Yup, plumeria seedlings. They can take 3 or 5 years to bloom and usually get to around 4 to 6 feet high before that happens. Hope you have lots of space! I see at least three, maybe four plants there. This post was edited by dave_in_nova on Wed, Oct 29, 14 at 12:23

A pupal stage of an insect, not sure which, from one picture; you can hold it in a terrarium until it emerges for a good ID

No, I never asked for advice, although I am not adverse to it. My original posting asked if anyone here had, "Grandchildren with weird first and middle names". That's all I wrote. I repeatedly wrote throughout this thread that I had no intention of saying anything about it to my dd or sil. I appreciated most of the responses, and even had a chuckle or two from them! I'm not sure why some posters felt the need to admonish and scold me about saying anything about the naming of the baby. Frankly, I don't know how I could have made this point clearer than I did. But you are right about a public forum, you post and get what you get. I NEVER had any intention of trying to name this baby or anyone else's for that matter.NEVER EVER. OK? When you said I "was uneasy about what I am doing", I wondered what you thought I was doing, or what you thought I intended to do??? See, I think you mis read my postings. In any case, thanks for responding so I could clarify this. Pat

Just wanted to give an update.... After seeing maybe half a dozen houses and driving through various neighborhoods, we narrowed our search down to one area and sent out 90 (yes 90!) letters to owners asking if they were interested in selling. The response was actually better than we expected, I think we got around 6 replies, and one of them ended up being, if not the house of our dreams, at least a house that we really liked and found workable. Since the home is in an older neighborhood with maybe 3 floorplans, the whole transaction was really easy to figure out, even for us novices (we did hire a lawyer for $250). Price was agreed upon to give both us and the sellers the financial benefit of no realtors. To be honest, things were a little uncomfortable a couple of times during negotiations, and it did take us a little more time (setting up inspections, talking to title company, etc) than it would have with a realtor involved, but for our particular transaction, it was well worth the savings for both sides. We closed yesterday and as of today, the house is still standing and we're still excited about it :) Thanks all for your insightful and informative posts; this forum has been extremely helpful! Now it's on to the remodeling forums......