Fish Day

IMG_5577, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

This past Saturday I surprised Brenden by setting up a 2 1/2 gallon aquarium in his bedroom. It's a nice starter system and fairly durable. I had it up and running, complete with gravel and some Spongebob-related decorations. It was all set up execpt for fish. When we did our traditional Saturday grocery run, I let him pick out 2 tiny goldfish at the local Petsmart. He has named them both 'Sandy', which is adorable. I nicknamed them Ben and Hurley just for kicks.

I took Brenden to Dairy Queen for dinner ( I was scoping out birthday cakes) and he played in the enclosed play yard with a little girl who was maybe a year younger than him. I was pleased to see they were playing 'tag' and he didn't run as fast as he could and he let him catch her. He would run after her when he was it and not go all out. He was very disappointed when she left.

Sunday was his birthday day; Jon, Brenden and I picked up Sierra and Andrew and we drove to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. Brenden is finally old enough to appreciate the aquarium and he loved it. It wasn't that crowded and I'm impressed with how that area looks considering its age (the aquarium is 18 years old). The kids had fun and Brenden needs to work on his quiet voice because he let the entire aquarium know what he was looking at ("WOW LOOK AT THE FISH!").

After we dropped off Sierra and Andrew later that day we opened presents. See the entry below for what that was like.

We held a pool party Monday afternoon after work with the neighbor and her two boys as well as Andrew and his mom (Stacey had vacation bible school). I was amused with how crowded the pool got with 4 boys and 4 adults. We grilled hotdogs and hamburgers and the cake was a Dairy Queen Oreo cookie blizzard cake. YUM.