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Kids Ain't Cheap

But They Sure Are Worth It

Our Trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Natural History

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dinosaurs on display at the Museum of Natural historyMy oldest son, Harrison, turns 5 next week.  It’s really hard to believe that it’s been almost 5 years since our little Harry was brought into our lives.  What a crazy time that was and how quickly these past 5 years have gone.

Harrison is in full on dinosaur mode right now.  He is obsessed with them.  It’s all he talks about, all he wants to read about and all he plays with right now.  He has been begging us to take him to the museum ever since he found out that there was a place he could go to see dinosaur skeletons.  Philladelphia is only an hour and a half away from our house but with our tight budget, it wasn’t the easiest thing to plan but I was determined to take him for his birthday.

This Sunday, we packed the family up and went to Philly.  We didn’t tell the boys what we were doing or where we were going.  When we got their, it was all we could do to hold Harrison back while we got the tickets.  It was a great day and a memory I will cherish forever.

We saw and did a lot this past Sunday but I managed to capture a small piece of it with my digital camera.  Check it out below if you are interested!

Our family at the Philadelphia Museum of Natural History

Have you ever taken your kids to a museum? How did they like it?

Our New Baby Dinosaur Pet

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Our gecko is pretending to be a baby dinosaur

Found on DeviantArt

Well we have a new pet in the Welch household.   I got to work on Friday and one of my employees had something to show me.  Somehow, he managed to spot this tiny little 1″ lizard sitting on the concrete floor of our warehouse.  I am amazed that he was able to spot it as it’s just a baby and very very tiny.  I don’t know how it got into our warehouse, whether it came in from the outside or hitched a ride on one of the packages that arrived is a mystery but there he was.  He asked me if I wanted it to give it to my two boys and I jumped at the chance.

A gecko pretending to be a dinosaur

My oldest son, Harrison, is in full Dinosaur mode.  He loves them and can’t get enough.  If he isn’t watching Dinosaurs on TV, he is drawing them, asking us to read books about them or playing with his toy dinosaurs.  So, I lied and told him this little baby gecko is his very own baby dinosaur.  I think he knows it’s not, he knows dinosaurs are extinct and this is just a baby lizard but I don’t know for sure.  Half the time he talks about it he refers to it as a lizard but it’s those times when he pretends it’s a dinosaur that are the most fun.  Much to this tiny little baby lizards horror, Harrison was marching around the room where we have the lizards new home, roaring and trying to teach the lizard how to be a proper dinosaur.  He feels it’s his job to teach it since it doesn’t have a mommy or daddy.  Probably not the best way to acclimate this baby lizard to it’s new surroundings but it was too cute to stop right away.

Before bringing it home, I took it to the local Petco and found someone that sounded like they knew what they were talking about.  He said it’s a gecko but wasn’t sure what type of gecko it is.  He got me hooked up with the basic supplies needed to take care of it and was quite helpful.  For food, he gave me a container of live wingless fruit flies and told me to shake a few in each day.  We set the little guy up with a nice home with sand, places to hide, water and put in a few flies.  So far, all of the flies seemed to have crawled into the water dish and died.  It doesn’t look like he has eaten any and we have had him for 3 days.  It’s making me a little nervous since the kids will be crushed if their baby dinosaur dies this quickly.  Most of the info I found online concurs with what the Petco employee told me so I am just going to wait and hope that when he is hungry or thirsty enough, he will eat and drink.

My wife hates reptiles, especially snakes, so I wasn’t sure how she would take it but when she saw how tiny it was, her heart melted for the little thing.   I think she has shown more interest in it than me.

All in all, we are happy with our new addition, we have been petless since we had to put our Bulldog down a year ago and the kids have been asking for a new pet.  We are so busy and our house is so small we decided to wait a few years before getting another pet but this baby gecko is a good compromise, doesn’t take up much room and seems pretty easy to care for.

If any of you out there know anything about lizards and can tell me what type of gecko it is, I would greatly appreciate it!

Do you have any reptiles? Any care tips you can share?