my pets are cooler than your pets

how she does it, i have no idea but yesterday i almost stepped on our little crabby friend who was lurking by the bottom step of our stairs.

she figured out how to escape AGAIN!

she's very talented. we should be proud, but instead matt is just freaked and i'm just worried her little crabby adventures are going to end up killing her.

now i have to try extra hard to keep track of her but she makes it so dang difficult!

after a lot of searching this morning i finally found her newest hiding spot.

she blends in so perfectly!

and then at lunch time i found her like this.

maybe the mystery of how she's been escaping has been solved.

who knew she could climb up that flimsy little plant!

so our crab is pretty amazing but her talents are nothing compared to Padme, the circus pup.

escape artist

a couple weeks ago we got a little addition to our fish tank, an adorable red clawed crab!

her name is knives chau and i love love love her!

only problem with our little crabby is that she's so shy.

she only really comes out to play at night when we turn all the lights out but i'm always searching in her hiding spots to catch a glimpse of her.

yesterday was a busy day but i tried to take a peek in the aquarium for little knives a couple times but i couldn't see her so i figured she found a new hiding spot.

later last night i found out where she'd been hiding from me.

we were about to settle down to watch some good 'ol fashion television when i see this big thing on the tile that looks all leggy and sort of like a gigantic spider so i tell Matt to get it.

Matt walks up and FREAKS OUT!

i don't mean he jumped and that was it.

i mean i have never seen Matt freak out to this extent before!

he jumped back yelling "THAT'S A CRAB! THAT'S OUR CRAB! WHY IS IT THERE?! THAT IS A CRAB NIKKI! WHAT DO WE DO?! HOW DID IT GET OUT?! THAT IS A CRAB!"

and i have never laughed so hard in my life!

i was so amused with little knives that i let her scuttle around on the floor for a while before i scooped her up and put her back with her sharky friends.

we checked our tank out and figured she's a sneaky little thing and figured out how to climb up our driftwood onto the heater and down the heater cord until she hit the floor.

i have no idea how long she was partying it up in our house before we found her but i seriously had no clue she could do that!

we moved the heater so she doesn't have access to it from the driftwood anymore but i'm still gonna be keeping an eye on her from now on since i've also read  that if red clawed crabs really want to they can swim a little bit.

i have to make sure i protect Matt's toesies from little crab claws.

he is very worried about that now.

that one time we...

bought a puffer fish!!

a dwarf puffer fish to be exact and that's the day i fell in love with a fish.

isn't he the coolest?? we named him Gideon to go along with our Scott Pilgrim themed fish names.

we got him because i read that dwarf puffers can take care of snail problems in your tank.

and seriously, within minutes of putting little Gideon in the tank he was chowing down on those snails like nobody's business!

Matt and i watched and cheered as he ate snail after snail and his belly got all big and chubby!

here's a video of him in action.

we've had a few people tell us that these puffers are meanies and will kill the other fish in our tank but since we have three red tailed sharks in there with him and they're pretty aggressive too everything seems to be a-okay.

the sharks don't even seem to notice him and he's too in love with his own reflection to notice them.

he's seriously the coolest ever!

Shark Friends

i love when my birthday continues a whole week after it actually happened.

Matt got the aquarium all set up on my actual bday and then a couple days later we bought a plant and a moss ball to go in it.

by the way, did you know how freaking cool moss balls are??

they're quite possibly my new favorite thing!

they keep the tank clean and they're hilarious looking!

anyway...then we waited a couple more days and made a trip to Petsmart for these guys!

these are my new little shark friends!

we were extra careful with our new family members and made sure to float them in their bag for a whole hour before setting them free in their new home.

they were so excited and just couldn't wait to get out and explore.

after the hour we fished them out of the bag and let them swim free.

it is my pleasure to introduce you to Scott, Wallace and Young Neil.

see i'm not the only one who likes the moss ball, Scott loves it too!

i can't believe we waited so long to get this aquarium running.

Matt and i love to waste our time sitting and watching our new friends!

and because of all that sitting and watching we now know that Scott is a giant bully (he's the biggest of the three) and poor little Wallace and Young Neil get chased by him CONSTANTLY!

and also that Wallace and Young Neil are very crafty and hide from Scott in the shell so he can't get to them or they swim through the plant in the back so he'll get stuck.

i guess that equals a pretty level playing field.

p.s. we didn't even realize that Matt was wearing his Gideon Graves shirt when we named our little sharks after Scott Pilgrim characters but i'm gonna take that as a sign that it was meant to be!

Happy Birthday To Me

geez this year is going by fast!

last thing i knew it was Christmas time and now all of a sudden it's June and i'm turning the big 2-3.

we were lucky enough to be able to take off a couple days from work so we could spend some time together.

i love taking little mini vacations when you're too poor to take real ones!

so this morning i woke up and found that Matt had already snuck out of bed.

i walked out of our bedroom and found a note on the floor saying "stay in bed" but since i'm not very good at following directions i asked Matt if i could come downstairs and he gave in.

i walked down to find blueberry pancakes being made (mmmm blueberry pancakessssss) and presents waiting for me on the table!

