Sean's Birthday

We had a great weekend and were able to celebrate Sean's 1st Anniversary of his 29th birthday!!

We started the evening with going to first Friday. This is down in downtown Bryan where the first friday of every month there are bands playing and activities. We had a lot of fun at the soda fountain that has dublin Dr pepper shakes. YUM!!!

Next we headed to Carino's for dinner. This is Sean's favorite restaurant, mostly because they have Italian sodas that have free refills!

The best part of Sean's birthday was the prochector party back at our house. Sean built this screen using a sheet, two 2x1x8 wood., a staple gun and chain to hang it from the ceiling. It was pretty awesome!!! We had lots of fun all weekend playing mario cart, Dr Mario, and rock band!!


Sean also got a couple of birthday gifts

Cold weather biking pants (since he is biking to work 4 times a week)


Bike rack

and bike rack bags so he no longer has to use his back pack.



Now no birthday could be complete without a Favorite Cake. Here is Sean's favorite Cake!! Let me explain the elements!!



First we have Seans signature personal theme "I am a Beacon" Sean's favorite color is yellow. Also we have his favorite catch phrase.....you'll have to read that for yourself



This is Sean being a beacon



And this is his beacon candle. Standing guard of his beacon candle is his killer bunnies (I used army men and topped them off with bunny gummie heads!)




Sean also loves biking! With his new job he is biking to work 4 times a week! (This is a motorcycle but it had to do since I could not find a miniature toy bike.)


The last element on the outside of the cake is Sean's Cranny. If you don't know Travian, this won't make sense. This is like a "nook and cranny" a hiding place!


Lastly, the inside of the cake. Sean requested a checkered cake. It turned out cool! The layers in between the cake is whipped cream with crushed up 100 grand candy bars. It was a great success.

New additions to the family

My Fish Tank Saga
By Rachelle Carroll




So, as you all know (or may not know) for Christmas last year I got a 20 gallon fish tank which I love!!! I started with my Beta whose name is Burtus. Then I got Zippy (zebra danio) and Tangy (red wag). Next I got Benjy (African frog) but he died shortly after I got him. Next I got Bubba (black balloon belly molly) and Calypso (electric green danio) and Sunny (orange burst danio). Then my problems started. First Tangy started to get sick. I kept checking the water and I could not get the ammonia levels to stabilize. Tangy died. Then, Calypso started going crazy, like swimming erratically and diving head first into the rocks, she died, shortly followed by Sunny and Zippy. At this point I was at a loss of what to do. I tried to stabilize with what I had and for a while I thought things were getting better. I was having an algae problem so I purchased an algae eater and named him Gus Gus......long story short, for the past two months I have had only one fish, Burtus my beta. (I apparently can't keep things alive, I also failed at a bonsai plant and bamboo and those are supposed to be easy!) By the way, betas are awesome and have a crazy will to live......needless to say its been a big empty fish tank and crazy for one fish.



So fast forward to two weeks ago, I finally decided I was ready for new fish. I purchased a balloon belly molly that is black and gold, her name is Goldie. Here's a couple pictures of her.



We also got another fish, which was Sean's first fish, he was a dalmatian molly named Sebastian......I say was because yesterday I went to feed them dinner and found him dead. I was so distraught thinking here we go again. Luckily Sean is good to take care of this for me since I cry every time (seriously, I cry).

So anyway, today we had some friends over to watch a movie and while Sean was helping Michael get a drill he was going to borrow, Stacie and I were chatting in the kitchen just looking at the tank. I saw a flake moving at the back of the tank.....and then it started swimming up....odd. I started looking closer and, well, it was a baby fish. A baby dalmatian molly to be exact. Apparently, Sebastian was actually a Sabrina and was also a live bearing fish. I called Sean and we all sat there staring at the fish. Now, what to do.

Let me back track to a week ago, my beta Burtus was not having a good time sharing the tank and started nipping at Goldie's tail, so I had to isolate him. I had this net contraption, which incidentally is used for baby breeding, but I put Burtus in there. So, now that I needed it, I moved Burtus to a fish bowl, Sean and I rounded up the babies, and Goldie is now Queen of the tank.



All in all we counted 12 fish. TWELVE baby fish!! It is insane.


We did some research (all the research to be exact) and it turns out that first, it is common for the mother to die due to child birth, so this one I didn't kill (yea me!) and second, we can feed them crushed fish flakes and peeled peas, cucumbers, or romaine lettuce. We will see how many survive!!


