Busy Busy Busy!

So, if you are unable to tell by the lack of posting, we have been super-crazy busy here in Perry Land! Most of the updates are small, but we thought we'd throw them out there for SOMEONE to enjoy!

Jeff has actually been the most busy Perry. Earlier this month he participated in a sleep study at Stanford. He's gotten through half of it so far (the overnight sleep study) and now he is waiting to hear back his results. If he qualifies, he will be subjected to a hot-cold test without and then with anesthesia. That one will be fun; Jen gets to take off early to go get him!

Jeff also had his police exam. A few weeks ago he had the written and passed that no problem. This last weekend was the physical agility, and he probably would have done better, but his back had been acting up again. We'll try to get some photos, but there are quite a few bruises on our poor boy!

In animal news, we came to discover that our 10-gallon tank only had 3 of our tetras in there! Rather than waste the space, Manny, Moe and Jack were transferred to a smaller 5-gallon tank where our phone used to be. This got us thinking; what to do with another tank? Originally we were thinking of either frogs (the really colorful ones, not the lumpy weird ones) or turtles/tortoises, but thought a 10-gallon tank would be too small for more than one turtle, and Jen didn't want to have to feed live mealworms to another living animal again (at least, not now). So we reverted back to our original wants.

Back when we were living in Colorado and first got married, we had wanted a saltwater tank a la Finding Nemo. However, the expense, the cost and the sheer size were just not going to happen (at the time, it was highly discouraged to have a saltwater tank under 35 gallons). Well, recently we read about people actually making the 10-gallon tanks work, so Jeff set out doing that. After a week and a half, he was ready to add our two newest fish to the family: A yellow-tail damsel named Leon and a stiped damsel named Donovan.

In addition to these wonderfully colorful fish, Jen also acquired a small betta fish, Hagrid, who hangs out in the bedroom on the dresser as a sort of "night light" to the room.

So, we ended up with three more pets, bringing our in-house total to 22!

There are some big things coming up for us as well. In May, Jen will have to go to Las Vegas again for work, and Jeff has his mission reunion at the end of May, so there looks like some travel will be in the near future. Also, we are still trying to coordinate a way to get to the east coast, since Jen will not be going with her coworkers to DC this year.

Well, back to the grindstone. I promise, pics are coming!!

Field Trip!

Well, sort of.

Myra, Jen's sister, is a paraeducator at one of the elementary schools, and she talks up Jen's chinchilla babies to all of her students. This past week, Myra asked if Jen could bring some of the chinchillas into the school because the kindergarteners were learning about animals and conservation (they were also doing projects involving wood, and since our critters love to chomp on the wood, we thought we'd bring some before-and-afters for them!).

After much thought, we decided on bringing only half of the Perry 12, but brought a good mix: we brought Mommy Violet with Baby Emerson, Boo and Scout (on their first solo trip without mom) and Calvin and Hobbes. All of them did very well with the kids, and with the exception of Scout having an accident while Jen and another student were holding him, it went off without a hitch.

What started out being a small task ended up being quite a bit more! At first we thought it would be a few minutes of passing the chinchillas around, but it turned out to be a bit more. Originally it was just the three kindergarteners. In all, we saw 7 different classrooms and spent between 20 and 30 minutes with each class, answering the student's questions about the animals. The best questions were "How do you know a boy and a girl are different?" and "Why are their poops so small?" Jen's answers: "You look at their bottoms" and "Because they have small butts". Both were sufficient for the kids.

It was so much fun going to the class with some of our gang, that we hope to one day be able to do the same thing again. It brought back Jen's memories of wanting to be a teacher and to teach little ones, so she may keep going with that someday.