diego.

Bandit moved into a veritable menagerie. The Corsos own 13 other animals, KPBS said.

One of the other pets is Bandit’s brother Coot who was never the same after Bandit disappeared, according to KGTV.

Teenage Sweethearts Prove it’s Never Too Late as They Reunite and Marry in Their 70s

A lovesick British couple whose teen romance dissolved under the weight of parental disapproval has reunited and married—six decades after splitting up.

“We have simply picked up where we left off. It’s like being teenage sweethearts all over again,” Eileen Billington, 78, told SWNS.com about her newfound relationship with Warner, 79. “It’s as though we have never been apart. As well as loving each other, we are good companions, just as we were when we first met. In fact, we are just like an old married couple.”

Eileen Lockley met Warner Billington back she was 16 and he was 17, living as neighbors in the West Midlands area of central England, when Warner noticed her walking by with her sister Margaret.  

“I saw her and I was smitten,” Warner told the Daily Mail. “I got a pair of garden shears and pretended to cut the hedge outside my parents’ house. When they passed, I said, ‘Hello Margs, who’s that with you?’ and we got talking.”  

Shortly thereafter, Warner enlisted in the Royal Air Force and was stationed about three hours away in South Wales. But he wrote to Eileen, an aspiring tap dancer who worked for the gas board, and asked her on a date, and they spent time going to movies and the seashore whenever he was home on leave. They also wrote to each other every other day.

Two years later, they planned to wed. But Eileen’s father said they were too young, and Warner lost his nerve.

“I thought Eileen’s father was wrong, but I didn’t propose,” he recalled. “Somehow, we just parted after that. It was my fault, I just went my own way.”

And life went on for both of them. In 1956, Eileen married a man named Jack Lenton, with whom she ran a hotel in Newquay, Cornwall. They had a son and a daughter, and were together until Jack died in 2006. 

Warner, meanwhile, married a woman named Gillian in 1957. They had three sons and were together until Gillian’s death in 2010.

Though Eileen and Warner hadn’t seen each other since their breakup, a friend of Warner’s was a regular at Eileen’s hotel, and Eileen would always ask her how Warner was doing. When she heard he had lost his wife, she called him to express her condolences, and after that they chatted on the phone regularly.

A year later, Warner invited Eileen to visit him at his home in West Midlands; it culminated in a tearful reunion at the train station, where Warner met her  “hair all slicked back and roses at the ready,” he told SWNS.com. Then, with the approval of both their families, Warner moved in with Eileen in 2011, and they were married soon thereafter. 

“We both had very happy marriages, but anyone who tells you that they don’t remember their first love is fibbing,” Warner said. “Both Eileen and I often wondered about what might have happened if things had worked out differently. But we don’t dwell on it now.” 

Dog travels 10 miles to find shelter mate

Ben and Jade’s story began long before owners Courtney and Jason Lawler came into their lives. According to the Tribune-Star, the dogs (both mixed German Shepherds) were initially strays living on the north end of Terre Haute, Indiana.

When one-year-old Jade became pregnant with 4-year-old Ben’s puppies last summer, staffers from the Terre Haute Humane Shelter trapped them and took them to the shelter so they could better care for the mother-to-be.

“They were a bonded pair,” shelter manager Charles Brown told told the Tribune-Star. Ben and Jade were inseparable during the several months they spent at the shelter and even shared the same pen. But they were later torn apart when the Lawler’s, who were only looking for one pet, adopted Ben.

“We had him for about three weeks, and we thought he was OK, but he got loose on us,” Courtney Lawler told NBC2 News. Ben escaped the Lawler’s home last December and went in search of Jade at the shelter 10 miles away.

About 24 hours later, Ben had found his way back to Jade. “He came out of nowhere and started licking her through the fence, like they were kissing,” Courtney said of the dogs’ reunion.

When the Lawlers realized it wouldn’t do to separate the pair again, they adopted Jade as well and brought both dogs home.