Any suggestions for names?

New Skittle flavor

So I was in the checkout isle at the grocery store and was looking around and was amazed to see a new color of skittles. Now I must say that Blue package skittles are m,y favorite but they are hard to find, but, seeing this new flavor I had to try it!!

WOW! I loved them. You have to try them!

Its also amazing how something like skittles makes you miss a friend. These skittles make me miss Joni who now lives in Connecticut. She loves skittles, but more than that, she LOVES her skittle combos. She will eat skittles in certain combos because they taste better. Her favorite is original red and yellow skittles eaten at a 1:1 ratio! These new skittles had to be inspired by her!!

And the Answer is........

I must say that Nate was the closest to getting the full name of our dog Doc correct. He guessed Dublin Dr Pepper Rex Sean Carroll. Here is the answer:

D.Doctor P.R.S. Carroll=

Dublin Doctor Pepper Rexington Sir Carroll

Doggy House

Sean is so great and built Doc a dog house. He started working Wednesday morning and it was complete enough so Doc could have somewhere to sleep the first night. It was in the garage but at least it was his home.



The house has a doggy door that we can latch shut. This came in handy most of all while the doggy house was in the garage. Today we moved the house to the backyard but we will still lock him in at night so that he gets used to going there to sleep.



As you can see Sean made the house so one side of the roof hinges up so we can get into the house if we need to.



We got him this cute pillow (which is obviously Dr Pepper red!!) which we think he likes. Right now we have to give him a treat to go inside, but once he is locked inside he is really good. he doesn't bang against the door or the walls.



All in all it turned out great. As you can see there are strips of plastic covering the door, this is so if it is raining and we are not home to shut the door, inside is pretty protected. We also stapled a strip of the same plastic on the top of the home so the water won't get in at the hinges and can still be opened.

Introducing........Doc

Now most people who know Me and Sean would probably be shocked to find out that we adopted a dog. But he gave me googly eyes and I was hooked. Here is our lovely story of obtaining our new dog Doc.



Sean and I have discussed pets before, decided we weren't pet people and figures that when our kids begged long enough then we would get a dog. A few months ago we started joking to each other that we should get a dog. Then we realized that we both secretly wanted a dog in the near future.



The last few weeks we had gotten more serious about the idea. Sean has always wanted to own a lab and so we did research. We both decided that we wanted a chocolate lab (the colors are yellow black and chocolate.) Now chocolate labs are the most rare and were going to be the most expensive, we decided that any color would be fine.



On Saturday we decided out of the blue to go check out the shelter that was right up the street. We were walking around looking at the dogs and that's when we saw Rex. What a pretty chocolate lab!! We couldn't believe how pretty he was!!! Well, we asked about him and found out that he was picked up Thursday and had a tag with a number on it. They had tried to contact the owner but did not get a response. The shelter has to wait 72 hours before they can adopt a dog so we decided to put our name down.



Unfortunately, someone else had already done so as well. The other person was waiting for authorization but would have it by monday. We were distraught but told them to put us down anyway. We went home and spent the whole weekend thinking of this dog rex.



Monday afternoon Sean called me and said "Guess what, we got Rex!" The women who was in front of us decided to get a different dog and Rex was ours!! They even heard from the owner who surrendered their ownership. Sean went in Tuesday and did all the paperwork and Wednesday he went to the Vet (who is a good friend from our Bryan ward) and was neutered. We picked him up at 5pm. Now, we did not like the name Rex, he didn't seem like a Rex to us so we decided to rename him, his new name is Doc.



We brought him home (which might I say we will need to work on riding in the car) and introduced him to our roommates dog Max. They sniffed and decided they were ok. Now the vet told us that he was probably going to be quite out of it from the meds and that he may not even want to eat. Well, Max proved that wrong. They had lots of fun playing.



All in all it was a great day today. Sean built this wicked awesome dog house that I will blog about tomorrow (don't hold your breathe though).



Here is a fun trivia for you. The dogs full name is D. Doctor P. R. S. Carroll

can you guess what the letters stand for?

First you were all like "whoa", and we were like "whoa", and you were like "whoa..."

So this is like such a "must live in Texas" moment. Today we found a turtle (and by we, I mean Sean and Becca, I on the other hand was at work!) It was so cool. It was just randomly in our yard! We don't know how it got into the yard, don't know where it came from, and don't know where it went, but I do know I had a really good dinner!

