Well now that Christmas is over, I at last have a chance to update my blog. Regarding the dragons if you have been keeping up with Liam's blog http://liamsdragons.blogspot.com/ then you know that life has been busy. He blew up the plate of food in the microwave, has taught his dragons to take food from his fingers and has now taught them to jump for food from his fingers. I am very proud of him but have to admit that the time has been a bit stressful.

Along with blowing up the plate in the microwave went a lesson in heating solid objects and why they explode, also one on power levels in the microwave (ie when we defrost one kilo of meat on defrost setting for 20 mins you can't scale that down to defrosting 1 tabs food for 3 mins on high). Thankfully the microwave was able to be cleaned up and still works.

Along with spilling the expensive calcium powder all over the table, went a lesson on how to approach dusting the crickets without risking spilling it and putting the lid back on the jar STRAIGHT away.

Along with finding a cricket on the run in my kitchen went a lesson in not playing with the crickets and keeping them covered.

Along with rearranging the tank setup went another lesson in making sure that all the items added to the cage are cleaned thoroughly to kill any parasites on them. Hopefully we won't have to learn about treating mites because of that lesson :-).

Overall though, I would have to say that the whole household has fallen in love with our new residents. Both Adam and I can hardly walk past Liam's room without checking on them and giving them a pat :-)

But I can't talk about the lizards with mentioning the two other new residents of our place. Sticky the Stick Insect and Samuel the Rhinocerous Beetle. Sticky joined us the same day as the dragons and is growing rapidly. We have ascertained that he is SHE and will grow to be quite large so that will be interesting to watch. Samuel joined us yesterday after he was rescued from Adam's parents pond. He is quite large and quite funny and hisses at us constantly. We brought him home in a container (much to Mum's relief as she hates insects) and he is now installed in a styrofoam container of his own. Rhinocerous beetles are the strongest animals in the world, and Samuel proved this when we found him outside his cage. He had pushed the staples that held the mesh on his cage apart and crawled out only to fall on to his back on the floor and stay there waving his legs about. Needless to say his mesh is now more securely attached :-) though my admiration for his strength is strongly tinged with humour at his ability to get his stuck.

Overall as far as I can tell, all the animals in our care are safe and well fed, at the moment and as Adam says, for a family that has no pets, we sure have a lot of animals at the moment :-)