Revised blog title?

It was brought to my attention yesterday that people aren't aware that Chino isn't an only "child".  I happen to have two other pets -- red eared sliders named Larry and Tommy.  I say I because Nick refuses to acknowledge his step children.  They don't cause enough  antics to be added to the blog title, and I think that changing my blog to, "My life, his life, our life, a dog named Chino and two souvenirs from Myrtle beach that are still alive after almost 10 years" is a bit much, don't  you think?  But, for my adoring fans out there, here they are - in  their green glory.  We took these pictures while they were on safari in the backyard last summer.  Chino prefers that they be contained in their tank, where they belong.  But this post isn't about Chino, now is it?

Now here is a photo of them in their "natural habitat, causing a ruckus.  Shortly after this picture was taken, there was a turtle avalanche, with lots of flailing, splashing and thumping.  Again, not enough for a blog post.  They just flipped themselves back over, climbed back onto the rock and resumed basking.

Lastly, here is a picture of their current set-up.  We took an old farmhouse door, reinforced it with floor board, added legs and a plexi glass top - and VOILA!  A turtle tank stand + desk.  You didn't know I was that crafty, didja?!?  Pay no attention to the dog toys underneath - this post is NOT about Chino and I have nothing to say about the two bins of overflowing toys that he likes to ignore.  Nothing at all.  Well, I kind of want to point out how cool it is that I found vintage Coke and Pepsi crates to keep them in, rather than typical dog toy boxes, which are usually covered in paw prints, but this is about L&T, who are forced to live in the shadow of Chino, the wonder mutt.

So, how did I get to the point where I have two turtles, named Larry and Tommy, living in a 40 gallon reptile tank in my great room?  Well, I thought you'd never ask.  On vacation in Myrtle Beach with my family during the summer of 2000, I came across a ton of baby turtles for sale at a souvenir store called Wings (tourist mecca, tacky galore).  Actually, the turtles weren't for sale, their tanks were. Its apparently illegal to purchase baby turtles for anything but educational purposes due to the fact that they have salmonella on their shells, so here I was with my "free" turtle in a miniature plastic tank.

I get home from vacation and start doing research on turtles.  Apparently, they need more than a minature plastic tank, so I bought him one that was a little larger.  Actually, I think he moved in with a newt that I also had at the time.  Next came the filter, rocks, and basking light.  Lovely.  After that, the newt moved out because of a small run-in where Larry thought that the newt was food instead of a roommate.  In my infinite wisdom, I decided that Larry needed a friend, so off to Petland I went (FOR THE LAST TIME BECAUSE I HATE PETLAND) to buy Larry a friend.  The friend, turned out to be Tommy, named after the Olympic swimmer - Tom Malchow.  Tommy and Larry, who was named after my 8th grade civics teacher, now lived happily in a small aquarium on top of the TV.  The next year, they moved with me as well as the year after that, several years after that and a year after that.

Each year they got a little bigger and a little bigger, outgrowing a couple of tanks, leading me to the 40 gallon monster that they currently call home.  They've grown from about 1" to 6"-7" and it doesn't look like they're stopping.  They live a happy turtle life, eating turtle food and destroying their rock islands that we try to build for them.  They're messy creatures.  Their filter gets gross, really fast.  They belong outside.  I just can't bring myself to release them into the wild.  I think they'd be swimming around, looking for the magic blue lid to drop turtle food into their little home.  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...