Matt is the best gift giver ever.

he absolutely cannot give anybody a normal gift, it has to be a joke or have hidden meaning or something behind it.

he did make one exception this time and got me 127 Hours because i told him to.

no secret meaning but he knows how much i heart this movie so it didn't need it.

everyone knows how crazy i am about ocean stuff including sharks right?

i mean, if my shark week party doesn't tell you how obsessed i am i don't know what will.

oh wait, yes i do, the new socks Matt got me will definitely tell you how obsessed i am!

that's right! this year for shark week i will now have a shark week shirt, shark jammie pants and shark-eating-my-legs socks!

if there was a contest for best dressed shark week fan, i would TOTALLY win!

i can't even begin to tell you how much i wish it wasn't 5,000 degrees outside so i could be wearing these constantly!

Matt also got me an aquarium book with a note inside telling me to flip to a certain page.

on that page was the picture of the tiny little sharks we wanted to get for our aquarium and a note saying that he was finally going to set up our aquarium today so we could get them!

and the best part is, he stuck to his word!

i sat down to relax and watch James Franco cut his arm off and Matt took everything we got when we bought the aquarium on Craigslist and figured out how everything worked and cleaned it and put it together and got it running!

and it looks glorious!

i know you can't tell from the pictures because they were taken with my phone but the tank looks amazing even without sharks swimming in it!

i can't wait to get plants and our fishies and spend my time watching them swim around!

Matt also took me to a couple thrift stores,to Hobby Lobby and out to lunch.

i think he was getting frustrated with me because he said i got to choose everything we did today but i'm too dang low maintenance to think of anything better than thrift stores and Hobby Lobby.

we'll see if he can do any better in a week on his birthday.

oh and my parents stopped by and gave me this bad boy!

i've had my eye on this Scentsy forever so when my parents asked what i wanted for my bday i immediately told them about it.

and it looks even better in person and makes my house smell like summer time thanks to the bricks they gave me with it!

i'm such a spoiled and lucky girl!

hopefully this year will be full of great things for me.

my main goals for year 23 are...

1) get started on school again and find out what i have left to do to transfer, how to transfer, where to transfer, when to transfer, etc.

2) get healthy. go to the doctor or try new supplements or whatever i have to do to fix me so i can be healthy and happy instead of feeling sick and icky all the time.

that's it.

i don't want to plan too many goals and let myself down so i've decided those are my two and i'm sticking to them and if i accomplish them by this time next year i'll be a very happy Nikki!

Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium

i've been begging Matt for the past couple years to take me to the Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium.

he always said he would but we'd get busy or talk ourselves out of going because it's over an hour away from our house.

but i told him this year, no excuses, we were going.

so we went for my bday!

and Matt's sister was nice enough to give us a buy one get one free admission coupon so it was ridiculously worth it!

the park was completely dead so we didn't have to deal with crazy crowds or feeling rushed which was so perfect.

and i must say, this zoo was one of the best i've been to.

i can't believe they let people get so close to the animals.

and there aren't park workers around to tell you to back up or be careful or anything.

i should probably be worried about the fact that the giraffe could've literally head butted me if he wanted to or that the rhino could've just stepped over the fence around him and trampled me but instead i just thought it was so amazing!

so much better than seeing all the animals far away or stuck in cages.

Matt's favorites were the monkeys.

i had no idea this kid liked monkeys so much and when i asked him about that he just said "they're hilarious!"

he really liked this little family of monkeys where one was swinging around and showing off and the baby was just sitting nibbling on some corn.

he watched them for a good 10 minutes straight before i made him leave so we could go to the reptile house.

Matt is scared of the big snake sitting under that log.

this guy was one of my faves.

who knew there were white alligators?

Matt is planking with his alligator friend behind him.

this guy would've eaten me alive if that fence hadn't been there.

i can now add ostrich to my list of things i'm terrified of.

the leopard exhibit was extra cool!

see him sitting above Matt?

Matt thought it was a good idea to try to touch his tail.

the leopard stared him down with evil eyes and Matt decided he'd like to keep his fingers instead.

next were the llamas!

this guy looks just like Kuzco from Emperor's New Groove!

LLAMA FACE!

you could seriously reach out and touch these guys but Matt was a scaredy cat.

i wasn't scared until Kuzco looked like he was working up a nice loogie to spit at me.

Matt taking a breather while watching the gazelles.

rhino!

all the zebras were chillin' in the shade when we walked up so they were really close.

and Matt got mad at me because i stepped over one of the barriers to get a picture.

he has no sense of adventure.

baby zebra!

prego zebra!

we were lucky to walk over to the giraffes right when a bunch of kids were feeding them so they were being extra friendly.

it was so funny to see them stick out their long tongues so you could pour the pellets onto them.

see what i mean about these giraffes being able to head butt you?

yikes!

and just when you think you've seen all there is to see you get to go to the aquarium!

i wouldn't say this aquarium was the best i've been to or anything but it was pretty cool.

i like seeing Matt act funny around touch tanks.

fish lover.

and one of the best parts about this aquarium is they have PENGUINS!

i just love them!

we got to see them being fed and the lucky worker girl got to pet them and play with them and i was super jealous.

i think my favorite part of the whole day was the touch tank for the rays.

i could've spent all day there and been happy with my little ray friends.

one little guy in particular decided i was his BFF and kept coming back for me to pet him.

the whole day was simply amazing!

going there was the perfect present for my birthday!

thanks baby!