Not the turtle, Sean made barbecue chicken with pilaf rice! It was delicious.

That is all.

Snack in the Dark

So....what do you do when the power goes out and you want a snack..and not just any snack, you want chili with frito chips. We had left over chili in the fridge (and on top of that it was Nalley's chili!!)

Side note: so in Texas, they do not sell Nalleys chili anywhere! it is my favorate canned chili but for three years I have not had it at all. I had to find a new brand, Wolf, that is good but not as. Well the other day I was walking in the store and BAM Nalley's chili. They were giant cans only but I couldn't resist!!!

Ok, back to the story!! You may be wondering why the power was out. We don't know, we were just sitting watching American Idol results and it went dark! The power was out for about an hour. So, here I was in a candle lit room and with cold chili. My wonderful husband got an idea. We happen to have a cast iron skillet. He got it out, assembled some candles and glasses and set it up. The lighted picture was actually taken in the dark, Becca's camera happens to have a really bright flash!!

So, we let the chili warm for like twenty minutes and it was perfect!!! YUM!!
We are also thankful to grandma who sent us a wind up light lantern (though we forgot where we put it and it took ten minutes to find and get out of the box.....but it was nice to have. We played cards by lantern light until the power came on. It was great fun!!

Greetings from Texas where its warm...cold.....warm....cold......

So we are mostly enjoying the weather hear but it is quite odd. One day it will be around 65 in the morning and get up to 75 during the day. then the next day it will be 40 in the morning and high of 60 in the day. Each day when I get to work I have to change the heating/cooling unit from heat to cool and then the next day it will be 63 in the office when I get there and have to put the heat on.

Last weekend it was really nice outside and I planted my front flower beds!! Yes flowers!! I never knew this but there are certain flowers that you plant in jan-feb that bloom in the spring and then hibernate in the summer. It is really cool! (i'm a little worried the cold front will stunt their growth but we shall see)

Sean started school again this last monday, his schedule this semester leaves him a good amount of free time so he doesn't think he will be too stressed out. He is doing his research project this semester so that will be quite time consuming. For his project he took a lab that is taught in the Organic chemistry lab manual. He felt that it was insufficient and does not teach the topic as well as it could be taught. Originally the topic was covered in the organic class period and the lab was just application, but they no longer teach it in the classroom so that left the lab inadaquite. Sean has rewritten the lab and will be trying it out. So what he is doing is he wrote a prequiz that he will have all the students take to see what their current knowledge is on the topic. Half the students will then take the new lab and the other will take the already existing lab. After the lab sean has a test to test their knowledge again. After doing the data if it turns out that the lab he wrote is much better, the school will most likely incorporate it from now on. Its way exciting.

As for me, I was called to be the young womens camp director!! I am so excited!!! We had a retreat with the stake this last weekend with all the leaders and got to find out the theme, which is BE ALL YOU CAN BE, and about what the stake has planned. THere is a ranch out here that is ran by a very devout christian, its called Messiah's ranch and has cabins (air-conditioned by the way). They have gone ehre the last 2 years and have loved it. THis is where we are going this year. I am way excited and already have plans for it all!!

So thats kinda us, love you all!

My Fish Tank is Growing..and Glowing

I love my new Fish Tank and have enjoyed getting more and more fish as the weeks have gone by. Right now I have 6 fish and 1 frog. Here are all of my fish

Burtis- Betta
Burtis is the grumpy old man


Tangi- Red Wag Platy
Tangi is all over the place-as long as that place has food


Zippy- Zebra Danio
Zippy is like a little child that won't hold still and has to touch everything. He's a hard one to get a picture of


Bubba- Balloon Belly Molly
Bubba is in a world of his own. He doesn't Really pay attention to the other fish, just mosies his way around.


Bengi- African Dwarf Frog
Bengi likes to hide in the castle all day, but sometimes he likes to spread out and float from the bottom of the tank to the top, then catch the current from the filter and float down.


Sunni- Orange Burst Glofish
Even though Sunni is a top tank area fish, she likes to roam around the bottom and go in and out of the plants.


Flash- Electric Green Glofish
Flash


Let me explain the glofish. They are actually just like zippy. Zebra Danios. They have been scientifically altered! Scientists createdthem to track bacteria in drains. People were so fascinated by them now they sell them. We have a black light on in this pic, we couldn't get a good pic with all the lights off and just the black light, but you can see it kinda glow in this one.