Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Uncle D
My younger brother Derek came down on April 30th to stay with us for a little while and it has been busy but so much fun. Not only is it nice to have family down here with us, but the kids get to experience having a dog (without the commitment)! Uncle Derek is so great with the kids and loves going on rock-flipping adventures with them. During one of their adventures, a flipped rock revealed a red-bellied wormsnake, which they kept in a bucket for a day. I know I said I wouldn't do snakes, but it was all for the cause of science! After one day, though, it had to go. I couldn't sleep very well that night knowing there was a snake in our garage. Check out this other snake we saw weaving through the chain link fence:
(I had to make this picture large because the snake is camouflaged so well.) This one didn't bother me as much as all the other snakes, maybe because of its color. It blended in perfectly with the plants that were at the bottom of the fence and the kids have been on the lookout for this guy since then.
Anyway, Uncle Derek helps out a lot around here and even goes bug-hunting at night with his night gear for june bugs. I bet you're wondering what we need june bugs for. This past weekend, our neighbor found a female box turtle out in the road and brought it over for us to keep. (He obviously knows us well already!) That same night, Pete brought a male box turtle home from work. So we now have a male and female box turtle in a rubbermaid container in our backyard and the female really likes june bugs. Our total critter count inside and outside of our house is now: 1 dog, 1 rabbit, 1 gray treefrog, 1 betta fish, 2 box turtles (we let the red-eared slider go), and many tadpoles. Every day or two, another tadpole turns into a froglet and we let it go at the local pond. Some of the tadpoles are very large and are not getting any legs, so we're hoping we have bullfrog tadpoles. Did you know that it takes bullfrog tadpoles two to three years to turn into a frog? 
Gabie's really getting close to Uncle Derek too. He'll cuddle up with Uncle Derek on the recliner and watch a movie with him. It's been so wonderful to have Uncle D here. He plans on sticking around for a while and is going to help us move in a couple of weeks. Oh, by the way, for those who don't know yet, we're moving in a couple of weeks. We'll just be going 15 minutes away to a city called Owasso. The Lord presented us with a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom house with a flat driveway in a family-friendly neighborhood and He made it all work out so easily that we know it's His plan. Our lease was up here anyway, so between that and the garage sale we did last weekend, we've been buzzing around here! It's been fun though! I'll post a blog about our move and the new place in a couple of weeks. It's going to be tough to say goodbye to our house on the hill, but it's time to get back to riding bikes and skateboards in the driveway!
