Couch Potato?

At what point do you consider your child a couch potato?

When they enjoy watching tv together?

How about when she finds a chair no matter where she is?

Maybe when she sits on the couch with food...

and is stuffing her face?

Couch potato? Maybe, but how can you refuse anything to this face?

Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons

Grandma and Grandpa Gibbons came to visit us. We had an enjoyable conference weekend with them that included some fun adventures. We took a walk to a nearby playground in hopes of seeing some turtles, but the water fountain was on instead. The girls especially enjoyed the slide with Grandma's help.

We also spent a day at the Heard museum (thanks to the Gustaveson's for the suggestion). I don't think it compares to the dinosaur museum in Vernal (where Tyler's parents are from), but Abby enjoyed the different activities they had nonetheless. She was able to use a magnifying glass to look at bones.

There were shells of all shapes and sizes.

Thanks Tessa for showing us your favorite one.

Grandma helped Abby dig for dinosaur bones.

They even had live animals that we were able to see. Abby's most anticipated was the porcupine, but he was sleeping in his house, so she couldn't see him. But we did get to see lemurs, wallabies, capybaras, and other interesting animals.

I think our most exciting adventure with Grandma and Grandpa would have to have been when we picked up Tessa's birthday present. We went to Toys R Us and Grandma and Grandpa purchased a sandbox/picnic table for Tessa's birthday. Here is what it looks like assembled.

You can see behind the girls the size of the box it came in, so when they wheeled that to the front of the store, we had a slight problem. All five of us were in our little Ford Focus. Good thing Tyler's dad is good at solving problems. So we took a detour to Lowe's, picked up some straps and rope, and Tyler's dad strapped the box to roof of our car. I wish I had a picture of that for you. It was pretty funny. We were all pretty much stuck inside the car with the ropes and straps around our windows and mirrors. Tyler's dad had to slide in the half-open door and finish tightening the straps through the window. We're lucky we were able to get out of the car when we got home. But we did and the girls now love their new outside toy.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a wonderful time together!! We miss you already.

A Tribute to Gus Gus

We are not big pet people. If anyone knows our hamster tale, it's a sad one - got out of his cage and we never found him. But anyway, we do have fish. We are pet people when it comes to our fish. They are like part of the family. Here is our fish tank - 60 gallons, thank you Ebay.

So Tyler has really gotten into it. And after moving into our house here, Abby and I named all our fish after minor characters from the princess movies of course. Like Gus Gus, Merryweather, Doc, Rajah, Sebastian, and my personal favorite Lord Farquaad. (But that story's for another time.) Gus Gus, as you can probably see from the picture, is our largest goldfish, hence the name Gus Gus. Here's a close up:

He is one big fish! We have had him since we lived in California, before Abby was even born. He was given to us by our friends, the Bakers, when they moved. And he was our only fish who survived the move from California to their temporary home at Tyler's parents in Utah, and then to our home in Texas. We lost at least 5 fish from those moves. Anyway, so the Baker's came to visit us over Easter weekend, and we were so excited to be able to show Gus Gus to their kids since he used to be their pet. And on Saturday of their visit, their oldest son came in at breakfast and said Gus Gus was sleeping. And sure enough, he was sleeping... for good. We were a little sad and a couple of us commented on how he must have been living long enough just to see the Bakers one last time. I thought it would be a little traumatic for Abby to see Gus Gus be flushed away, but after we "saw him off" Abby said, "He's going to the beach," to which I replied, "that's right, all drains lead to the ocean!" Thank you Finding Nemo for helping us out of that traumatic situation. So here's to you Gus Gus...Enjoy the beach!! We'll miss you.