The turtle

I know the blog for this month sounds like its a tribute to Adriana's birthday, but I promise this will be the last one to mention it. Anyway, while driving home from school on Adriana's birthday we saw a turtle walking across the road. I tell the kids I just saw a turtle and I hear the squeals coming from the back seat "get it mommy, get it". So I park the car and get out to pick it up. Not knowing much about turtles, I figure its got to be a box turtle since its out away from the water and walking on the street. So we bring it home and put it in a box. Not having any idea of how to take care of it I take the kids up to the pet store to find out. Surely they have food or now something about what to feed them. We get into Petco and I find one of the sales people. I inform her that we had just caught a box turtle and I wanted to know what we would need to take care of it. So we headed over to the turtle stuff and we got some bedding (which looked just like mulch to me), a ramp with a spot for water for him, and some box turtle food. She asked me if I was sure it was a box turtle we had and not a water turtle. I told her I had no idea but it was walking around on land so I assumed it was a box turtle. I asked her how would I know what it was and she told me to go on the conservation website and it should tell me what kind I have. So we get home and before I open everything I have I looked just to make sure. What do you know, the turtle I have is a red ear slider turtle, which is a WATER turtle!!!! Great, so now I'm going to have to tell the kids we have to get rid of it because we don't have the time or money to take care of it. Well of course they got upset. So the next day we went back to the pet store to see if they had any kind of box turtle they were selling. I thought I had remembered seeing some but never looked at the prices of them. So we get there and head straight to the turtles. Wow I found a turtle living on land the sign said turtoises. Great! What $99.......are you kidding me......for a frickin turtle!!!!! Well kids we're not getting a turtle! So now the kids are upset again. So lets see what else we can get to help ease the pain without it being a major money buster or a pain to take care of. I got it, beta fish. So the kids each got a beta and we returned the turtle supplies. So here is some pictures of the red eared slider heading back into the pond. (By the way I looked on Craigslist trying to find a box turtle and red eared sliders are going for about $20, but we were nice and set it free).

And here is Adriana's beta fish which she named Princess Rosa.

And a picture of Andrew's fish which he named Bl