Geckos

Soo... Sat night Cal and I were watching a movie when I saw something moving on our wall across the room. It was a little gecko! We had quite an adventure catching him, but eventually we did and let him go outside. Cute, right?

Tonight Cal is studying on campus and I'd just put the kids to bed. What do I see? Mr. Gecko doing his funky walk across the wall again! Spence and Grant tried to help me catch it, but he ran into a crevice in the speaker.

We couldn't catch him (though they had a blast trying). So... do we need to start listing geckos as residents on the next census????? Not sure what to think. At least I don't mind lizards and geckos. I dread spiders more, and well, lizards eat them. :) Should I be grateful for the gecko and attribute the lack of spiders to him?

A few more creatures we see frequently:

Backyard lizards- the boys spend hours trying to catch them!

Check out this grasshopper! Huge!

Ok, this is funny. Last week Grant lost one of his shoes. He lost it outside and could NOT find it. It was driving me crazy 'cause anytime we had to go somewhere he'd look for it in vain and then put on tennis shoes or something. It already takes him forever to get ready, so I was getting frustrating and thought he was just getting distracted. Then the missing shoe turned up in the corner of our yard-- with chunks missing from it! Some squirrel must have borrowed it to snack on and brought it back or something. Poor Grant. I was so hard on him. Something really DID eat his shoe!

Sometimes when I drive around this place, I picture what it would look like without civilization. It really is a tropical place- the kind of place you'd imagine yourself stranded on after a ship wreck.

It rains a lot in FL. Most afternoons you get a downpour like this. Then it stops raining and it's as if nothing happened- all while maintaining 90 degrees.

Of course, 10 minutes from the geckos and lizards and grasshoppers is this:

Do I really live here?!