Pets

I promised you more info, here ya go! Some of you may already know this story, in case you don't, Jessi (she wants it spelled this way now) prayed for a snake... And the Lord answered her prayer! Just before Thanksgiving last year, someone from church GAVE us the exact kind of snake that Jessi wanted, cage, stuff in the cage, and snake! Needless to say, I was thrilled! Since I have allergies, the kids pets choices are limited.

Our first pet was a beta fish. Jenna received him for her 4th b-day. She named him Swiper. He was an easy pet to have, didn't require too much maintenance. I tried to find a picture but couldn't readily find one.


Our next pet came soon after Swiper died, over 2 years later. Jarod received two tree frogs. We had to do the cricket thing which nearly did me in. Weekly visits to the pet store plus live crickets in our "cricket keeper" became very tedious. We set Jimmy and Goddard free almost a year later at a friends pond. This may seem mean but, I have to tell you, it was a better fate than my sister-in-laws frog! Less crunchy, that's for sure!


That was the summer of '06. Jessi had been asking for a snake and John and I just weren't on board. We were already starting to talk of Europe possibly for our 15th Anniversary and thought dealing with a pet would be a drag. Well, Jessi took it to the Lord. That's great and all, that's what we want the kids to do. But I certainly didn't expect Him to answer her prayer, HER way! While our whole family was serving in Biloxi Oct. of '07, Marc, who had come with us from Horizon, got to talking and discovered the snake he was looking for a home for, was just what Jessi had been praying for. We brought him home just before Thanksgiving. Thankfully, we can purchase frozen mice to feed him. It's nasty but I don't have to do any of it. Jess takes care of it all. We tried, ONCE, to feed him a live mouse. While he enjoyed it, it proved to be a bit too traumatic. Having the mouse in a little cage for three hours while we waited to feed Rodriguez didn't help. We even named the mouse, Tinker Jr., that was a bad mistake! We figured Rodriguez would come in fast and get the mouse first try. Nope, we got to witness about 20 min. of high pitched squeaking, and a crazy snake and mouse chase all around the cage. We all jumped every time Tinker jumped and some of the kids turned away when Rodriguez finally did catch her. We have some pictures but I'll spare you. That's an experience we don't feel the need to repeat, EVER!

Tinker Jr.

So, we've had Rodriguez for almost a year and Zach, a youth kid from church, was asking around seeing if anyone wanted his gecko. John and I talked it over and decided that Jarod would probably love it! Another plus, it eats meal worms. They are dormant in cold temperatures so you just keep them in your fridge for easy storage and feeding of the gecko. Jarod decided to keep the name Zack had given her, Geico! We just brought her home Sunday so haven't really seen her much, plus she's nocturnal. We woke her up this afternoon for some blog photo time. She cooperated quite nicely. Jess picked her up but she didn't seem to be too fond of us all staring at her yet. We'll wait another few days.