One Fish, Two Fish, Red fish, Dead fish.

I'm not sure how many of our blog readers noticed our stick figure family at the very bottom of our blog. This is what it looks like:

Actually, I just updated it so Rachel is standing, but it's basically the same. In typical Brian/Devri humor, we picked the most ridiculous ones to represent us. The people that actually know us will get that. Random strangers, well, they probably think I'm a cheerleader and Brian is a skater boy (it makes me laugh to think of us this way.) Anyway, back when we created this, we noticed that they have pet options, and thus our imaginary fish Spike was born. We thought Spike was such and awesomely ridiculous name for a fish. 

Fast forward SEVERAL years. I took Michael to his Preschool open house. This was two weeks ago yesterday. His teacher is doing this under the see, school of fish thing. So, she let every student fish for a gold fish, and we got to take him home. Yay! (hopefully you hear the slight sarcasm in that yay). So, we went home with this live goldfish, and I convinced Michael to name it "Spike". And I was laughing on the inside when he thought that was a great name. Yes, son, it is. 

So, I started wondering how much aquariums are, and decided if I could buy a small one for around $12, we'd go for it and invest in our first pet ever as a family. I called Brian and proposed my idea. He was game, and laughed about it with me. (I've been VERY anti-pet since we were dating, and here I was proposing we get a pet. But I thought, "It's just fish. They're contained to their little area, and fairly low maintenance. We can handle fish.) So, off we headed to the hated Wal*Mart to see what kind of fish home we could find.

I was delighted to find this 1 gallon tank kit for $10. Perfect! We bought rocks, a few plants, a net, fish food, a tank cleaner (which we named Bruce. Finding Nemo, anyone?), and a girlfriend for Spike--a silver goldfish that we named "Goldie." (Maybe our twisted humor in naming pets is the REAL reason we don't have a dog or a cat. You should hear our conversations about naming children). So, we came home, found a place for the tank, and got it all ready for its new inhabitants. 

 I was ridiculously giddy about the whole thing. Yup, me, excited about having a pet. 

Spike died before Brian even made it home from work.  That's what you call ironic. I thought that was pretty funny. Good thing I was excited about the other fish or I would have been upset. 

So, since I forgot a few things for dinner that night, we headed back to Wal*Mart and bought Spike II. 

Everything was going great, and we all loved having our new fishies:

 That Saturday, I went to a play with my friend Kirsten when I got a text from Brian that said, "P.S. Goldie didn't make it."  So, since Kirsten needed to go to a store on the way home anyway to pick up some children's Motrin, we stopped by Wal*Mart and bought Goldie II. (Good thing they're only $.20 each, right?). There were several goldfish in Wal*Mart's tank that were dead. It wasn't looking good. Goldie II didn't even make it to lunch time the next day. At this point, I was starting to get a little discouraged. I decided that our tank wasn't big enough for two goldfish. We decided to just enjoy Spike and Bruce.

Oh, and then Spike died. Again. Probably a week ago. Yeah, dumb fish. Maybe this is the reason we don't have pets.

On Monday, after dropping Michael and his friend Dax at Preschool, Rachel and I headed to JoAnn's in American Fork. On the way, we passed this pet shop. When we finished at JoAnn's, I still had a little time to kill before picking the boys up (I know, you're all shocked I made it out of JoAnns in less than an hour), so Rachel and I stopped at the shop. I considered getting a toad or a frog or something that might last longer than a goldfish. I told the lady working their about my small tank and goldfish struggles. She recommended getting a Beta fish. She said they're more hardy and don't mind small tanks. (I wouldn't have considered a Beta before. I thought they ate other fish and were super violent. Cock fights but with fish always came to mind when thinking about Betas. I'm not really sure why).  Betas seemed like a good idea after she explained all that, but they only had red Betas, and since I couldn't get a hold of Brian, I decided we should make picking out a new fish family affair. For Family Home Evening, we went to PetSmart and picked out a beautiful blue Beta fish that we named Spike III, or Spike for short. I cleaned the tank and put these two in a tank together.

