Mr. Toad's wild swim

Well here I write from the state of Arizona. I haven't had the time or ability to write about our happenings over the past few weeks as it's been crazy busy and we're still unpacking and trying to get settled in... not to mention that I didn't have internet until a couple of days ago and just found my camera this morning.

We had a surprise visitor today. Burke mentioned to me that he felt something "like a fish" touch him while he was swimming in our pool this afternoon. Being the *concerned parent* that I am, I told him that it was probably just a leaf and not to worry about it. About five minutes later he flew out of the pool as fast as you can imagine yelling, "There's a fish!" I bent down to take a look and about died when I saw the following swimming around our pool:

You cannot tell by the picture, but this thing was HUGE (it had to have been at least 9 or 10 inches). I was so grossed out by this (still am) and told the boys, no more swimming for the day (pool guy comes on Monday). Hewitt was pretty excited about the toad and said, "Now we have a pet!" When I told the boys that we needed to figure out how to get rid of it Burke said, "Let's take him to D.I. (Deseret Industries--like Goodwill)." That is the funniest thing I have heard in awhile.

Rob and I have subsequently learned that the Sonoran Dessert Toad is common to this area and that they really like the water during monsoon/mating season. We caught him and set him free in front of our house. He held nice and still for a close-up (well, as close as I was willing to get) and although it created some excitement to our otherwise work-filled Saturday, we hope not to see him again.