Today was an interesting day...

This morning, Dave called in to tell me he had forgotten some of his work stuff, and that he would drop by the house to grab it. As I opened the front door to go out the the Deathstar Van, I saw something very unexpected sitting on my porch.

This:


Now I knew the kids, especially Eli would be thrilled to see a large, live turtle, so I called them out to see the beastie. This guy was faster than the average turtle, but seemed confused by the enclosure of the porch, so we had no trouble cornering him.


Eli was thrilled to pet the turtle! He even got his sisters into the act!
Then it was time to trundle out his stuffed animal land turtle, named Peka (originally to have been named Boxcar as it's a box turtle, then Topeka was suggested, as homage to the AT&SF rail, which MonkeyBoy promptly shortened into Peka.)






I decided we would transport the turtle to the neighborhood fishing pond, and a suitable box was obtained.



Eli decided to bring all three of his stuffed animal turtles with us, and off we went. On the way, it was agreed the live turtle needed a name of his own, and Eli dubbed him "Lake". Lake was released into the fishing pond, shortly after posing for a couple more pictures with the stuffed turtles and the Monkeys. Silly me, I forgot to bring the good camera, so these last pics are from the cellphone, hence the dubious quality. Sorry!

The pond:



The Monkeys, Peka, Southwest, Go-go and Lake.





Then it was back to the car, where a near tragedy struck! Eli decided to toss Peka to Emmie, and she missed catching him. He (Peka) fell out of the van and into the storm drain! Oh you could hear the wailing and crying for blocks around us! I confess I did contemplate stuffing Emmie down the drain to fetch Peka, but wasn't sure I could safely extract her (Yes the drain was dry--it doesn't rain in Texas any more), but decided against that idea. Amid much vociferous crying, I opted to go home & grab the Claw of Doom, also known as a grabbing-stick used to get stuff off of high shelves.

Back to the park, and I was successful in rescuing Peka, but it was close! He was almost out of reach, even with the Claw of Doom. But I got him lifted close to the opening, and Eli grabbed him. Many hugs & smiles all around.

Off we went to get to swimming lessons, having done our good deed for the day. Alas, there was one more turtle to cross our path. On the way to swim class, I saw another large turtle in the gutter on the highway. I had hoped it was still alive, but upon further inspection on the way home after class, it had been hit by a car, and did not survive. The kids were sad, but happy that at least we had saved Peka & given Lake a nice new home.