Family Rites of Passage: Our first pet(s)!

First, you should know that we are not "pet people!"  I have a hard enough time keeping our house clean with just human created messes...plus, though I may coo over tiny little things like kittens and puppies I KNOW that they get bigger and I'm just not willing to be into them for the long haul.  (Does that make me sound heartless?...ha, ha all my siblings and my parents just answered "YES!") 

Anyway, we now have ourselves a tank full of tadpoles...and though I'm still pretty grossed out by them, I'll admit that they have brought quite a lot of joy to our household these last few days.  Josh has fond memories of catching tadpoles and "raising" them with his dad growing up, so he was very excited to share the tradition with our kids.  (NOTE:  When he shows even the slightest hint of sentimentality, I MUST take advantage of these rare and sweet moments...even it is does mean having pond scum and wiggly squiggly things in my dining room!)

Here are some photos from our grand tadpole hunting expedition...

We expected the attrition rate to be high, so I'd say we collected at least a hundred tadpoles in the valley stream just below Motta.  We've shared a few with friends and we sent some in to Elise's classroom, but if we end up with 100 little frogs hopping around in a few weeks I'm not quite sure what I'll do.

I love spring!

...and by "stream" - I meant that some of them also came from puddles along the dirt road that runs through the valley.  I'm pretty sure we saved their lives.

Mission accomplished!

Casa dolce casa!