We are animal people...

We are animal people. We cannot deny it. We have animals inside and outside. And every stray that happens to stop by our house usually stays...simply because we don't have the heart to not feed them. Right now, we only have 3 pets. And, here they are making their blog debut... First, there's Triton. I need to first point out that he prefers not to be called a dog or a pet or an animal or anything like that. He is our first born child & he simply allows us to live in his house. He is happiest when he is hunting with Eric or chasing Jimmy (we'll get to him in a minute) around the yard. And, he hates Christmas pictures. We make him pose with Molly every year for a picture at Christmas & it only takes me about 50 shots to get one of him actually looking partially at the camera. See what I mean... Here's Molly's 1st Christmas. Triton just looks so thrilled... The next year, he refused to look even in the direction of the camera...And the same, goes for the next year...This picture looks like Molly is saying, "Please, just look towards the camera & I'll do the rest. The sooner you look moma's way, the sooner we'll be done here!" But, he still refuses...

Next, there's our cat, Bandit. Bandit was dropped off at our house (nudge, nudge, Mrs. Lisa) with his 4 siblings about 7 years ago. They were all so tiny & right away, I fell in love with all of them. There were 3 bobtailed kittens (which I loved & wanted to keep) and 2 with tails (which were not my favorites). They were all such a variety of colors, and honestly, Bandit was my least favorite because he was just a plain-old tabby kitten. But, quickly, Eric & I began to notice that Bandit had so much more personality than the others. One by one, the others left us & within just a few months we were down to just Bandit. And, he's been here ever since.

Bandit loves lounging in the sun, usually on his back. Here's a picture of him doing just that in the back of Molly's gator. And, yes, Bandit is a really BIG cat!

And, last but not least, there's Jimmy. Oh, Jimmy. Where do I start?

As Molly would tell you, Jimmy was dropped off by Santa Claus on Christmas morning of 2007. As most of you know, we moved in our new house just a couple of days before Christmas that year. And, on our front porch, we still had a couple of old quilts that the furniture movers left. So, Christmas morning, we found a skinny, scared, shivering little dog bedded down on those quilts. And of course, we fed him & of course, he decided he'd stay awhile. He's fattened up a bit since then...

Jimmy loves lounging on the porch on Triton's old bed & hates the moment that we let Triton out of our house each day. Because, after Triton finishes his business, he starts chasing poor old Jimmy around the yard. Jimmy runs for his life, because he knows if he gets caught, Triton will violate him!

The only problem with Jimmy is that he really likes to chew...on everything! He has chewed up tiki torches, bags of charcoal (yes, he ate the entire bag of charcoal), shoes, tires, pretty much everything. His most costly chew toy, however, was our new drip-system. It was demolished within a couple of weeks of our yard being landscaped. And, anytime you try to scold Jimmy, he falls over. All you have to do is point your finger at him & say his name and he immediately falls down, rolls over onto his back in slow motion & sticks all 4 feet straight up into the air...it is hilarious!

Here is a picture of him in mid roll-over after chewing up Eric's work gloves...

It's so hard to get on to him when he does that!

What can I say? We're animal people!