We have a new family member.

His name is Billy, and he has a few quirks, but don’t we all?

I know that you’re all wondering where you can see a video of Billy, so here you go:

It’s not really like having a lizard in the house. He has a personality.

He hopped on my sister-in-law’s lap the other day.

And Jack has only forgotten to close the cricket cage once.

Ahem.

I didn’t realize that when buying a bearded dragon (that’s what Billy is), we could become cricket owners, as well.

You see, we could either go to the pet store (30 minutes away) every day for a few crickets, or we could buy a few dozen at a time.

And keep them alive.

In a cricket house.

And feed them every day.

*gag*

I really, really don’t like crickets.

Or worms.

But Billy does.

So we’re dealing with the crickets.

If you were a fly on the wall in my house this past week, here are some things you would have heard:

Lizards don’t need blankets.

Don’t drop the lizard.

Don’t hold Billy like he’s a frog.

No, you can’t see his teeth.

Because lizards don’t need blankets.

Riley, NO! {Riley is one of our dogs}

Yes, I’m sure he’s a boy.

Because they told me at the reptile store.

No, lizards don’t like treats.

No, he doesn’t need a blanket.

Moooommm… the lizard poooooooped….

How do I clean it up?

Can I hold the lizard?

Does he have ears?

Is he changing color? Cool!

JACK. Lizards. don’t. need. blankets.

Bloggy world, meet Billy.

Billy Bob Joe, jr. – to be exact.

I never, ever thought I would welcome a lizard into my house.
What’s one pet that you will never allow in your house?

a. scorpion

b. millipede

c. snake

Photo credit for these amazing {ahem} action photos goes to Michael.

c. Snake! Hard to see, but he’s in there. I promise.

Just to be sure that we’re all on the same page here, I have never caught a snake before because Steve has always been home to catch them. It’s not something that I have aspired to do.

Today we found this little guy in the garage, and I couldn’t “un-see” him because the kids saw him, too.

So, I did what any girl in the desert would do…

I picked up the snake stick, yelled “get me the snake bucket and the camera!” and chased the thing around the garage for 20 minutes.

You do what you need to do, I tell ya’.

Oh, and did you see what Steve found in the pool this morning?

Yes, that’s 8 INCHES.

Holy ….  moley.

So, yeah. In one day, this is the tally:

One snake.

One millipede/centipede/nastypede.

And because I know you’re all wondering…

1. Dykstraboys: No it’s not a rattlesnake (sorry)

2. Yes, Jack asked to keep him (I said until Dad gets home)

3. Yes, Jack wanted to feed the centipede thing to the snake. I talked him into giving it a dead Japanese beetle. (see, Noah? Taking good care of him!)

So, who’s coming to visit?

I see…

a little boy

who is getting his first freckles…

—

mismatched pajamas on a little body

and

a stuffed rattlesnake around his neck…

—

and a very scared grasshopper

who

has probably talked with Larry.

Linked with Angie’s Wordful Wednesday post

I’ve lived in Arizona for ten years now.

Ten hundred-degree summers,

ten air conditioned Thanksgivings,

ten snowless Christmases,

and ten nohidingchocolatebunniesoutside Easters.

In these ten years, I’ve learned a thing or two about the desert and just recently realized (through blog and facebook comments) that you may not be aware of these amazing facts.

Doesn’t that make you sad?

Since I’m all about sharing my worldly knowledge, I’m turning What I Learned This Week into:

What I Learned This Decade

(because I can). (because it’s my blog).

1. If it crawls, slithers, or scrambles, don’t touch it (well, unless Daddy is around).

2. Drink water. Then when you’re done, drink more.

3. If a lizard gets scared, he will detach his tail and drop it in order to trick whatever is chasing him. The tail will continue to wiggle and move for up to 2 minutes afterwards. Ewwwww.

4. Let’s talk about cacti for a minute. Did you know that the plural of cactus is cacti? And that they can have flowers? And fruit?

This looks like an ordinary flower:

…but it’s a cactus.

It’s a type of night blooming cactus, which means that it blooms once a year at night. This one was in my neighbor’s front yard. He has had the cactus for 7 years, and this is the first time it has bloomed.

Can we think about that for a minute? It blooms once a year (at most) for 24 hours. A-mazing, if you ask me.

5. It is possible for your leather seats to burn your legs.

6. Windchimes will (hopefully) deter rattlesnakes from visiting you.

7. Tin foil will (hopefully) deter woodpeckers from pecking at your house.

8. Quail cross the road as a family. Often, you will see Mama Quail, followed by 10 or more tiny baby quail, followed by Daddy Quail. Always followed by Daddy Quail. It melts my heart.

9. We have a monsoon season. Normally (this year is not normal), for about 45 days during the beginning of July and lasting through the middle of August, there are thunderstorms every evening at about 4 pm. Heat lightening, thunder, and torrential rain flood the desert for about one hour, then it clears up and the sun comes back out. Oh, and it cools off a bit.

10. Colorado river toads (also called Sonoran desert toads) come out in droves during monsoon season. They sound like bleating goats (or screaming children, depending on the level of sleep they wake you from). The toads have a poison/venom in their body and on their skin that can cause hallucinogenic effects in humans. Yes, I have heard of dogs getting sick from picking the toads up in their mouths. Yes, children (not mine) have licked them and tried to get high. And yes, I have heard of adults licking them and trying to get high.

Can we think about that for a moment, as well?

Ok. Let’s not.

