Saturday we took Lacey on her first outing. We took a short visit to a riparian preserve where they were having a little festival. We had no idea until then that there was a preserve less than 2 miles from our house! It was tough for Sarah to walk around so much just being 2 weeks off the c-section, but she made it. Lacey slept in the stroller the whole time. We got to see all kinds of birds, snakes and tortuises.

Jackson got to pet this beautiful bird.

No petting this one. He might rip your fingers off. The handler told me all about how peregreen falcons catch their pray.

Our artist in action.

A little screech owl

I don’t think we’ve told too many people that our house came with a pet turtle. The previous owners told us after we moved in that they left their turtle, scooter, hibernating under the BBQ in the backyard. They said he sleeps in there all winter and comes out around April when it gets warm and knocks his shell on the back door wanting food. We didn’t know what to think about this. Babysitting a turtle wasn’t part of the sales contract.

6 weeks passed and no sign of Scooter. The previous homeowners came by a few times asking if we had seen him yet. I think they were starting to worry he might not come out. A week ago I thought I would peak under the grill to see if he was alive. I could barely see him in the back of the cave. I got a broom and gave his shell a tap and he didn’t budge. Hmm. Could he be dead? The family asked about him again. This time Sarah offered to let them see but the mom said it was okay and they would just wait. So I started to get worried so I got out a flash light last Saturday and peak in again. I couldn’t fit back there to get him so I sent Jackson in to try and wake him up. Jackson poked the shell and the turtle didn’t budge so I got Jackson out and got the broom again. This time instead of tapping the shell I got his leg. He quickly retracted his leg into his shell and let out a hiss. That was kind of freaky. I didn’t know turtles hissed. He was mad I was waking him up from hibernation. He still didn’t budge. At least we knew he was still alive.

The next day was Easter. After church I went out back and there he was crawling towards the lawn to snack on some grass. Finally, Scooter came out. Jackson thought he was pretty neat and we fed him some lettuce and washed him off a little. I called the owners and the whole family (six kids) rushed over. I opened the door and the kids darted through our house to the backyard as if they owned the place. They were all happy to get their turtle back. He was a pretty big turtle so I asked how old he was and they told me they estimate he is about 30 years old! They’ve only had it for about 5 years. A friend had 3 that came into his yard from the desert in Tuscon and gave them one. I’ve always thought that would be a neat pet because you could pass it down to your kids. They aren’t too hard to take care of. Especially during the winter since they just hibernate. They just aren’t very fun to play with. A game of fetch could take hours.

40 weeks! She’s gonna blow! We were scheduled for a C-section on the 5th but Sarah decided she wants to go into labor and try VBAC. We rescheduled the C-section for this next Thursday so please pray she goes into labor before then. Tonight or tomorrow would be great. Oh and the picture above isn’t real. I photoshopped it a little for fun. Here is the real one.

In other news… our home in Riverton is no longer under contract. The buyer didn’t qualify for her loan. We’re back on the market and dropping the price yet again. So pray for that too. I just got called to be the 1st counselor in the YM presidency/Varsity Scout leader. I think because I work on video games they think I’ll relate to teenagers very well. We’ve already had two people in the ward tell us they’re huge fans of Stargate and that they’re excited that I’m working on the Stargate Worlds video game. I don’t think I’ve talked much about my new job. My company is working on an online computer game based on a SciFi show called Stargate. There are millions of Stargate fans all over the world who are very excited. I got the job even though I had never seen the show and didn’t play very many video games. I’ll have to tell you more about it later. We’re off to play with cousins at Sarah’s parents.

Not only are we anxiously waiting for baby #2 (Today would be could since it is Leap Year), we are also waiting for an Xbox game I bought for $1 on Ebay. Sounds like a steal of a deal until I tell you shipping was $5! It’s still pretty cheap. Anyway, we don’t play our xbox very often. Sarah told me she loves Tetris so I thought I would get it so she will play.

Jackson loves to play race cars. He knows how to make the car go but doesn’t get that he needs to steer the car and stay on the road. He can also play football because the computer can execute the running plays if you don’t do anything so he pushes the buttons to pick the play and then I tell him to push the green button to hike the ball. I think he has even scored a touchdown. And he loves Dance Dance Revolution but if we actually plug his mat in he continually steps on the button to exit out of the game so it gets frustrating if you want to play with him. So we just unplug his mat and pretend he’s playing.