Out Smarted Again

We went and visited Grandma and Grandpa Moss today. We always have a nice time when we go and visit them. Grandma knows how much Samuel enjoys doing artwork, so she had the notepad and markers ready for him when we arrived. Right before we were getting ready to leave Samuel decided to draw a picture of some fish. He kept drawing and drawing. I told him it was time to go and he said he still wanted to draw, so we compromised and I told him he could draw one more fish and then we needed to leave. He then drew a snail and was starting on another and I said "Hey mister, I said only one more fish". He replied "I didn't draw a fish yet. It's an invertebrate, not a fish". I couldn't argue. I guess I need to be more specific next time.

All In A Full Day's Work

Saturday was spent completely disassembling our 90 gallon fish aquarium to give it a good (much needed) cleaning. Normally cleaning it isn't so drastic, but it had been slightly neglected - Jim always takes care of everything with it - I am useless when it comes to cleaning it or even feeding the fish. He does all the work and I just get to enjoy it. Anyway, since he was giving it a good cleaning he decided to also catch the fish and take some of them back to the fish store. Many of them had become very territorial so anytime we brought home a new fish they usually killed it within a couple of days. We also decided to move the aquarium to the center of the wall that it was on. When we originally set it up we placed it off center (I'm not sure what we were thinking). We were advised to move it to the center, but that meant a lot of work. So we just decorated around the off centered-ness of it.

Saturday was THE big day! I think Jim started about 6 AM. I took pictures periodically throughout the day. There were few interruptions the entire day. At around 11:30PM the tank was finally cleaned, moved, and put back together. Wow! What an exhausting day for Jim! I am happy to say that the tank looks great, some of the fish are in their new home at the fish store, and there is even a spot that Jim is saving for a clam that Samuel is super excited about.

I think sometimes caring for an aquarium among the many other responsibilities Jim has seems overwhelming and exhausting to him (it sure would me), but I am thankful for his work so that I can enjoy a beautiful, relaxing, intriguing fish aquarium. Plus, it is better than having a dog and definitely better than having a cat (apologies to cat and dog lovers out there).

The canopy has been removed


Gearing up for a long day, some water has been transferred to one of two tanks to keep the rocks, fish, and coral in while the big tank is getting cleaned

The brittle star fish (this one totally creeps me out! It looks like a spider with long spikey legs - it only comes out at night)

The temporary holding tanks


Catching those fast fish


Most of the water is out at this point as well as all the fish, coral, and rocks.


Even with all that out, it was still SUPER heavy. It took two grown men and a lot of strength to move it about 12 inches to the center of the wall

This is Jim's look of pure exhaustion - knowing that it was still not finished - the cleanup still needed to be done (I did help with that)



It was so dark at this point and the water was so murky it was really difficult for him to place the rock and coral. He just did the best he could and hoped and prayed it wouldn't come tumbling down, crashing into the glass.

It is centered, the fish, coral, and rocks are in place and now it is time for bed!


Now we just need to revise the decorations to fit having the tank centered


Today the tank looked great. The murkiness is gone, the coral has mostly revived and it looks beautiful


Thanks Jim for your hours and hours of labor to have such a beautiful piece of living art in our home. We do love it. Jim told me that he is never going to do that again. He said when it needs to be emptied and moved again (like when we need to get new carpet, etc.) he is just going to leave it down. Hopefully that won't have to be for a while. For now we can enjoy it CENTERED (for you Stephanie : )), filled with "nice fish", and all clean.

Our Future Paleontologist

Samuel has always said that he wants to be a bone doctor when he grows up (except for the short time when he said he wanted to be a speech pathologist like his dad). He now says that he will be a bone doctor during the day and at night he will work at the dinosaur museum being a paleontologist. Our friend Sheri gave him this great paleontology kit for Christmas and he was in heaven!



I guess you have to be really patient to do this kind of work. He worked on digging the bones out of this brick for a while and they still are not out. He is persistent though.

Putting Two Words Together

Since Jim and I are both Speech Language Pathologists I guess you could say we sometimes obsess about whether our children are developing language appropriately. I am happy to say that George does seem to be on track now. We were a little worried because he seemed a little later (compared to Samuel) using single words and even putting two words together. I can rest assured now. He is putting two words together he now says "I fart" and then giggles. It is actually pretty funny. He does use other two and sometimes three word combinations but this one makes me laugh the most. What a boy.

Tangrams

Samuel has enjoyed doing tangrams in the past. Several days ago he pulled out his set of magnetic shapes and began creating sea creatures with his tangrams (he didn't have a pattern to follow or anything - he just made them up). When he would finish one he would have me guess what it was. He made them so well I was able to guess all of them (for the most part). We had a lot of fun doing these and I am just amazed at his imagination with creating things! Here are a few of the sea creature tangrams he made.

Octopus


Sea Urchin


My favorite an Angler Fish

Squid Dogs

Several weeks ago I made these fun "squid" snacks. I found the idea/recipe here. They were pretty fun for Samuel to make and they were fun to eat too.

Before cooking:


After cooking, ready to eat: