Rae the Photographer

Hand the kid the camera, come back with a memory card stuffed fill with pics like these. She's getting good at her framing!

Quarantine Tank

I was stuck in a pickle trying to figure out how to rig a quick quarantine tank for my sick little miss. There are so many things that need to be kept constant: temperature, ammonia, PH, Nitrate, Nitrite, salinity... I mean really, you need a whole new tank. So I did my Mama proud and totally jerry-rigged a quarantine spot: Ziploc bag clipped into the corner of the tank with a bubble hose dropped in. The tank heater will keep her at the correct temperature, it's a small enough amount of water that I can use tank water to fill the bag and do daily water changes with the tank water to keep her in the safe zone.. and the bonus being that in my frantic Googling I learned that one method of treating this illness is basically a saline shock.. namely, we dip her in fresh water for a few minutes at a time each day for a few days, then return her to her quarantine water that has a lower then average salinity. Apparently, when this doesn't kill the fish, it is rather effective in killing off any ich that the fish may have caught, as marine ich absolutely requires salt to survive. So we'll see.

oh no oh no oh no oh no

I have a sick fish. Either weird Ich or Clownfish disease.

Little Man: Not so little any more.

The Nemos and the BlueFish

Protein skimmer installed, salt integrated, pump filter repaired then repaired again then kicked a few times then replaced and cycled for a week. Live holy-crap-expensive rock in place, fish, snails, crabs purchased... Our saltwater tank has begun!!!!! SQUEEEE!!!! If all is well in a week to ten days, and nothing dies, ( including the cat which seems to spend a gross amount of time trying to get inside the tank) we will get to go pick out our starter ANEMONES!!!!!! The tank looks sadly nekkid right now, but we're just starting out... don't want to load it up too quickly for fear of my ineptitude killing everything and we end up flushing, literally, hundreds of dollars down the toilet.
But for just starting out it looks dang fancy! AND! Today is day two.... and nothing has died yet!! The kids are thrilled with it. I was hoping to name those clown fish something fancy like Ozzy and Harriet, but it looks like we may just be calling them "the Nemos" ( Fast and Big)because that is what the kids squeal at them all. day. Who am I to mess with that kind of intensity? The blue fish, who were ALL the children's' idea, have been ignored. They aren't fancy looking and they have zero personality. I agreed because hey, if they die I won't feel very bad. They have no names at all, just "the blue fish". I have tiny hopes that they become something fun to look at some day. In the mean time, they provide us with something to complain about now that the pump, which I was seconds from backing over in the driveway, has been replaced. Free advice: Never buy Fluval. The end.

Oh I'm DYING

Kael has never been much of a paper artist. He's not really interested in coloring or drawing or writing or anything, really, that has to do with paper unless you count tearing, folding or eating it. So imagine my surprise when he cornered me with his first real piece of intentional art, which he sat and carefully drew for me.
Imagine my surprise when he handed me this................

"It's a Helicopter!"

And then I died. I will, some day, have to explain myself and my complete and total giggle meltdown to my now-three year old.

But that day is not today.

Helicopter! Helicopter! Helicopter!

.

.

.

.

For those of you confused, it's a Rodney Carrington stand up comedy joke. Looking for a youtube now!

Happy 30th Birthday

This nicely sums up my entire day. Happy birthday to me.

Outdoors-ish

(this one totally cracks me up. Gotta prove I was there *somehow*!)

Cat in a Hat

Math'n

Costco rawks. We got these nifty math and reading puzzles the last time we did a stock-up trip into Bend, and the kids are LOVING them! Kael is more the math kid, while Raegan is doing really well at both. It's so fun to see their little minds learn and grow!