*gag*

Tell me something about where you live that non-locals wouldn’t know…

Meet Larry:

We found him climbing our house this evening.

Larry is a very brave lizard.

I know this because he obviously saw Jack from up there on the wall, and still decided to come down to say hello.

The boys had just dried off from swimming and were so excited to play with their new pet.

You see, we don’t get many lizards in our backyard (because of our lizard chasing dogs).

Can you tell how excited the boys were?

It’s funny… Larry moved a lot more when Jack was holding him.

I think he was trying to escape.

Here’s Jack concentrating on not. dropping. the. lizard.

When Michael held Larry, he didn’t move an inch.

Again:

Michael:

and Jack:

Michael:

Jack:

Do we all see how this story is ending?

We played with the lizard for about 40 minutes.

Jack liked the name Larry The Lizard (first, middle, and last), but Michael liked “Little Dude.”

Jack liked to see where Larry would “stick” to him.

Michael liked to watch the little dude breathe.

The boys took turns with Larry.

During Jack’s last turn, well… see for yourself.

Larry T. Lizard dropped his tail.

They do that when they’re terrified, you know.

It happened right about the time Jack tried to get the lizard to climb up his back.

Michael came to the rescue, and put Larry back on the house where we found him.

Minus a tail.

This post is linked to Angie’s Wordful Wednesday Carnival – go check it out!

I’m dying to share some pictures of what I have been doing for the last 2 weeks!

Most of these are cell phone pictures, so bare with me…

Steve is visibly absent in these pictures because he has been spending a lot of time behind the closed door on the right.

Not to be mistaken for the open one on the left. That’s the bathroom.

He has officially started his Master’s program and is there every night and weekend. It’s just like he’s traveling for work, but he’s not. I guess it’s better to be behind the door because I can still scream and ask him to come kill bugs for me :)

I have been watching Jack make new friends and spend time with “old” ones… (I love the thumbs in the pockets look).

I have been spending a lot of time in my new classroom planning for the amazing kids that I have this year…

Michael has been coming to have lunch and play games with me on the days that I work.

We spent last weekend watching a friend take the Lindy’s Challenge…

and drooling over the mac and cheese burger (though I didn’t try it):

We waited (very patiently) for the monsoons to roll in… and they finally did!

We have spent a lot of time talking about how to deal with Jack’s hoarding…

This picture was taken today while we were rearranging his room.

I went to move his dresser and he said, “Well, Mom… there is some stuff under there… “

I don’t think I shared it with you, but about a month ago, we found this stash under Jack’s train table:

The funny thing is, these are items I had asked Jack to throw away at one time or another.

Anyone have any ideas about how to nip this in the bud? Because apparently, whatever I’m doing is not working.

Anyway… where was I?

Michael fell off of his scooter and banged up his hip and arm pretty good…

We had a few chances to see real Arizona cowboys in action:

Oh, and we tried to rescue a lizard from our pool, though it didn’t work :(

Tell me… what have you been doing lately?

#1 means “first critter of the summer,” not “first ever.”

We all know that, right?

So, we found this thing in our garage.

This nasty, hairy, fang-y thing.

For reference, the cardboard that it’s on is from a case of beer.

Because we’re so klassy, Steve used the beer divider to pick up this almost dead thing.

The diameter of this thing is roughly as large as a can of beer.

And apparently it’s a camel spider.

You may have seen this infamous spider before:

You know, I can handle a lot of things.

Snakes, scorpions, …

but seriously?

Give me a reason that this thing needs a place on earth.

Because it’s just wrong.

Wrong.

Jack’s still going strong with the mohawk…

He’s sick… can you tell? He looks pale, and is coughing a lot. The first three times I took him to the doctor (in the past 3 months) they have said it’s allergies. I am going to take him again next week and if they still say allergies, I’m going to get something for them. Because Zyrtec just isn’t cutting it.

Movingalong…

We colored eggs tonight. This was my favorite, because it’s brown… my favorite color :)

The dye was purple, but after the boys started dipping and layering their colors, the dye turned brown.

I felt the need to tell you that so you don’t think that I made brown dye for my kids’ eggs.

Jack: Michael, when you crack the egg, there’s a boiled egg inside!

Michael: Uh… yeah… remember when we boiled them a little while ago?

Michael took his egg coloring very seriously.

After we put Jack to bed, Steve came in and called Michael and I out to the garage.

He found something.

Due to prior finds, I was a little nervous.

“Come look in the trash,” he said.

I shouldn’t have gone out.

DO YOU SEE THAT?

*shudders*

It’s huge!

I may have screamed and said a bad word when I saw it.

Because I tend to be a little dramatic like that.

Look at that. I deliver just what I say I will. Ramblings… and a surprise.

Because I couldn’t exactly title a blog post “We Found A Rat.”

Happy Easter, everyone.

Let’s hope Jack has a better morning than last year.

Steve has been getting lots of practice with his snake stick…

Our neighbor called tonight to tell us about a rattlesnake he found in his driveway.

By the time I got outside with the camera, the snake was in the fancy orange snake bucket.

I’m so proud of him.

In that weird Tucson-wife sort of way.

Yes, that is my living room.

And yes, the rattlesnake is still in the bucket.

I obviously haven’t processed this whole situation yet.

Ok – A few words…  It’s not a rattlesnake. It’s a bull snake -They eat rattlesnakes. Don’t you feel better now?

My favorite is the first picture of the fireman holding Jack back because he’s dying to get close. I bet Uncle Noah is proud :-)