My Blogging Debut

Guest Blogger: Neal! Neal was born in 1975 in Central Louisiana. He grew up there, the youngest of seven children, in a pretty house across the road from a bayou. As a child, he used to find Civil War bullets under the big oak trees in his backyard, and play pretend in the spooky old slave house near his property. When he was 13, his family moved to East Texas, where he attended high school. He spent his summers working on his dad's cattle ranch in Texas, played the violin, and served as an award-winning defense attorney in Teen Court. He went away to BYU, served a mission in Argentina, came home and continued his degree in Molecular Biology. We met in Provo in 1997, married in 1998, and in 2000, we moved to Texas so he could go to Dental School. After a lot of hard work, he graduated, near the top of his class, with his DDS in 2004. He was then accepted for a General Practice Residency at UCLA, where we lived for one year. In 2005, we moved back to Texas so Neal could pursue a three-year specialized degree in Endodontics (root canals). He'll be finished in June 2008, and we will subsequently move. Someplace. In his minimal spare time, he enjoys fooling around with his pretty little saltwater world (a small tank full of beautiful corals), working on the garden, reading National Geographic, playing and being silly with our kids, and generally being a wonderful person.

Okay, that was the intro that Leslie wrote for me. I guess after she wrote all of those nice things about me, I have to post something. Well, I'll start at the top of the list of questions that were asked in response to her first post about me guest blogging.

The first one was from Angie--"my james (5) wants a snake - and i don't want anything. but, i bet he could give a good suggestion for an easier unusual one!"

First of all, Hi Angie! I remember when we met that time at Sundance. I think we may have met some other time too while we were at BYU and I've heard lots of stories about the things you and Leslie did while in London. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

First off, any pet you get for a five year old is really going to be your pet, so pick something you like too, and more importantly, something that you are willing to take care of. In my opinion the easiest pets are those that don't require live food. As far as snakes go, there are no vegetarian/processed food eating snakes. It's a huge pain to feed live and it can be dangerous for the snake too. Many snakes will, however, eat frozen/thawed mice, rats, etc. This is really the only way to go. You can buy several at a time, keep them in the freezer, and feed them as needed. I know it sounds gross, but you get used to it and it's really not that bad. If it's something you don't think you can do, don't get a snake. If you can do it, make sure that the snake eats frozen/thawed--preferably have it eat in front of you at the pet store before you buy it. Probably the best snake for a smaller child is a corn snake. They don't get too big, are very docile, and come in a lot of different color morphs. So that's the abridged version of having snakes. As far as other easy, unusual pets go, there are a lot to choose from.

Ginger mentioned hissing cockroaches. I think those are great pets. They eat vegetables and don't stink, which are two big pluses. They're not really a pet you can play with, but I guess you could take it out every once in a while and let it crawl around. I've never had one, but I did have a colony of Blaptica dubia roaches that we fed to our tarantula. Which brings me to the next pet--a tarantula.

I think these are great pets, even for kids. We got ours when Audrey was only three and Parker was 18 months and they love it. The downside is they do eat live crickets. Any tarantulas from the genus Avicularia would be good. Ours is an Avicularia versicolor, one of the prettiest of all the tarantulas, I think. They are also very docile. The juveniles are a bright blue, then gradually turn pink and green with each molt starting at about the third of fourth instar.

Another good one would be a bearded dragon. They eat both live insects and plant material, so they're a little more versatile when it comes to feeding. They supposedly have a lot of personality and can be one of the more "friendly" reptiles.

Wow, this is getting really long--probably more info than you wanted. Here's an article I found on kingsnake.com about good beginner reptiles. Kingsnake is a great site to go for info and also you can buy pretty much anything you can think of in the classifieds and usually have it overnighted to you in the mail! What more can you ask for?

Okay, so tomorrow it looks like we'll be delving into the world of dentistry--obviously one of my favorite subjects. Sorry if this post is kind of boring--I'll try to spice it up a little bit tomorrow. I guess I don't have the blogging talent that Leslie does!