We're Married!

Hey everyone, just a quick post! Steve and I are now officially The Cutler Clan. We were married yesterday at 5:00. It was the best day ever! I will have to give you all the details in a couple weeks when we get back from our two week cruise through the Panama Canal. Thanks to everyone who came or expressed their congratulations. Here is a sneak peak at how we looked.

Episode 3: We're Not Clownin' Around the Fish are Coming!

Last weekend Steve and I decided to check one thing off of our ever-growing list of things to do. We wanted to move the fish from his big tank into the smaller tank. Before we did that though, we went to our local fish store, Wet Dreams...um, er, I mean Aquatic Dreams. While there we saw some really cool cleaner shrimp. I fell in love instantly! So we bought two of those and a replacement for our dearly beloved conch named Kunkle who died a few weeks ago and then was ravenously eaten by a swarm of hermit crabs. Steve deemed the new conch worthy of Kunkle's old name, so he is called Kunkle II, or Kunky for short. It wasn't until later, after we got Kunky and the shrimp acclimatized to the new tank that we had an epiphany on what the names for the shrimp could be. We jointly came up with Coconut and my personal favorite...Scampi. If we get a third, his name will definitely be Popcorn. Mmmm Yummm Shrimp! As you can see in the pictures and video, the cleaner shrimp are pretty cool looking and they like to clean, especially under my fingernails. Uhhhh (shiver) that just gave me the heebie jeebies.

To move the fish over we had to get rid of their hiding places. So we took out all the live rock from the big tank. I was catastrophically injured while doing so. A whole bunch of stinging little white hairs appeared on two of my fingers. It hurt really bad. I have no idea what it was. But Steve being the king of all things fishy, and the knower of all uses of vinegar (thanks Luane), told me to put my fingers in a shot glass of acid. It took the stinging away and magically the little white hairs disappeared. Steve claims he didn't know what it was or if the vinegar would help, but I didn't doubt his treatment for even a second. Good Job Honey!

Our resident clown fish, Bozo, sister to the deceased Krusty, was easily catchable. The isky twins, Frisky and Whiskey were the hardest, but Bob and Barry, formally of quintuplets: Harry, Larry, Barry, Kerry, and Bob were a little easier. We let them swim in a Rubbermaid in the new water for a while and then let them go. Everyone is in the tank and happy! Bob, Barry, and Bozo keep swimming around trying to find the other 120 gallons of water they used to have, but I think they'll get used to it.

This is the last episode for now in the Fish Tank Saga. Depending on how much feedback we get, a new season could be in the works for early May.

Episode 2: Sarah and Steve Get Crabs

Here it is...the long awaited second episode in the Fish Tank Saga...Sarah and Steve Get Crabs! This weekend we decided to make the big move. Steve's bookcase was moved to the spare bedroom, my fish tank was drained and moved upstairs in the spot where the bookcase was. Steve was in charge of draining the tank.

I was in charge of organizing the bookcase. Here is a collage of my efforts. The chair is filled with some of the books taken from the bookcase. Notice the top shelf in the completed bookcase picture.

Here is a closer, panoramic view. Steve was very excited to arrange his nick knacks. ;)

For a saltwater aquarium, water quality is very important. It has to be water that has been filtered through reverse osmosis. Or in my words, it has be reverse osmosified. Steve has a reverse osmosis filter but it takes forever to get even a little bit of water out of it. So we went to Dan's and bought reverse "osmosified" water by the gallon. We bought 25 gallons of water. Then Steve poured a little bit out, I funneled the special salt into the gallon, shook it, then ladled water back into them. You can see the process in these pictures.

Then came the task of adding base rocks and gravel. Steve was the man for the job. He has so many great attributes that are necessary for such a feat. He is tall, has long arms, is strong, and of course has the drop dead gorgeous looks you need for this task. Oh, and you can't forget the requirement that you stick your tongue out while working...

After that, we threw in the long awaited crabs, poured in more water, checked the salinity (perfect by the way), and pressed the almighty switch!

Then Steve decided to add in some of our corals. We added a mushroom coral and another one that I don't know the name of. The tricky thing with coral and fish is that you have to get them used to the temperature of the water. The temperature in the new tank was about 83 degrees...a lot warmer than the big tank. So Steve set a dish with the coral in it floating in the water, then you gradually add water from the tank into the dish until they have acclimated. These pictures show that process.

The water was pretty cloudy for a while. Then it cleared out.

Some of these next pictures have the moon lights on. In the middle picture are our cute little crabs. Now you should be ashamed of yourself if you thought Steve and I were getting any other kind of crabs.

And all the while, Dammy is being herself, fat and fluffy. I especially like the fish tank stand with a tail!

Stay tuned for next week's episode, Episode 3: "We're not clownin' around, the fish are coming!"

Our (meaning My) Crazy Idea To Get Exercise

So on Sunday I thought it would be a great day to go for a walk. Steve had been wanting to go on one too, so what better time than 5:55 on Sunday evening? Every time I get on the freeway near my house I see a walking path. On Gentile in Layton there is a walking path that goes along the freeway. I thought well, geez, these must be connected! Why not walk all the way to Layton, get in Steve's car and drive back? Sounds like a wonderful idea to me. Steve checked online and Google said it would be about 7 miles from my address to Steve's. Of course, that was if you took Main St. all the way there. Later we found out it was over 8 miles. Here is a picture of our route we took.

Here is a link to the map if you want to zoom in.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=108558609503045327213.000465809921dc910b3fc&t=h&ll=41.091902,-111.982613&spn=0.089268,0.153809&z=13

We got off to a great start, the air was fresh, the weather not too bad. Eventually the trail turned into a neighborhood that had signs every once in a while telling which way to go. There were a few very confusing signs...such as the one that had an arrow going both ways (forward and behind us), but we ended up in a dead end and were really supposed to turn right. What?!? We ended up near the road that leads to Tepanyaki in Clearfield. Then the trail kind of just disappeared. So we went down the road and started smelling Famous Dave's. By now it's about 7:30 and we are worn out and hungry (We hadn't eaten since one). We decided that since we were being good and getting exercise, why not ruin the effort and eat some BBQ? So we stopped in there for a much needed rest. Here are a few pictures from when we got there.

Here is what we looked like after eating some food and drinking some heavenly Diet Coke!

After that we continued down through the mall area and ended up by Training Table. We thought we could just go the way we would if we were driving to Steve's, but we really wanted to find the rest of this trail we were supposedly walking. We found it at the end of the Training Table road. I think this is needless to say, but it was a different trail than the one we started on. The one near my house was called the Clearfield Canal Trail, and this one in Layton was called the Bamberger Trail. We finally got home at 9:20 after stopping for 45 minutes to eat.

Lean, Mean, and Green (minus the Mean)

I decided at the last minute last night that I wanted to be cute and corny and make Steve a green St. Patrick's Day dinner. Unfortunately we were having hamburgers and creamy noodles. So I banned him from the kitchen and told him he couldn't come anywhere near the kitchen till I was through. He had no idea what I was doing...at least I don't think he did. I added a ton of green food coloring into the hamburger meat and the water that was boiling for the noodles. If you haven't ever seen green meat, it's not a pretty sight! I also poured Steve a green beer...good thing I realized you needed blue to make it green. Or we might have had brown beer. Here are some pictures of our green feast.

By the way, you can't really tell when green meat is cooked, so I was just hoping everything would turn out okay.

Steve was a little scared at first, but I think he enjoyed the meal overall. He said he kept expecting it to taste like lime. Now that would be gross.

Here I am enjoying my green meal.

Happy St. Patty's Day!