I remember it well - July 10, 2007. For some reason I unexpectedly wake up around 5am (maybe due to the stress of our relocation to Palo Alto), go downstairs, sit in the dining room, waste time reading news on a laptop, and open the door to feel the fresh air.

It gets a bit lighter out and on and off I hear some weird sound in the backyard.

I walk out, look around, and what catches my eye - but a mamma possum on the fence with babies on her back!

What to do - watch and learn, or run back and get the camera while what if she disappears? OK, after a minute, run back, find camera, snap pics, good.

The girls (Lia 5+, Kayley, 2+) are asleep but hey would love this. Sure Jenny won’t be happy with little girls who are woken up early but maybe this is a once in a lifetime opportunity! Run up and try to wake Lia - she’s sleeping like a log. Get Kayley up and show her the possum. Run back and try really hard and get Lia sort of up and she gets to see the possum too.

The possum sort of just stays there for a long time. We go in and eat breakfast…and the phone rings. It’s Sheri from next door, and one of the babies fell in her yard, and what to do? She ends up calling some kind of animal control person who says the babies are old enough to climb fences, and sure enough, eventually the babies get reunited with their mamma just like an episode of Wonder Pets.

A year earlier we saw a possum cruising thru our backyard and didn’t see it again, so they appear to be good little hiders.