I've always loved snakes and was forever coming home with a garter snake or a little brown snake or something. I had a variety of lizards, snakes, and turtles when I was a kid. My dad hated snakes though and I was only ever allowed to keep one small garter snake I managed to wrangle into the house. Ironically, snakes were my favorite reptile - I loved how they moved, how they felt in my hands, how much personality they had. And they were the one reptile I was more limited to because of how my dad felt. But my dad always tried to support my interest no matter what and I did have some other interests (I was head-over-heals for horses too). And he did let me keep that little garter which was an awesome pet.

Only about 1 1/2 years ago, I reawakened my passion for reptiles and decided I wanted to build a nice display terrarium. My hubby (another animal lover) readily agreed and I chose a BP to put in it. I adopted Ella from a Reptile Rescue. Obviously, we all know that BPs aren't the best display snake which I learned pretty quickly, but I loved having the more exotic type snake like a python and I loved how docile Ella was so even though her tank wasn't the pretty natural display I was hoping for, it meant I could keep trying with other species, lol!

We loved having Ella so much that one thing led to another and now we have a baby boa and I have plans to breed Peaches one day. And that means I'll be in the market for a male boa in the near future too. I love how snakes are like potato chips - can't have just one!

Incidentally, I named our boa "Peaches" after my dad. Peaches was his nickname for me when I was a kid and even though he didn't like snakes, as I said, he always supported my interests - even now. He didn't think much when I announced our adoption of Ella but he still never put me down about it and even though I'm 35 now and grown and married, he still supports me in everything I do. So Peaches was named in honor of my dad.