When Emily was about 3 she met her Aunt Kristin's class pet, Midnight. She thought he was a pretty neat pet, so starting about age 5 she let it be known that she would also someday have a guinea pig as a pet. Loving parents that we are, we didn't want to crush our dear daughter's dream so we told her, "When you are 7 you can have a guinea pig". Figuring that 7 was at least a year and a half away, guinea pigs would be loooong forgotten by then.... Fast forward to present... you guessed it, she never forgot and we had to make good on our promise. So the day after her birthday, the quest for the pet guinea pig began. Since I don't like to make things easy on myself (and I'm very much in favor of adoption as the way to go for adding pets to the family), we couldn't just go to any local pet store and buy a guinea pig. First we thought we had found a great solution: the local guinea pig rescue society. Emily and I took the time to fill out their adoption application only to be denied "because we don't adopt to families with small children". Huh??? Who else is looking for guinea pigs? Fine, we'll check the local shelter, they can't be nearly as picky. Sure enough we found a posting on their website for 2 male guinea pigs. I sent John and Emily down the next day to put her name on their adoption list. Turns out that since these 2 were abandoned by their owners there was no waiting period, they were good to go that day! The only question the shelter asked them was "Will you take both?" They are supposed to be siblings and have always been together so no one wanted to split them up. So Emily's guinea pig turned into pigS. She is over the moon happy to have her piggies at home. Claire lucked out that she has one to play with too. Though Emily is quick to point out that one belongs to her and the other is the family pet - not Claire's!
Without much further ado... this is Spots with Emily:
His name comes from his very prominant cow lick spot on his forehead.
The cage was quickly upgraded from this one. We really thought we would have a few days to prepare before the pigs came home. They didn't seem to traumatized by the old cage.
Claire with Skitter. Originally she wanted to name him Lovey (her make up name for everything) but it was quickly changed due to his behavior. Once caught he really is sweet to hold.
We met the girls' friend, J and her mom at the park.
I love the Coastal Cruise ride and all its famous landmarks in Legos.
The funniest part of the day we naturally didn't take any pictures of. Claire and J got on the Skipper School ride alone. The ride requires actual boating skill as you navigate a short river in a little battery powered boat. As soon as they left the landing, J's mom and I agreed that letting the girls go alone on this ride was about the dumbest parenting move we had ever made. We watched in hysterics as every boat passed them then in horror as their boat turned the wrong direction and they were headed back to the starting point. Other boaters were kind enough to push their boat along and occasionally get them going the right direction again. After about 15 minutes (the ride should take 5 minutes or less) they were past the 2nd bend in the river (of about 8) and we were done watching the struggle. Fortunately they never got too frustrated and as they were pushed into the landing by the poor employee who had to don waders to save them, they were laughing and asking to go again!
