Our New Family Hobby

We have a new family hobby and are loving it! Especially Robert & Carson. Robert is like a giddy child and Carson spends his day standing on his little stool and the black chair watching the fish. It has been alot of fun!

It is Robert's parents tank that they gave us. Robert's step dad Randy made the stand and hood for it and graciously let me paint the beautiful Oak brown. I still need to antique the brackets on the cupboards and finish painting and distressing the hood. But you get the idea. And I love that I now have 10 new drawers in my office. Any extra storage is a good thing!!

In these pics the water is still a little cloudy because we had just set it up, but now it is super clear and looks great! We decided to do 'community' fish because they are way less expensive then other more aggressive types of fish.

It cracks me up how different it is to have a tank of this size versus the smaller ones that I am used to. When it came time to put fish in it a few days after we set it up I asked the store what kind and how many we should start with and she said, "Mmmm... I wouldn't put that many to start with. Only about 15 or 20." I cracked up. Apparently we have a long way to go to fill this bad boy up. We started with 12 little fellas and lost one within 24 hours. But the rest are doing great! Right now we have Mollies and Platies, but I can hardly wait to get a couple of Cobalt Blue Lobsters and some Red Cherry Shrimp. Parker wants to start off his little collection with Bala Sharks and Colombian Sharks and Demi with Silver Dollars. :)

I told the kids 2 things when we set up the tank. 1) They could each pick a plant to place where they wanted and 2) We wouldn't be getting any cheesy castles or little treasure chests that opened and closed with little bubbles coming out! Then when we got to the store I had to amend my 'pick your own plant' rule when Demi wanted to get the only hot pink plant choice available to her! :) So after my little 'no ugly' decorations or 'no flourescent plants' speech I saw this bad boy and knew we had to have him...

It's our little Easter Island Head. Straight out of Night at the Museum. "Dum Dum needs gum gum!" :) The kids love him. Carson calls him Dum Dum all the time and Parker calls him by his technical name, an Easter Island 'Moai'.

Below are pictures so my grandma can see where it is in our house. :)

And this last picture is so my mom can see our new mirror and where I put it. :) Robert's dad that lives in Kansas made it for us a long time ago and when they came to visit recently they brought it to us. I painted it to match the fish tank. So now I have 2 beautiful handcrafted Oak pieces for my house made by my 2 father-in-laws that I have painted brown to match! I love when it all works out all tidy and 'matchy-matchy' for my mind. It makes my ultra compulsive side all tingly and happy!