Spike is on the left, Bruce is upside down on the filter tube on the right. Maybe I should add Bruce to our little Widdly Tink family too. Hmmmmmmmmm. Here's hoping third time is a charm with Spike :)

Back to School

I took some "Back to School" themed photos of Eva and Michael to go on a Mini-session flyer for my budding photography business. Nobody called on the mini-session offer, but it was still worth the effort for these sweet pictures:

 In this one, I told Michael to whisper something in her ear:

 But it sure doesn't look like that's what he's doing:

 This year, Michael is in a real preschool--meaning I'm paying for it and it isn't in my house--ever. This also means I'm an official carpool mom. Yup. I feel less like a poser now. Michael was so excited for school to start. The night before, I took him shopping to buy a couple of new shirts for the new school year. When I got up, I found him already dressed and ready to go. Here's Michael on his first day of school:

Rachel wanted her picture taken too. Love the bed hair!

 Here he is just outside the door for Preschool:

When he got home, I asked him about his first day (using questions that his teacher sent home):

What is one of your class rules: Criss-cross Applesauce (he told me about that when he first got in a car on the way home).

Who are your new friends? Ethan & Kinley

Which story was your favorite?: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

What is your favorite thing about preschool?: Snack

What do you like to play with?: Legos

Later, he told me he thought preschool was lame. I was a little stunned and had to laugh, because I know he doesn't really mean it. I can't believe how big he's getting. I love this boy and I'm so proud of him! He's such a good boy, and we're so blessed to have him in our family. 

Wrapping Up the Summer

After two long trips in July and a mini one in between, we spent August mostly just chillin' at the house. Some of us dressed up as super heroes and mermaids.

 (yeah, I made Eva's cape)

 Some of us took naps on the floor:

 All of us brushed our teeth every night (well almost every night):

 Most of us ate tomatoes from our garden...lots of tomatoes from our garden:

One of us got to take Heather on an annual shopping excursion. This year, we got our hair done first:

 Some of us had a dance/spinning party in our bath towels:

Some of us went to a nursery to buy a new tree to replace a dead one. Some of us worked hard to get that tree to the car:

One of us planted the tree. Three of us cut old trees up and put them in the trash. All of us pulled weeds. One of us pulled out flowers. 

All of us were excited to get our slide for downstairs in the mail:

Some of us got neighbor friends to help us wash the car. 

While one of us watched from a lawn chair:

One of us saw the Tour of Utah go riding by on her way to a craft store: (or was it a different girly store?)

All of us enjoyed all the rain we got in August. Brian and I even danced in the rain while waiting for pizza on the grill to cook (should have looked at the forecast before planning that meal).

Three of us got strep throat (Brian, Devri, & Ethan). One of us got pink eye (Rachel). All of us had a great summer, but we're also pretty excited for fall.

BBQ at Jon & Rebekah's House

On August 23, we went to Kaysville to have a BBQ at my uncle Jon's house. Jon and Rebekah just moved back to Utah after sevenish years? Not sure on the time table--they moved while I was on my mission. Before they moved, I used to go to their house all the time to watch their kids or just hang out. I even lived at their house for a week when I was in between apartments at BYU. Jon and his twin brother Jeff (my mom's youngest brothers) were my heroes when I was a kid. Some of my earliest memories involve attending their high school basketball games. They took us sledding and played with us all the time. Rebekah was my favorite babysitter. It's exciting that they are close by again. It's been six years since I saw them, so this visit was overdue. And a happy surprise was that my grandparents were there!

 We had lots of good food.

 With some of our favorite people:

 My brothers made sure that I got a shot of their best sides:

It was great to be with family and long lost cousins/aunt/uncle. We had so much fun we stayed too late. Welcome back to Utah, y'all!