Sunday, June 29, 2008

Trip down memory lane

My dear friend Amanda recently sent me a large group of pictures from when we were growing up. It was really nice to look back at some of the fun times we had together and remember some moments that I had forgotten. Here I will share a very brief collection of those photos from middle school (6th, 7th, 8th grades) and high school (9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades). The pictures are in chronological order--enjoy!

week at camp with all the members of the 7th grade from my school (here with Krysten and Abby)

Space Camp (here with Anna)

Marching in the Tulip Time Parades in Middle School

High School Choir practice (here with Abby and Amanda)

Tulip Time in high school--Dutch Dancing
eating lunch outside at school in the spring

group pictures at the beach--the high school crew

everyone at prom

camping trip after graduation (here with Denise)

Thursday, June 26, 2008

recent food adventures

In the last few days, I have been trying out some new recipes. The first was for cinnamon swirl bread, which is good and pretty easy, but it takes many hours (mostly for the dough to rise a couple times). It is good toasted with a little butter. Next time, I will add more raisins and maybe a little cinnamon mixed into the dough.


Last night, I made ceviche for the first time. I have eaten it before (yum), but I was a little wary of cooking raw meat with acid. It turned out pretty good though, although Brian says he doesn't like it because, even though it has lime juice on it, it "still tastes like fish."



Sunday, June 22, 2008

Some Tank videos

We made some changes these last few weeks to our tanks and wanted to share them here. It's kind of hard to see things in the small videos, but you can get a general idea (and always Google search for images using their names).

This first video is of our firefish. We added two of them a while ago. Hanneke likes that they flick their top fins. We both like their bright colors.


This next video is of the refugium we added to the back of our main tank. It has macro algae and a mangrove plant growing in a bed of sand. It helps aid in filtering out nitrates and phosphates, both of which we have too much of. As you can see, it has its own light too.


This last video is an updated video of our main tank. It shows first the new hammer coral we have; it glows under blue actinic lighting, but we don't have actinics on the main tank right now. I plan to add an actinic LED lightbar soon, though. The hammer can extend tentacles out from it that sting other corals, so it gets to be down by itself in the sand. The next coral you see is just passed by, a Stylophora, it's a pink cactus-looking thing in the mid-range height in the tank. I like it for its color and hope it grows a good bit bigger; it's growing gradually.

Then you see the Xenia again, the pink pulsing coral that looks like it has miniature hands grabbing at the water. Attached to the rock the xenia is on is a red coral of some sort, I think a mushroom coral, that came with the xenia unbeknownst to us. It has grown a lot; it started out as just a red dot that looked like algae.

Next up are the two sets of zooanthis, the green polyps and the black/purple polyps. They are slowly spreading towards the live rock they are on. I hope they will soon spread off the pieces they came on and onto the other rock.

Next is the coral Han just got, a flower pot coral called an Alveopora. It's pretty cool and I like that it waves in the water current (it requires decent current to be healthy).

Next you see the finger leather in the back, which is still a bit sick (as it has been since we got it) but seems to be doing well. I redirected flow onto it, hopefully that will help it.

Finally, you see the plate coral we got a while ago. When disturbed, it contracts into a hard stone-like disc, but when happy (as in the video) it is puffed out to twice its size, has a fleshy skin, and has tentacles. It has an orange mouth that glows neon orange under blue lights.

Also, you'll see Gloria (our orange fish with blue-gemmed eyes) throughout and, at the very end, Blenny will poke out from the rocks and then go hide again.


Hope you're all well. Another updated from me in hopefully not too long.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Disclaimer

I disclaim any responsibility for the birthday monkey contraption that is on the right of this blog. That is all Hanneke.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Father's Day!


Tennis

As usual, we played tennis on Saturday morning. Here are a few pics:




Friday, June 13, 2008

New Fan

Last weekend, Brian and I installed a new fan in the bedroom. The old one worked sporadically (loose wires anyone?), so we did not use it at all for safety. It is nice to have a working fan in place. It was really heavy to hold while hooking up the wires and attaching it to the ceiling, but I'm happy that it is up now.


More cat-sitting pics

Here are a few more pictures of Brian and I taking care of Salem (black cat) and Kara (grey kitten). Their owners are coming home on Sunday, so we are almost finished with our sitting responsibilities. They are actually really sweet to visit, so we haven't minded going to feed them.







Friday, June 6, 2008

The New Corals

AS promised, here are a few pictures of the new soft corals we got this week. The first one (shown with Gloria) is purple with tentacle/feather-like extensions that are kind of green.


This second picture shows the little pink finger coral on the left and the green tentacled plate coral on the right.

And here is a shot of the whole tank. As you can see, we placed all the new corals in the front while they acclimate. Soon, some will be moved to perch on the rocks.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Tank Videos

Here are a couple videos Brian took of the fishtanks a couple weeks ago. We had a difficult time getting them uploaded, and once they were uploaded they were not available for 4-5 days (not really sure why). Anyway, the delay wasn't a big deal, but these videos are a little outdated now. In the main tank, we have 3 more soft corals (see previous post--pics still coming). In the secondary tank, we only have one fish now (we took the bully back to the fish store). Enjoy!

Main Tank Tour:


Secondary Tank Tour:

Happy Birthday Josiah!

Although Josiah's birthday isn't until tomorrow, Brian and I gave him our gift when I was in Holland a couple weeks ago in May. Here is a series of pictures illustrating that moment. Enjoy your markers Joes! We love you!
















New Corals

This week we got three new soft corals in the mail. They seem to be adapting pretty well to their new surroundings. One of them arrived covered in a lot of green macroalgae (looked like a bunch of green hair), but the tank cleaner crew (ie. the crabs) took it upon themselves to clean it off right away. They ate away all the green in the first day, so now we can really see the coral itself pretty well. That one is purple and covered in little nubs that open up during the day to extend a bright wavy arm. We also have a plate coral (which has little extendo-tentacles as well and it bright green), and another one that I don't remember the name of (but I can tell you it is bright pink). We will post pictures soon.