Coyotes, lizards and scorpions... Oh My!!!

It was a day of firsts for us in AZ a couple of weeks ago. While Jeff was driving Peyton to school, they saw a coyote cross the road. Then when Jeff came home that evening and moved the garbage can to take it from the garage to the curb, he found two new creatures that had come to visit.

This first blurry picture is a tail-less lizard. He was a little slow and we were able to catch him, which was a first for us. However, I think our next visitor below had been munching on him for dinner and that's why he was so slow..... We did let him escape and are hoping he is sprouting a new tail somewhere out in the wild.

This was the other visitor we had. I guess I should feel lucky since we've been here for 8 months and this was our first experience with a scorpion, but man it gave me the creepy, crawlies!!! GROSS!

Jeff let him run so I could see what it looked like when it moved and he went into the crack of the garage floor and was sticking up it's pincers and trying to scare us away. It worked on me, but Jeff had to get him to come out so he could kill it.

See what a brave man I'm married too! He's trying to get it out from under the car.

We thought it was dead and Jeff put it on top of the garbage can to inspect, and it started moving again. YIKES!!!!

Overall, the best and creepiest picture just before Jeff smashed it!

This was Peyton hiding in the back of the truck until we were sure it was DEAD. I'm sure the neighbors got a great show of me chasing it around with a camera, Peyton jumping in the back of the truck and Jeff whacking it with a shovel. I guess we haven't quite settled in as locals yet.