Hi! Welcome to the forum!
Like you, I have grown up with guinea pigs; now I have a group of eight rescue guinea pigs. My neutered male was chosen by his then companion who has died since.
The other seven females have been added for different reasons - a couple to spare my male the pining when his older companion health started to go down, so he wouldn't be alone when she died.
Another one was part of a big rescue operation and had the same big sad eyes and similar markings to my very first adult piggy. She was pregnant when she was rescued, and the only daughter in a last litter of four came with her, so I had a little youngster for the first time in five years again!
Two I have adopted because of their looks - they are a special longhaired breed that reminds me of my childhood piggies.
The last one is a four year old lady that has lost her sister and her home at New Year; not many people want to rehome an elderly piggy, even though they usually have great personalities and are much easier to handle.
I could not live without piggies anymore - they have such big personalities for their small size and are so communicative. There is hardly a day when they do not make me laugh!
My first adult guinea pig was very enterprising; one day, she suddenly disappeared and I couldn't find her anywhere. Finally, I hit upon calling for dinner and I got this little squeak from upstairs - Minx had discovered the stairs!
Here is a picture of her going up on another occasion:
Minx also managed to sneak into the fridge while my hubby was dithering about what to have for lunch once:
You can copy those pictures if you right click on them and save them to your computer.