No More "Highest Love"

Kuialoha is no more.  Well, no more in our home anyway.  On Saturday she bit Tank hard enough to draw blood and leave a nice bruise.  And that was it.  In an instant, she was no longer my dog, she was a traitor to the family.

Rob isn't heartless, like me, so he tried to get me to agree to keep her, work on more training with her.  I said, "That's fine if you want to keep her.  On Monday, when you come home from work, the dog will be gone, dropped off at the nearest Pound."  He got the point.  (Women are jerks, and I'm no exception.  There are just no two ways to see some issues.)  Happily, we found someone to take her so she didn't go to the Pound.

And I liked Kui!  Really, I did.  She was a fun little creature, and a nice lap dog who kept me warm on Winter days.  But she was randomly aggressive, attacked other dogs, and occasionally bit my kids.  That's just not cool.

Instantly, when the announcement was made, the kids started asking for new pets.  Can we have Cleo back?  NO.  Can we get a new dog?  No.  Can we get another cat?  No.  How about we put up our fish tank again?  And put it where, exactly?  That's a no.  Finally we worked our way to a betta fish.  They're pretty, nearly zero work, and they can live in 2 inches of water.

Except it turns out that they aren't really supposed to be kept in such little bowls.  To be humane (not to insult anyone who owns a betta and keeps it in a 1/2 gallon tank), you should keep it in at least a 5 gallon tank.  Well, we don't HAVE a 5 gallon tank.  I was just going to ignore the "that's torture" response I initially had, and put the betta into a large vase we have.  But I just couldn't do it.  We brought up the vase and it now has a plant coming out the top, but no cool betta. 

So what did we do?  We put this back up:

It's our 20-gallon tank.  We bought it in 2004 and took it down in 2008.  It's been sitting downstairs ever since, waiting for the right moment.  Right now there's no fish in it, if you're looking for fish.

This is in our living room, where our TV used to be (see?  No TV in the corner!).  We don't watch much TV any more, and so a year ago I tried to convince Rob to put the TV downstairs in the toy room.  He wasn't having it.  But then, a few days ago, when we were thinking about the fish tank, Rob said, "How about we put the TV downstairs?"  I just looked at him.  "You know I suggested that a year ago, right?"  He shrugged.  "I'm slow."

There you have it.  Traded a dog for some fish and a plant.

(P.S.  This is how sad the kids were about seeing Kui go.  Rob asked if fish was an ok trade for a dog.  Miciah responded, "Fish are better."  Clearly, no one was shedding tears around here.)

Family Update

We are all healthy now, which is a wonderful thing to report! Teancom seems like he might have gotten a little bit of the cold that kicked our butts, but he's doing pretty good, if that's the case. Elijah and Miciah were untouched by the cold and Rob and I are over it now. So life is good again!

The infection I had went away, which is another great thing to report. I didn't realize that I was so swollen until it all went away. So I am feeling much better in that regard.

Potty Training Adventures

Elijah is doing pretty good for potty training. He has had few accidents. We're averaging about one a day. He tells us when he needs to go pee and does a good job at that. We haven't got the pooping in the potty thing down yet, but I think it won't be too far in coming. Elijah messed in his undies last night and he sat there going, "Yucky, Mommy. Yucky car" (there are cars on his undies). Yes, yucky. And the first day we were potty training, I put him down for a nap in his underwear. That was a bad idea. About 10 minutes later I hear a very insistent Elijah yelling at me: "Mommy! Mom-me! Come HERE! Come HERE!" I open the door and he's wet his pants and is standing there shouting, "Mom-me! Yuck-ee! Yuck-ee!" It made me laugh. ... So obviously we haven't got it all down yet, but if this is how it's going to be for a while, it's great. This is better than diapers, even with the occasional accident. And I think Elijah is loving the increased independence.

Adventures with 3 Kids

Miciah is having a lot of play dates lately, which is fun for her and nice for me. I think my friends with 2 kids (which is most of my friends) feel sorry for me with the new baby. I'm not really stressed out about the 3 kids thing yet (I'm waiting for it to kick in any time), but it's nice to have friends that are easing things for me anyway. I did go to the store with all three kids last week. What was I thinking? There were only like 5 things on my list so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. Well, 2 hours, 2 spills, 1 long fit, scrubbing carpets on hands and knees, 3 screaming kids and a tired mom LATER, ... Come to find out that almost every mom has a story like that, so I feel a little better about that.

Our lives are getting pretty much back to what normal is going to be for a while. We've been up to having people over again, and that's been great. I love having people over. And I even mowed the back yard yesterday! That was fun! It was hard and I could tell I haven't done much for a long time, so it was good to get a workout.

A New Cat. Again?

I'm sure you guys are getting tired of new cat announcements, but we have a new cat. The cat we used to have, Peek-a-Boo, was sick. He had diarreah for the full 2 weeks we had him. We gave him back and at last word, about a week ago, he still had diarreah and none of the medications were working. That's like 7 weeks of being sick. Yikes! Now they're thinking he has a disorder. Anyways, we don't regret giving him back.

