More Fishy Pictures

A surprising favorite: the otters. We got to see them being fed live goldfish (I didn't know how that would go over, but it was okay.) And playing with each other. It was pretty fun.
Disappointing: the raccoons were sleeping. This one finally looked around when we were back in the river exhibit a second time. The kiddos were really looking forward to seeing the raccoons for some reason. (Chester in 'The Kissing Hand'? Because a raccoon got the kittens at Grammy's?)
You can barely make out a striped shark at the edge of the tank--this was in the shark petting pool. I did feel a sandpapery shark, and and icky, slimy, yucky sting ray. (shiver)
Honey peeking in a viewing window at her height. She was too active for the stroller; but too active to let loose. :)
Kind of small, but can you find Nemo and his dad toward the lower middle? I'll try to blow this up later.
Thanks for checking out our little trip!

Shark Petting

We've had a 'rainy day' trip planned for awhile, and got our chance on Friday. We went to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Tulsa. The kids were intimidated at first, it was kind of dark and there was a shark suspended from the ceiling--but they were soon enjoying themselves. :) (Sorry for the lack of picture quality.) Here's the coral reef tank:
The shark/sting ray petting tank. Speedy was eager to put his hand in the water--but didn't actually ever want to touch anything. :)

Speedy in front of a very colorful fish:
A tired and hungry Princess by the end of the outing, in front of the seahorses:
We rounded out the day with supper at Braum's, swimming and overnight at a hotel before heading back home.

Renovations

You may remember that we moved our fish pond this spring. I finally have some before and after pictures! Before:
Before (standing on the front porch): You can see that the pond isn't very level, and there's about zero vegetation or pretty colors in these beds. Blah.
After: We've planted some perennials and a few annuals, Hubby made the lattice for our transplanted clematis, and the fish pond has a more prominent spot! When things slow down, hopefully we'll get the fountain back in the pond, and maybe a limestone waterfall.
We mail-ordered the perennials, they come small, but I'm hoping they will really take off and fill in next year. There is rose moss (annual) in the front, gaillardia, mums, hardy glads (the splash of red toward the back). There are supposed to be some daisies, but I may be getting a refund on those--they haven't done anything! About 1/3 of the creeping phlox has survived, don't think any of the sweet william has. Also 2 Weigela bushes at the back--one seems to be getting a slow start, I think the other one is dead. Mail order is not the way to go for instant impact, but it was pretty cost-effective, and a one year guarantee on your plants living.
Yeah! Blooming blanket flower/gaillardia, one of my favorites that I've been waiting to have in my garden!

Frogs

One evening last week, I noticed teeny frogs hopping all over the part of the pool that isn't covered in water. I caught a couple for the kids. But we didn't take very good care of them. I don't know if all the other teeny frogs are back in the pool water now, but I haven't seen them.

In other news, goldfish are back at our house! Speedy got in the mucky cow tank and helped Uncle T catch them. He wasn't squeamish at all about touching them! So there are 3 fish out front in the fishpond and 4 out back in the pool--of course we haven't seen them since they went splashing in. I guess it's an experiment back there.

Did I mention that it's raining and storming AGAIN???

There's No Place Like Home

We've been on the road for almost a week--up to Minneapolis and back. We saw lots of flooding in Iowa, just missed the severe weather on Wednesday as we headed back south. We opted to stop at my sister's that night after we saw the radar and were in her basement for a tornado warning. I really feel like God was watching out for us in our travels that day, especially after seeing the tornado damage in Kansas! Here are couple links to the KSU and Manhattan damage. So weird to see buildings that I've been in messed up like that! Watch the tornado form here. Here's a map of the possible tornado path.

Big Trucks!

Our Parents As Teachers hosted a big truck night--lots of fun for the little ones to pretend to drive and climb all around in dump trucks, police cars, semis and others. Here's cool dude Speedy in the dump truck.

Got Mail??

A little young to be behind the wheel, aren't you, Honey?

Uh, oh, what have you two been up to now?

Hungry?

I feel like a Reading Rainbow book report--here's a fun one we read this week! Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett. Maybe I liked it because no one had to cook or shop for food--it all fell from the sky! The kids were pretty intrigued by it. All was well till too much food was dropping and everyone had to move!