Doug and Miriam - and the only kids living at home

While we were in St. George, we got to see Chris's oldest brother, Doug and his wife Miriam. They recently moved from Torrance, California to St. George and have let their daughter Leisha look after Doug's cleaning business.

Doug and Miriam were celebrating their Anniversary

Doug is a HUGE soccer fan. Two of their daughters, Leisha and Kimmie, have played soccer in college and Doug has coached as well. While we were there, the World Cup had started and Doug was in heaven! Doug and Miriam have lived outside of the state of Utah for a very long time. It's nice to have them close now so we can get to know them better!

Doug's son Eric (EJ) rescued a couple of Corn Snakes from his cousins and has raised them to a very large size. They are amazingly docile and feel incredibly silky and cool. When we held them, they wouldn't "wrap" around your arm per se, but would drop a coil on each side of your arm and gently squeeze to keep themselves from slipping. It felt really amazing. Doug takes them outside on occasion to "walk the snakes" in the grass - which they apparently love. The picture below shows their amazing color against Doug's lawn of Kentucky Blue Grass... a lawn that supposedly can't grow in St. George. Doug is proving them all wrong! (Even if he has to break the Word of Wisdom to do it! Just kidding... he uses beer in a special mixture to feed the lawn.)

Just look at that color!

I don't know what happened to the pictures of LISA holding these snakes, but to her credit, she did just that. Mark was in the other room having a panic attack, but Lisa actually got up the nerve and held the smaller of the three snakes and didn't freak out! I was proud of her.

This is a female - and she may be expecting... BEAUTIFUL!

Of course, Chris and I were right in there to hold them and admire them. We both love animals so much that we rarely pass up a chance to interact with them. The female snake was much bigger and stronger than the male. She was darker in color and less shy too. As you can see, she wasn't shy of the camera, and took this moment to pose and even turned her head slightly to be more attractive!

I have the female, and Chris is holding the smaller, lighter male

Steve Irwin has nothing on us... of course, these guys weren't poisonous, but they are snakes! Right after we took this picture, we put the male back, and Chris held the female one more time. In no time, the female was down her shirt and around her back! Doug told us that this particular snake loves to entwine herself in hair, and clothing, and that once, they had to literally cut her out of a gal's hair - she'd entwined herself so deeply and tightly in the lady's bun, that they couldn't get her out without cutting her hair! Wild huh?

Congratulations Doug and Miriam. You've certainly outlasted the national average, and it's very obvious that you love eachother. We look forward to getting to know you better!

This is me... take it or leave it.