Ben and Jade “want to be together,” Debbie Floyd, the Humane Society board’s president, told the Tribune-Star. “There hasn’t been a lot of human love in their lives. They found love with each other and that what’s make them happy … Hopefully, they will live their lives happily ever after.”

Homeless Man Who Returned Diamond Ring Reunites With Siblings on ‘Today’ Show

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32-year-old man adopted by former foster mother

(Photo: NBC San Diego)

Nearly 20 years after being ripped apart from his foster parents, a 32-year-old man was officially adopted Friday in San Diego, Calif., by the woman he has always considered to be his mother.

Read the complete story.

Facebook friends find out they’re family

More than 100,000 children are adopted every year in the United States. Some of them end up searching for their biological parents and some don’t. But what if you find your birth family by accident?

That’s exactly what happened to 29-year-old Abbey Donohoe of Bettendorf, after one of her friends posted a message on Facebook about a baby given up for adoption 29 years ago.

“It was just a surreal,” said Donohoe. “Did I really just accidentally find my birth family?”

Paula O’Brien was the woman who wrote the post. O’Brien has been friends with Donohoe for four years. But neither knew they were actually related.

“When I was a little girl, one of my older brothers and his girlfriend gave a baby up for adoption,” O’Brien said. “It really had an impact on me and for years, I had hoped to find her.”

And last week, she did.

“A chance post on Facebook. I posted something with the birth date, bringing to light that I had a niece out there somewhere, and one of my friends responded.”

That friend is Abbey Donohoe.

“I read it and I’m like September 19th, that’s my birthday,” said Donohoe.

The two women compared information and confirmed that they are related. O’Brien is Donohoe’s aunt.

“My family had prayed for this for years,” O’Brien said. “For 29 years we dreamed of this day and it’s here.”

A homeless man in Las Vegas who had been living on the streets and had not seen his six children for nearly 25 years has been reunited with his daughter thanks to modern technology and the kindness of strangers.

Jimmy Francis was outside a Firehouse Subs shop earlier this month when he was spotted by a local realtor Jim Snyder, as he was going in to pick up his dinner. When Snyder saw Francis struggling in the cold weather he, with the help of Firehouse employees, bought the man a sandwich and gave him some cash.

After Snyder got home his thoughts stayed with Francis, left out in the cold.

“He was shaking so uncontrollably and was so cold it just broke my heart and I thought there’s something I’ve got to do here,” Snyder, 49, told ABCNews.com. “By the time I got to where my home is I knew I had to turn around and get him.”

Snyder, who says he had never before done anything like that, brought Francis to the home he shares with his wife, Maria, and gave him coffee, a warm shower, washed his clothes and packed a suitcase full of his own old clothes for Francis.

Over coffee and a warm meal, Snyder, himself a father of five children and step-children, learned that Francis had not seen his six children in over two decades after a divorce. He was particularly torn, Snyder says, over not seeing his only daughter, Natalie.

“He told me he had colon cancer in 2010 and wasn’t expected to live and because of that experience, the one thing constantly on his mind is he wants to be reunited with his children,” Snyder said.

The Snyders took down the names and birth dates of Francis’s children and used social media to search for them.

The couple found Natalie Francis, now living in Northern California and herself a grandmother, on Facebook and sent her a message. Less than one hour later, they had a response.

“The message just said, ‘Oh my God. This is my dad. Is he okay?’” Snyder recalled.

Just days later the couple brought Francis, living temporarily with an acquaintance, back to their home for a Skype call with his daughter.

“A whole lot of emotions,” is how Snyder recalled the virtual reunion. “That was the first time they’d seen each other in 24 years, literally. It was very, very special.”

Natalie Francis, it turns out, has been unemployed since November. Not able to find a job in her hometown, she is job searching in Las Vegas in hopes she can move there to live with and take care of her dad.

