Uncle Rico

Just so you all know (and can consider yourselves warned if you are planning on coming to visit us), we are now the proud owners of a California Kingsnake. We got it on Saturday. I'm still getting used to it, but I think I like it. We're not sure if it's a boy or a girl yet (it's pretty young still, and I guess you can't always tell until they get older and bigger). Right now everyone but Rachel thinks it's a boy. It doesn't have an official name yet (we're still deciding) but at the moment it's being called Uncle Rico (From Napoleon Dynamite - Oliver's idea, in case you couldn't tell).

It lives in a cage in the boys room. The cage is full of fun rocks and sticks and caves for it to hide in, and it spends most of its time hiding from us. We get it out about once a day to hold it and be friends with it. It's supposed to be a pretty easy pet. It's a really pretty snake, as snakes go. Right now it's about 14 inches long, but it's supposed to double it's size in the first year, and then double again in the second year. I'm not sure how I'll feel about a four foot snake. I don't get nervous holding it at all, but I sometimes (okay, always) get a little nervous when I have to pick him up out of his cage. I just don't know how to tell what he's going to do - I've decided that snakes are very unpredictable pets. Sometimes they don't move at all, and then other times they get all jumpy and zoom around, and I'm never sure which he's going to do when I stick my hand in.

Anyway, it's been pretty fun so far. The kids like it, but I think Daniel and I spend the most time in front of the cage. I always feel like I need to go upstairs to check on it, and then I waste a lot of time trying to find him and watching him scoot around the cage. I don't know why it's so fun watching him. We act all excited about it, like it's another kid or something. Daniel even calls from work to ask me about him ("so, where is he right now? Did he climb on any of the rocks this morning?", etc.) I guess with the snake plus Oliver's stack it's like we already have six kids.

So, what do you guys think? Will you still come visit us? Dad, we can just keep that door shut when you're here.