Who needs the zoo...

...when you live in Marina/Monterey? Seriously here's some of our "animal" experiences since we've lived in this area:

One of the many lizards that live in our yard

1) Skunks--Just about once a week we see AND smell a dead skunk somewhere on our daily route. I have seen a skunk running past our back fence and have heard stories of skunks being brave enough to run into someones house (try getting a skunk out of your house without it spraying anything-they managed to). I have also had a couple of friends with dogs that have been sprayed by skunks--yuck.

2) Racoons--Gosh, there are SO many racoons around here!! I have friends that have trapped them in their garbage cans, I have just about hit a couple with my car and check out my friend Sarah's blog to read about their racoon stakeout: http://coastymorgans.blogspot.com/2008/09/saturday-night-fun.html

8) Bunnies--I always see bunnies when I go running. They are on all the walking trails near our house. I remember last year on Easter I went for a run and saw SO many bunnies. I thought that was very appropriate.

This is larger than most of the bunnies I see around, but Mom and Dad got a picture of this when they were visiting--it was just behind our back fence

3) Turkeys--I love seeing the wild turkeys. We often see wild turkeys crossing the road on the way to church. I have heard the turkeys are pretty loud and annoying if you live closer to where they like to hang out.

4) Mountain Lions--This is actually quite the scary one. Would you like to be face to face with a mountain lion?? When Mike worked at DLI there were always memos to warn that there had been mountain lion sightings. One day the girls came home from school with a note that said they had indoor recess because a mountain lion had been spotted close to the school--scary huh?


5) Deer--We see deer all the time around here. My favorite was when we went to watch Mike's soccer game one evening. While one team was trying to score on one side of the field, a whole bunch of deer were just hanging out on the other side of the feild--right there on the same field they were playing. Jordan got a real kick out of it (she was only about 3 at the time).


6) Squirrels--We have dozens of squirrels that live just outside our backyard. They have come in our house on countless occasions, gobbled up our tomato plants, eaten all our sunflower seeds, and jumped on our trampoline.

One of our squirrels on the trampoline

7) Coyotes--This is a new one for me. The other day I was driving to Target and just a block from our house in the middle on the day, I saw a coyote run across the street. A few days later I took Tyson for a walk and I saw a sign that said "Coyote Warning." Yah, I don't know if I want to go walking around there anymore.

We also have our share of ants, spiders, beatles and lizards. A few days ago, I brought the Halloween stuff in from the garage and guess what crawled out of our orange tub--a spider. I thought it was a black widow so I captured it in a jar (but it wasn't). Tyson has slept with it beside his bed for the past couple nights (little does he know, Mommy didn't poke any holes in the lid, so the spider is now dead--I hate spiders).

Here's Tyson with his "spider jar"--so interesting!