First, however, the two will be reunited in-person this Friday, thanks again to the kindness of strangers.

The Synders set up a fundraising site online for Francis and the publicity the story has received led to a woman donating airfare and travel expenses for Natalie Francis to fly to Las Vegas for a five-day visit with her father.

“In my wildest, wildest unbelievable imagination dreams, I never thought anything like this would ever happen,” said Snyder, who said he speaks with or visits Francis daily.

“When I did this I was just trying to help what I saw was a little old man freezing his tail off and just hungry,” he said. “I don’t know what compelled me but I just felt something pulling on my heart. Once I decided I didn’t hesitate and here we are.”

mothernaturenetwork:

Man reunited with dog a decade later

Jamie Carpentier, of Nashua, N.H., told himself “no more dogs” after his boxer died on Christmas Eve. But in January he found himself browsing the Humane Society of Greater Nashua’s website, where he was shocked to find a listing for a 13-year-old basset hound named Ginger.

There were no photos of the dog, but her description read, “I have the longest ears and the biggest heart of any dog you will ever meet! I am an older girl, but I still have a lot of spunk left.”

“It can’t be her,” Carpentier recounted to The Nashua Telegraph. “It’s been so long.”

Carpentier lost his 3-year-old dog Ginger in 2003 when he and his wife divorced. Then, without his knowledge, his wife gave the basset hound to the Nashua shelter, where an older couple adopted her.

But in October — almost 10 years later — the couple returned Ginger to the shelter because they were unable to care for her any longer.

Curious if the dog could actually be his Ginger, Carpentier emailed the Humane Society to ask for a photo of the dog. He compared the shelter’s photo with the puppy pictures he’d saved, and saw that the markings were the same. Ginger was his dog.

Carpentier visited the shelter on Jan. 21 and Ginger immediately recognized him.

“She heard my voice. I walked up to her and she kind of gave me a couple of licks or kisses. And I was like, ‘She knows who I am. She remembers my voice,’” he said.

After that, Carpentier changed his mind about the no-more-dogs policy, and he and his fiancée and daughter adopted Ginger on the spot.

“She’s going to live with me ‘til the end,” Carpentier told ABC affiliate WMUR-TV. “I just want her to be happy and live a good dog life.”

Watch a video of Ginger’s and Carpentier’s reunion below.

An 8-year-old Missouri boy uses Facebook to help his elderly friend find his long-lost sister he was separated from six decades ago.

Two sisters from Bosnia who have been apart since they were children were reunited 72 years later thanks to information found on Facebook.

Hedija Talic (82) and her sister Tanija Delic (88) saw each other again for the first time since 1941, writes the Nezavisne Novine paper.

The siblings got separated during the second World War. Hedija, then 11, got lost in the crowd when her family fled from their Bosnian town, she was taking in by an orphanage. After the war Hedija was told her family had either been killed in the war or they had moved to the United States. Either way, the chances that Hedija would ever see them again were slim to none.

“I lost all hope I would ever see them back alive,” Hedija tells the paper. Despondent and alone, Hedija moved to Bosnia’s northeastern region of Tuzla, unaware her sister was living barely 130 miles northwest.

But fate stepped in when Hedija’s son when searching for his roots online and in the process found a young woman on Facebook who appeared to be the daughter of his aunt; his mother’s sister. Before long the two sisters were reunited again, 72 years after they last saw or spoke with one another.

Interestingly, the rumors Hedija was told about her family were partially true: both her parents were killed during the war and her brother moved to the United States. Both Hedija and Tanija are determined to find him or his family and make the reunion complete.

Vanilla The Cat Miraculously Reunited With Owner 8 Years After Going Missing

The last time Dara Gerson saw her cat, Vanilla, he was in the arms of her daughter more than eight years ago.

At the time, the Sausalito family mourned the loss of young Siamese, putting up signs and searching for him with no success, reports the Larkspur-Corte Madera Patch. Eventually they gave up, although Gerson says that something always told her that her cat wasn’t dead.

It took eight years, but Gerson’s intuition was proven correct in dramatic fashion last week when Vanilla was returned to his family in a touching reunion at San Francisco Animal Control.

Apparently, after he jumped out of Gerson’s daughter’s arms, Vanilla traveled across the Golden Gate Bridge to Noe Valley— a journey that would take about six hours — where he eventually found a home with an elderly man, reports ABC News. The man had dementia, however, and his caretaker contacted Animal Control in December after he was checked into the hospital.

Deputy Officer Joseph Majeski took custody of Vanilla on December 21, and, as is procedure, scanned the feline’s ear for a microchip, reports KTVU. Vanilla had been tagged by Gerson all those years ago, and the chip led Majeski back the family, now living in Los Angeles.

“Sometimes owners, I call them and I find their missing pets, their pet’s been missing for a week or two, but this was just a whole different level of happiness,” Majeski told the station.

The happy reunion might not have happened at all if not for a bit of luck — through all those years, Gerson had never changed her cell phone number, noted Patch.

Kat Brown, deputy director of the Department of Animal Care and Control in San Francisco, said she handed Vanilla back over to his original owners without a second thought.

“She adopted Vanilla for life; there was no question she was going to get her cat,” Brown told Patch. “It was one of those heartwarming stories.”

KTVU reported that only about 10 percent of pets at the county shelter where Vanilla was found have microchips.

The Humane Society recommends microchipping pets in case the worst happens, but warns pet owners that the high tech identifiers are not foolproof, and do not take the place of the appropriate collars and tags.

Dog that went missing in aftermath of Superstorm Sandy found in shelter by his owners A DAY before he was to be put down

A dog that had been missing for two weeks after running away from a New York home hit hard by Hurricane Sandy was found just in time.

Buster, a Rhodesian Ridgeback and German Shepard mix, was on a list to be euthanized in less than 24 hours when his owner Christine O’Donovan, of Belle Harbor, Queens, spotted his photo online.

‘I looked at the photo and knew it was him,’ said O’Donovan, who saw her dog on the city’s Animal Care & Control’s nightly euthanasia list on December 13 and went with her children to bring Buster back home the next morning.

The young and healthy 63-pound mutt had run away from home two weeks earlier while workers were assessing damage brought on by Sandy, the New York Daily News reported. During those weeks, O’Donovan, 42, and her five kids, ages 2 to 12, had been searching their devastated neighborhood for any signs of their missing dog. 

Without electricity or an Internet connection due to the storm O’Donovan said she was unable to access the AC&C’s lost and found database or go to the shelter to look for Buster, who she had rescued a few months earlier after finding him tied to a pole on Queens Boulevard. Buster was listed on the AC&C’s website as a stray pit bull mix with a medical condition of ‘kennel cough.’

O’Donovan immediately called the shelter to put Buster’s impending euthanasia on hold using the shelter’s automated telephone system.

‘I hoped and prayed that he would be alive when we got there,’ she said.

Sure enough he was.

‘He was so happy to see my kids and they were so happy to see him,’ said O’Donovan.

The mother of five also left the shelter with a brindle pit bull puppy, named Niko, whose owner was dropping him off when she got there. Niko is up for adoption or foster through the animal rescue group Sasha’s Mission, which has an active Facebook page. Buster was among dozens of other domesticated animals from areas hit by Hurricane Sandy to wind up at animal shelters within recent weeks.

More than 50 lost dogs and cats that landed at AC&C shelters in neighborhoods impacted by the storm were sent to an ASPCA Emergency Boarding Facility so that their owners could have a better chance of finding them. AC&C spokesperson Richard Gentles said Buster did not slip through the system.

‘The dog was held for eight days without identification. The mandatory stray hold is 72 hours from intake,’ he told the Daily News.