So now we have Cleopatra. She is black and grey striped on top with white on her neck, belly, and paws. She is very pretty. She is very playful and she's an amazing climber. Rob says she climbs like a squirrel. :) She's fun to have around. She's not too loving, and in some ways, that's nice, too. She has scratched Miciah a few times, mainly because Miciah was holding her how she shouldn't have and tried to put her down and Cleo tried to hold on. Miciah was pretty upset about it until I explained that Cleo wasn't trying to be mean. I later heard Miciah tell her, "It's okay, Cleo. I understand you didn't mean to." Cute.

Baby Lucky, the Fish

And our best news of all!!: We have a baby fish. He's a molly. We have 2 different kinds of mollies and we're not sure which kind it is because the 2 we have are 1-black with a little yellow and 2-yellow with a little black and the baby fish is yellow and black. So who knows. But he's been around for like 2 weeks now and we're having a blast finding him. I half expect him to be eaten every time I look for him, but he's managed to stay alive and he's even grown to twice the size he was when we first saw him. So we call him Lucky, becuase I think he's lucky to be alive. If he gets eaten, I will change his name posthumously to Unlucky. :) He's getting braver and I like to hope that he will get to be a big fish. Having a baby fish is a lot less stressful than having a baby human. So this makes 3 fish in our tank with names: Paul (the scum sucker), Spot (our neon with a black spot on his tail), and Lucky. Fun!

That's all from here, sorry it was all pretty pointless.

Tamra and family

Events to Share

Well, not much of import has happened lately, but we've had events, so I'll share those.

Knee Surgery Update

Rob is not off his brace yet, technically. He goes to physical therapy tomorrow and he expects he will be released from having to wear his brace then. This week is week 6, I think, so he's right on schedule. He's not been ahead, but he's not been behind, either. ... It's been interesting to watch his recovery. First, when he just had surgery, he'd try to flex his quads and they just didn't flex at all. Now they both will flex, but his surgery leg is obviously weaker and he can flex his leg and keep it straight, but it shakes a lot. That's been the slow-up with getting the brace off. His quad has to be "firing." In other words, it has to be responding when his mind and/or body says flex. ... He's been not wearing his brace for a week, though, except to school. Places he knows he won't have to walk very far, he doesn't worry about his brace. Rob can now do exciting things like not walk with a noticable limp and walk up and down stairs one foot at a time (you know, like without having to put both feet on each stair). He went to work out with me yesterday, which consisted of walking without his brace on a treadmill for 20 minutes, lifting weights on his upper body, and doing some abducter machine (I don't really know what they're called. It's the machine where you sit down like in a chair and push out with your legs like you're doing a butterfly movement or something). It was fun and it was good to see him able to do a few things.

Trip to Toledo

Rob's little brother, G, is going on a mission next month, so a lot of our recent activities, and activities we'll be doing later, center around that. I took the kids and went up to Toledo to see Grandma and Grandpa D so that the kids could have a chance to see their great grands that they don't get to see too often. It was a fun trip, but I ended up not sleeping like at all up there, which meant I was just really, really tired the whole time. They had me in a tiny, poorly-circulated room so I was too hot, on a bed not my own, with 2 kids, one of whom wakes up at least once during the night still (despite sleeping, actually, pretty well. He wakes up once, normally, but sleeps usually 4 - 6 hours, wakes up, then another 8 hours or so) and on top of that makes lots of baby noises through the night, and plus, the two kids don't know how to sleep in the same room together, so I had to treat going to bed as a 3 part process: get Elijah to sleep, get myself and Miciah ready for bed, then lay Miciah and myself down after Elijah was out, so that then they wouldn't just laugh at each other and keep each other awake. ... Anyways, I was so tired that on the trip back home I had Rob meet me halfway so I wouldn't have to drive the whole thing. Sad, but safe. I came home, took 3 Advil, 1 decongestant, and slept for 2 hours. I felt better after that. :)

Family Spat at Columbus

The next day, Saturday, was exciting. Rob and I (without the kids) went to the Columbus Temple. G got his endowment out and seemed to really be touched by the whole thing, which was great. We went out to eat afterwards and experienced an all-too-common family spat. There's a particular family member that has anger issues. Anyways, I expressed an opinion he didn't like (imagine me with opinions, I'm sure that'll be hard for you guys to envision), and he got really, really angry. Like, sudden rage. He started talking to me meanly, which Rob didn't like, so Rob told him so. Anyways, it ended with Rob covered in Diet Pepsi (Rob was wearing a nice white shirt and his suit pants), and the other guy leaving the room for the last half hour or so of the meal. So all-in-all, the day was interesting. :) Anyways, the family spat didn't ruin our day and Rob and I have since apologized for our part in the matter. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone being offended by my opinions. I hardly have any and they're so mild at that.

