Another Turtle Story

Remember Dollar and Penny, our pet turtles?  Penny continues to help earn reptile merit badges for Boy Scouts around the Great Salt Lake Council.  We still consider ourselves geniuses for coming up with the idea of a traveling pet (that so far doesn't even have a visitation schedule at our house...whew!).

So imagine my surprise Saturday when our neighbor, who had been outside doing yard work, came walking across the street with a turtle in his hands.  His dog had been barking at something in the street, and when he went to investigate, he saw a turtle.

Thinking it was ours he came to return the lost pet.  We happily informed him that our turtle is doing it's civic duty to Boy Scouts somewhere in Utah, and this couldn't be ours.

We watched it crawl around on the grass for a few minutes, wondering how it got into the middle of our street when I remembered swapping turtle stories with a neighbor a street over (directly west of our street) telling me how they had built a pond in the back yard for their turtle, and it had burrowed for the winter...

Never to be seen again.  

I snapped the above photo and texted it to her.

No response.

I called and left a message.

No response.

So the turtle hung out at our house for a while...the whole time they were feeding it, giving it water to swim in, and showing it around the neighborhood, I could be heard repeating, "He's not spending the night!"

Then it was time for the boys to walk the dog, so they got creative and decided to walk the turtle at the same time....

Yes, there is a turtle in that bucket that is bungeed to the skateboard...being pulled by a rope.  (And I think that's Jeran in the background...not sure what he's doing.  Being a turtle?)

The walk didn't last long.  The turtle was a little stressed out by the bumpy ride, and happy just to be back at home our front yard.

"But remember, he's not spending the night!"  (Me again...just making sure they knew we weren't going to have another turtle for a pet.)

A few minutes later, they decided to take the turtle on a walk again, this time carrying it...

And they stopped to see if the neighbor who we thought might have lost the turtle a few years earlier was home yet...  Good news!  They were home!

Better news!  The turtle was theirs!  

Spike was home again, after 3 long years.  Spike's boy was very, very happy.

The end.

Almost.

Except that Jeran and Joie spent the rest of the evening (while I was at the laundromat) hauling rocks from our front parking strip (which will be grass soon) through the yards of neighbors and across fences to make Spike's pond more secure so he couldn't escape.

Somehow in all of the excitement, this happened.

That would be Joie's lip.  I'm still not sure of the entire story except it had to do with coming face to face with a basketball stand.

When I pulled into the driveway from doing laundry at 9:30, my phone rang.  It was the neighbor's mom telling me she thought Joie might need stitches.

Thankfully we have a nurse in the neighborhood too who reassured me Joie's lip would be ok.

Two days later she talks a little funny, and has a hard time eating...

But Spike is home.

After 3 long years, Spike is home.

Incredible if you think about it.  

(And one of the kids mentioned the big idea of Incredible Journey 3:  Spike's Journey Home.)

(All photos courtesy of Megan, who is earning the title of family photojournalist.  Can you believe she took a picture of Joie's lip?  And can you believe Joie asked me if I blogged about her lip?  Crazy kids...)