Meet Zorro - Our Newest Family Member

Zorro, the Bearded Dragon Lizard has joined our family. He is the coolest lizard/pet we have ever had. He eats crickets right out of our hands and loves nothing more than to hang out on our shoulders and take a nap. Zorro can get up to 2feet long and live 10 years. He is quite the investment already - it was Marks major Christmas present and Grandpa and Grandma Brown contributed majorly to his arrival. Zorro eats about 20 small crickets per day - soon he will be up to medium/large crickets. He is 3 - 4 months old. Mark is quite the caretaker, as he has been with all his other pets: hermit crabs and Rosie the Tarantula.

Merry Christmas!

We had a great holiday - spent Christmas Eve going to church then to the Jones' for Christmas Eve dinner, opening cousin gift and hand-made ornament exchanges, then home to unwrap our Christmas Eve jammies. Mark put out cookies, milk and his little questionaire for Santa. All three woke up at 3am to check out the stockings under the tree, fell asleep for 2 hours and were up again ready to open presents! We were all done by 6am! We had my parents here, my brother and his family, the Jones family and Eric Mendoza and his family here for dinner. I learned how to cook an AUTHENTIC mexican chili verde dish and it was fabulous! We had a great time with their family and I treasured the time I got to spend with Eric. We partnered up for a couple of games of Go Bananas and had a good time playing against Mark, Kaylie, and my two nieces. Life is short, changes rapidly and we all enjoyed our time with the Mendozas. It was a very special Christmas!

Death in the Family / Dec. 2009

Rosie the tarantula has died. She passed away of natural causes. She lived a great life in her 10 gallon aquarium where she resided for the last 3 years, on Mark's bookcase in his room. Rosie was loved by everyone (those that weren't afraid of spiders), especially Grandma Brown, who would hold her and let her crawl on her arm every time she came to visit. We all have wonderful memories of Rosie; some of our favorite being: letting her out to "exercise" on the landing upstairs - she loved exploring and stretching her legs - even climbing up the linen closet door a time or two and scaring Mom once when she actually jumped!; taking Rosie to show and tell in first grade; and watching her pounce on crickets when she was fed was always fascinating to watch! Mark took wonderful care of her and loved her to the end. She was an important part of our family and she will be missed!