We spent Sunday with R & C, and B & R. It was a blast. We talked a lot about the reunion, which was a good thing, cause all the things I had questions about, they hadn't talked about yet. :) So it was good to talk about them.

Soccer on Memorial Day

Monday we went to a ward Memorial Day picnic. This is the reason I've been working out (lightly) for 3 weeks. Because they played soccer. Which is fun. The guy in charge loves soccer (he's from Columbia) and announced to the whole Elders' Quorum that I was excellent at soccer. Yikes. It ended up being a really good thing that I'd been at least making an effort for 3 weeks. Because I have been so sore that I think I would have died had I not been at least doing somthing exercise-wise before the game. Our team won. 10-9. I didn't score any. I played defense. But I did get to shut down a few of the other teams' best players. I won respect for girls (which has apparently been part of my call in life), scared a few of the guys on the other team, and won several nicknames and possibly a reputation that will follow me in this ward for a while. The best person out of the field was a little kid that my Mom and Dad know (at least they know his family). Drew, Missy's kid. I don't know how old he is, but clearly he's "too short" for his age. I sympathized. But only a little, cause he didn't need the height. He was awesome. Impressive ball control, composure, etc. He was just good. I shook his hand afterward. He wasn't impressed. :)

I'm going to keep exercising, though. Cause I've fallen in love with it again. Like L, I feel better about myself, I like being able to see my muscles when I flex them, I like the way my body looks better, and I'm on my way to meeting some of my weight/image goals. And I like all of that. Also, like L, I'm not working out hard core. Jogging, biking, light-ish weights (any weights for me must, by definition, be light). Rob says he's going to keep working out with me over the summer, so I'm excited. I've been debating finding a soccer league to play in. But it's expensive, apparently, to play. One league showed $425. Sheesh. Maybe an indoor league. I've heard they're only $50 - $100. That's a little more manageable.

Fish Tank

We got fish. Someone gave us an 20 gallon (high) aquarium. We're in process of killing all the fish we've introduced. It's a new tank, and we were told, of course, to wait to introduce many fish. Of course we didn't listen. We started with 6 zebra danios (my fish, if the family will recall from old times). These were the hearty species we decided to start with. Then we decided (I'd like to say Rob decided, but it was really an us decision. He didn't want to wait and I didn't think it'd be a problem) to get a few more fish. So 2 days later we got 6 neon tetras (Collin's fish), a Paul Scum-sucker, and a silver bala shark. Well, we lost a zebra first. Don't know why. Rob says he had an open sore a day before he died. Then we started losing neons. 2 were in the filter, but did they get sucked in or did they die and then get sucked in, we don't know. 2 just lost color and then died. Then, just last week, Ick arrived. Our last 2 neons got a little (one only had a spot or two), our bala was covered in it, and Paul was near-covered. Well, we lost little neon first. The 2nd neon is doing good. No Ick now, which makes me wonder if he ever had it (did we just make it up?). Bala shark died today. Rather, I killed him, since he would have died shortly anyway (he was really acting so sad it was unbearable for me to watch). Paul is going to die, I think, very soon. He doesn't look substantially better after 2 days of treatment, he's not eating, and he's acting really really weird. Like he'll stay in one spot for hours. Last night he was floating upside-down at the top of the tank, like he'd forgotten which way was down. I dunno. Anyways. The zebras are fine and I think they'll make it through the new tank process and the Ick. Plus, we've learned that once they've been exposed to Ick, they'll never get it again. The lone neon looks good, but I have doubts about a community fish doing very well on his own. Our tank will need a Paul, so after this one dies, we'll get another one shortly (after letting our tank chill for a while after the Ick attack). Apparently Rob and I are rather good at killing off fish, no matter the species. ... As a side note, family, which fish were whose? I thought I remembered that Budge's were Angel Fish (they're bullies so we don't have any). Everyone else?

That's our update for now. Next week Rob and I will be going back up to Toledo to do bonding time with G before he leaves on his mission. And a week before everyone arrives for the family reunion we'll go back up for the farewell. It'll all be fun. That's about all that's on our agenda for the next month. Rob's finals are next week, the 6th and the 7th. His 7th is his last final and my birthday, which is a WONDERFUL b-day gift. Being done with classes. Rob will start his P&G rotation, we just found out, on June 13th. We will be paid our increased salary starting August 1st (meaning that will be our first increased paycheck), which is as soon as we could have hoped for. In July he'll start doing stuff for the IGERT, so we're interested to see how all that will go. 3 people out of the 5 in Rob's program that started with him are on academic probation and will probably be gone in a year. Which is a bummer, but makes me feel proud of my husband. I've sometimes thought he wasn't as "bright" as others, but let's face it, to be doing well in Graduate School and get a fellowship, you can't be dumb. So I'm very proud of him.

We love you all and sorry this was so long.

Tamra and family

My Two Babies

2 pictures of my 2 babies. : )

The orange one is named Shark.