I'm probably the only one in this site that is scared of snakes...
My short story: The husband has been asking for a snake for 11 years. Did I tell you I was scared of snakes? So, of course, the answer was no... But then, 2 months ago, I finally said, okay, what the heck. As long as it stays in the tank and nowhere else... so, he came home with this:

Her name is Curly. Well, she's really cute, even the vet said so. I finally had the courage to touch her after 2 weeks. Then I held her after another week. It was awesome, because, usually, we get a pet, then 2 weeks later, I end up feeding/cleaning/etc after these pets... well, this pet doesn't bark, doesn't eat furniture, eats only once a week, and doesn't pee all over. I built the tank (my favorite part of the entire experience! It's like miniature HGTV, hah hah.). I only spot clean the tank and only had to overhaul it once since we owned it.
So, when my son asked for his very own snake, I said, sure, why not... and I found this for him from the internet:

He is Salazar. He's a pretty one. And I was excited to build him his tank as well.
We had both snakes checked out by the vet and the vet thinks that Curly is a female and Salazar is a male. So, they need to be separated at all times, I guess, since the vet doesn't neuter snakes.
Then last night, I went and got african rats from Mike for the hubby, since he thinks african rats are better than american rats. But, before the hubby got home, the kids and I were already playing with the rats. They are sooo cute. Hubby was gonna feed one off today but before hubby can bop one upside the head we all screamed, NOOOOO!!! So, now I'm an owner of a few pet african rats as well.
Mike sent me a link to this forum and encouraged me to join so I can learn what to do with all these creepy crawlies, so here I am!
Thanks, Mike!