The present she will have until she dies...

This is Tuck the turtle.

Well technically he or she is a tortoise but either way...

This is Tuck.

(ya I know we are really creative over here at the whipple household)

Tuck is an African Spurred Tortoise.

His life span is 50 to 80 years.

This "little" thing, depending on its gender which you cant tell until its 3 years old, can get to about 150 lbs.

Right now it MIGHT weigh a pound.

It will eventually have residence in our backyard and will eat 4 heads of lettuce a day...

I am gonna have to grow my own garden just for this thing. Riley got her own kids tough camera for her birthday and she has put it to great use especially taking pictures of this thing! She is pretty dang talented. You should see all the awesome pictures she has gotten of him!

(i promise i wont put them all up here)

Anyway, one of the settings on the camera is to put borders around the subject. Without any coaching at all she found the heart and took a picture of Tuck!

She is really cute.

It pretty much describes the feelings she has for him though. Since she got him she wants to be home almost all of the time just so she can watch him burrow and crawl and eat. I wonder when the novelty will wear off. She normally loses interest in things in one day and it has been just over a week and he still seems brand new to her. Every time he opens his eyes and starts crawling around its like she is seeing him do it for the first time!

Ahhh Love......

So where did this thing come from??

My brothers.....

My brother Steve is a reptile enthusiast and plans on breeding a bunch of different reptiles. He has a lizard at his house (2 doors down) that Riley cant get enough of! She could spend just as much time looking at that thing as she can at Tuck. So my brothers Steve and Damon thought it would be a good idea, for her birthday, to get her something to have fun with at home.

(that I wouldnt go crazy trying to take care of. in a couple years i will be able to handle more but right now he is prettyy simple)

This thing is gonna take A LOT of work as it gets bigger but Riley loves him.

To be honest everyone in this house has become pretty attached to him!

We all think he is pretty cool and we are glad that my brothers got her such an outrageous gift!