Claude(tte?)

(Blogger freaked out last week and ate my posts--this was supposed to post last Thursday or Friday!)

We have a new family member.

Actually, he's been here for a week already, and I haven't introduced him.  I feel a little bad for this.

So, without further ado, I would like to introduce Claude, the African Clawed Frog.  (He came with the name.)

After doing a little reading, though, I'm thinking that Claude is actually Claudette.  From what I've read, this frog is female.  She/he is 15 years old right now, and is about 5-6 inches long.  Very big!  The kids love their new friend, and Henry frequently sits at the basement table (on which Claude lives) to do his lessons.

Welcome to the family, Claude!

The Aquarium (So Far)

Slowly, slowly, our new aquarium is taking shape.  First we needed to wait until everyone left to clear out space for the whole shebang.  We set up the table with the aquarium (empty) and hood to see how it would look--and it looked great!

We liked the way it looked so much that we used it as a light in the evenings when we were downstairs.  Very cozy, even without anything in it!  After it was set up that way, we found a timer to plug the light into, so it turns on and off by itself.  Also, once we have fish, they will be getting the correct amount of light each day.

Once we did that, we needed gravel, plants, and a bucket.  We headed to the pet store and debated what color of gravel to get, and what kinds of plants we should have.  While we're definitely not done with the decorating, here's what we've got so far.

These pictures were taken not long after we filled the tank--so there are still bubbles on the glass in the pictures.  Those are gone now.  It's really difficult to get a good picture of the aquarium.

Once our tank had been going for about a week, our heater just quit.  So we have to see if we can get that exchanged.  It's a good thing we're taking it slowly getting this going--otherwise our fish might have been really stressed out and gotten sick from the heater dying in the middle of the night.  It was cold by morning.

We've got some ideas for fish now.  It's taken us a while to research what kinds of fish do well together, would fit in our tank, and how many of each kind we need (some are schooling fish and need to be together in groups, others fight if there's more than one in the tank).  There are still a few things we need to do and to get before we add the fish, and I think that's ok.  I've heard rumors of warmer temperatures by the end of the month, and that might be a better time to bring home the new family members!

Stay tuned for more...

Whirlwind

Wow, what a week and a half!

Mom flew in with a new kitty for us.  Homer came to us because Mom rescued him, but he wasn't fitting in with the other pets in the household.  The doggies were chasing him and the other kitty was picking on him.  He is very, very slowly getting used to us and his new house.  He is a beautiful boy with long, misty gray fur and bright green eyes.  He likes to hide in the ceiling of the laundry room during the day.  Hopefully he'll start coming down soon.  He's had a lot of adjusting to do in the last half a year!  Here's a bad webcam photo of Homer relaxing with me for a couple of minutes upstairs last night.

We all went up to Duluth to hang out at the waterpark for Holly's birthday and just for fun.  It was an interesting trip, for sure.  Henry freaked out with all the sensory overload and it ended up being mostly exhausting dealing with the waterpark.  By the last 45 minutes of our two-night stay, he was actually ok, of course.  We had some great meals while we were there--Pizza Luce never disappoints with their gluten-free menu.  It was fantastic.  The second night we returned to our room after touring Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse (state park and historic site) to a crockpot with a chicken and wild rice dinner.  It smelled fantastic.  By the time we were heading home, the huge storm that hit the midwest was coming in, and we watched the waves (and surfers) on Lake Superior from the Marine Museum (which was really cool!).  The waves were forecast to reach close to 30 feet tall on the lake from that storm!  Driving home was an adventure with 40 mph winds and gusts up to 60 mph.  But we got home safely, and we were happy to come back to our cozy home in the storm.

When we got back, we baked a chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting (all gluten-free, of course!) for Holly's birthday and opened presents.  Holly was very excited about her gifts and I must say, she makes a great 6 year old.  I have some pictures of her birthday to post in the next few days.  Gotta show off the pretty birthday girl!

That was just the first half of Mom's visit.  I think I will break up the visit into two posts.  I need to find pictures, too--I'm always bad about taking pictures when someone is visiting.  I get distracted.  I just realized that I don't think we took any pictures of the kids in their costumes on Halloween!  We Skyped with Grandpa Kelly instead to show off the costumes and must have gotten sidetracked.  Maybe we'll take care of that today!  Better late than never...

Pet Mania

We've been watching our friends' hermit crabs this week.  It's touched off a bit of "pet mania" around here.  An aquarium has been in the plans for us for some time now.  Maybe at Christmas?  But Henry especially has been yearning (yes, that's definitely the word for it) for his own pets because of the crabs.

The crabs were a source of endless fascination for him until...well...it ended.  Because the food is smelly, and because we discovered gerbils.  Currently, we've got books from the library checked out to read all about keeping gerbils and setting up aquariums.  Henry's researching his pet.  He's saving up money (we promised to match his amounts to help him out).  I think he's leaning toward having gerbils in his room instead of an aquarium at this point--but we have to make sure we can make up our own, healthy, food mix for them.  You see, normally gerbil food contains a lot of oats, wheat, and sometimes barley.  We just can't take that risk now.  So we're trying to find a good mix of seeds and other ingredients that we could feed the little guys safely.  We'll still have to be very careful with the mix because of possible cross-contamination, though, so Brad and I haven't decided for sure if it's worth the risk at this point.  Henry might have to end up with a little aquarium with glowing neon fish instead (which he really likes too). 

We will definitely keep you posted about what we decide and also include pictures of our new friends whenever they come to live with us.