Introducing.....

our new pets...

Anyone who knows our family knows that I am not only a pushover, but an animal lover. I would love to be Ellie Mae and have a menagerie of animals, from horses, chickens, and cows to rabbits, fish and dogs. Anything but cats....I'm not a cat person.

However, my husband, dear man that he is does not like animals. I think this is because they are messy, they stink, and someone has to take care of them when we leave town -- therefore, they become a hassle. My Type A, driven, numbers kind of guy does not like anything that is a hassle!! It took me years to convince him that our children were terribly deprived if we forced them to grow up without a dog....you know the whole a boy and his dog argument. Thus, we acquired our white, English bulldog - Sweet Louise. The reason he chose an English Bulldog is because they are lazy -- like us! Seriously. They don't like to exercise, in fact, they can't tolerate it. She doesn't run away when I open the door, therefore, most days she is in the driveway, laying in a sunny patch, and barely raising her head, even if someone comes in the driveway. Unless it is the yard man -- she hates the yard man....but, that is another post.

We also have one little turtle - which belongs to Joshua, lives on the lanai, and as long as Stan doesn't go out there - he doesn't notice that the tank looks rather green most of the time. Joshua insists that Bentley likes it that way!

Lyndsey recently got a Beta fish with her own money - and dad just doesn't look to see if Bubbles is floating or if his cage is clean since she keeps him in her bedroom.

Imagine my surprise, when Valentine's Day rolls around and my non- animal loving husband comes home and announces that he has acquired new pets for the kids! Wide eyed, we eagerly listened as he described the Red-eyed Tree Frogs that a lady at work has offered to give us -- straight from the Rain forest!

Now we are the proud owners of three of these guys - their names you may wonder? I named one Flick (you know the tongue thing they do when they eat those poor, unsuspecting crickets that we put in there), the girls names theirs Walter (long story), and since Graham couldn't decide between all of his heroes we now have Cooper/Jack/Walker (good thing he is the biggest, with all those cowboy boots to fill)!

Never mind that they must be misted twice a day, the crickets must be raised in a separate tank and fed the choicest morsels in order to have healthy frogs, and we found out last night that they make a really loud, croaking noise - of course in the middle of the night. They are nocturnal after all, and they don't wake up until about midnight.

Despite all of these, um, shall we call them "hassles" they are quite fascinating to watch and I even catch Dad stooping over the tank with the viewing light trying to find them among the tropical foliage. The rest of us don't even try to hide the fact that much of our school this week has revolved around the habits of red-eyed tree frogs and we have spent a lot of time staring through the glass into their world. We even got to see Flick eat this morning - thereby living up to his name.

Check them out.