The Hermies Have Landed

Today was the BIG day! We are official "pet owners" as of this afternoon appx. 4pm central time! ; )

We had been discussing this for weeks.... well maybe even months! (The kids wanted a cat when I was pregnant with Shea, and I kept putting it off saying "when the baby is here, we will discuss 'A' pet option".... hinting strongly that it may not be a CAT!)

So Baby came and time has rolled on and it's been an even heavier discussion "what kind of pet"??

We had scanned many a pet stores and read many a books from the library.... surfed many a websites, and my first announcement was, "if we get a free aquarium/tank of sorts, on freecycle, then we can see what type of pet would suit us".

WELL.... we ended up getting FOUR tanks on freecycle and now have limitless options to house various types of reptiles, amphibians and other creatures. After reading, "Hermit Crabs for Dummies" from the library I finally gave into the notion that we would own and care for a creature. And today was the big day!

Actually, yesterday and today. The tanks have been sitting here a while now (since Halloween actually) and I could not muster to clean them up and get moving. But Dahlia was pushing more and more and getting more and more excited, so she eventually motivated me on this project.

Yesterday we went out and got the "home stuff" to be able to set up the tank for the Hermit Crabs.... OH yes, I guess I should have mentioned, the consensus was that we would do Hermit Crabs because they were very super duper low-maintenance, and we'd probably not kill them. ; )

So, this AM we spent cleaning out one of the tanks and getting it all ready. I told them we could swing by the pet store after gym today. I had thought we'd leave with 2-3 and we left with FOUR! But I do have to say, having them home and seeing how pretty cool they are, we could easily add a few more in the tank! They are pretty facinating little guys.

The kids had picked out 3 names for the hermies before we went out today, but when we got to the store, the only one's Dahlia wanted to select had characters painted on their shells! So they gave up on the names b/c they say "they already have names"!!!

"Welcome to the family, Patrick, Nemo, Plankton and Tweetie!!"