RIP, Tuck. You were a good turtle.

Yesterday started off horrible wonderful and just kept getting better.  First, we were having a land line installed, since we can't get reception on either of our phones and Scott needs a phone for work.  The guy was supposed to be here between 8-10 so Scott got up at about 7:30 and said he was going to take a shower before the guy got here.  Of course 2 minutes after he gets in the shower, the doorbell rang and I was still in bed, in my jammies.  Yay.  So I threw some clothes on and ran to open the door.  Of course the dogs barked at him, so I asked Brendan to let them out.  I should have known better, but I can't do 2 things at once, usually.  Well, when I took the phone guy downstairs to show him where the cables and stuff were, I noticed that the dogs were loose.  Brendan hadn't put them on their chains, and we don't have a fence.  So I went out there and wrestled with 2 dogs, trying to keep them from bolting while I found the clip ends of their cables and hooked them.  Well, come to find out, I had hooked them to each other by accident because one of the cords wasn't attatched to the post!  I found this out an hour later when I looked outside and saw them running loose again.  I was on the phone trying very hard to have a conversation with my mom (which had to be interrupted every 2 minutes by the kids!) so I told Brendan to tell Scott and have him take care of it.  Then a minute later Meg comes up and says that Tuck is missing.  Tuck is our turtle, he lived in our pond in Texas and we hadn't gotten an enclosure for him yet here so he was living in a rubbermaid container outside where he could get some sun.  "What do you mean Tuck is missing, Meg?  He can't get out of that thing!"  Then Scott hollers up that someone dumped the bowl.

 "Great, fine whatever, I'm trying to talk to my mom!  Give me a minute and I'll be down".  So I try to continue my conversation, and a minute later I hear wailing from Brendan.  He's coming up the stairs having a complete meltdown.

 "What happened now?"

 He wails "The dogs ate Tuck!!  He's bleeding and dead!!"  O.M.G.

 "Mom, I have to let you go, apparently the dogs just ate the turtle".  yay.  Yep, they tried to make a snack of the turtle.  His shell was pretty damaged and there was a good sized gash in his side.  He was still swimming but things didn't look good, and Brendan was bawling his eyes out.  I didn't know how to put a turtle out of his misery, so we decided to put him in the lake and let the fish let nature take it's course.  We told Brendan that he might not live, but that if he did, he would be with other turtles.  Well, last evening we went to the waters edge so the kids could play on the beach, and there was Tuck washed up on shore.  We quickly removed him so the kids didn't see.  Yeah, I know, we could have told Brendan but I fugured let him wonder, and think that maybe Tuck is still out there.  Poor kid has been thru a lot lately.  No need to traumatize him further. 

Of course my dear darling hubby thinks it is the perfect opportunity to get the bearded dragon he's always wanted.  For the boy, of course.  @@.  We did a lot of research and they look like a pretty decent pet, we've had lizards before so we know how to care for them, but we decided to wait for at least a couple weeks.  I'm not keen on adding another animal to this house right now, and I don't want a kneejerk reaction to a dead pet by replacing it right away. 

One thing I'll say, Life is never dull at our house.