Valentine's Day and a new acquisition.

This should come as no surprise after my last post, but lately I've been missing owning a reptile. While I enjoyed my bearded dragon and my snakes, I'd been thinking about getting something a little less demanding. Annabelle, my beardie, had to be fed chopped up vegetables every morning, something that I did not always have time to do, and also needed a 40-gallon aquarium when she got to be an adult. The snakes were low maintenance, but they still had to be caught and taken out of their tanks to feed on a regular basis, a process that involved keeping frozen mice in my freezer (and heating up said frozen mice).

I had been leaning towards a leopard gecko for a while. They only require a 10-gallon tank, and adults eat mealworms and crickets. They do not require special lighting, like Annabelle, so start-up costs aren't as expensive. Plus they are typically pretty relaxed to handle, unlike the zippy corn snakes.

When I saw that the North American Reptile Breeders Conference was scheduled for Feb. 13-14 in Arlington, I was excited. I purchased Annabelle, and possibly Rosalie, from the fall NARBC in 2009, so I was familiar with how things worked. I could take Philip, as it is a neat place to go see lots of exotic reptiles, and if we happened to stumble over some cute little gecko while there, all the better for us both to be there!

As it turned out, I fell in love with a couple leopard geckos at the first leo booth we stopped at. The first one was an albino male, who was really pretty, but as I looked over the others I noticed a snow male who was just way prettier than all the other snow morphs at the table. For some reason, I kept coming back to him. We moved on from the table, but none of the other leopard geckos at the other vendor tables held a candle to this one. And plus, he was cheaper.

I jokingly (at first) suggested that we needed a reptile in our lives, but Philip wasn't having it. We made our way around the booths and then stopped back at the leo booth one more time. As I was talking to the owner, the snow gecko looked straight up at me, into my eyes, and seemed to lock on. My heart melted, and I made puppy dog eyes at Philip, but he took my hand and we walked away. As we did so, I saw a girl walk up to "my" gecko and coo, "Ooh, look at this one! Isn't he the prettiest little snow gecko?" And my heart sank.

I continued to give Philip a hard time that afternoon about the gecko, and told him that if we weren't going to get him, we had to get a guinea pig. We joked about it all evening, and I told Philip I'd let him name the guinea pig (to which he came up with "Kregg" and we laughed a lot. Idk.).

The next day after church, Philip casually suggested we go back to the reptile show. As we had already been through everything and there was nothing left to see, I knew where this was going, but I feigned innocence. Besides, I was pretty sure my little snow gecko had been purchased by that girl, and if he and the albino gecko were both gone, I was going home empty-handed.

We got back to the show and I steeled myself as I walked up to the table, but there he was! The albino gecko was gone, but my little snow was still there. I held him, and Philip asked if I seriously wanted him, to which of course I said yes! And he said "Happy Valentine's Day."

So now, after much ado, we have "Ringo." Philip came up with the name after probably an hour of us researching "male names that begin with 'R'" since Romeo and Ramses both start with R. Other names we considered were Rembrandt, Rutherford and Riddley, but Ringo stuck. He's settling into his new mansion and slowly getting used to me, Philip, Fiona and Ramses gawking at him (Romeo does not care). New pics to come soon!