New Profession: Hairdresser

It's official. I have a new profession.

Leif's regular hairdresser is on holidays for the rest of the month and he REALLY needed a haircut. So he had the brilliant idea that I should cut his hair. We borrowed my parent's cape, clippers, and scissors and I got busy.

This is Leif before. Looks really excited eh?


Side view of before.


After I've done the clipping of the back part. It's like a reverse mullet.


And, voila! This is the finished product.

Not too shabby for my first time I don't think. He looks a little happier in the last picture than the first. I actually really enjoyed cutting his hair. It's kind of liberating to have someone trust you not to make them look like a freak even though it was a big possibility! We might have to buy some supplies of our own. Think of all the money we'll save! I might have to learn how to give a good head massage though because I think that was the main attraction of the salon!

And an update on the turtles. (Because I'm sure you love to hear about them... ha). We've officially named them Oswald and Orville Olson. Oswald is the slightly larger one. Orville is the slighty more docile one.

And an update on the house. Ayla wanted pictures of the house... so Friday when we get possession we're not going to move anything until we take pictures. And then we'll take some after pictures once we have everything in the right place. And then Ayla can come and design our space. Yup, good plan.

Last week of work, here I come!

Pianos

I am in love with the piano right now. We went to play some pianos yesterday at The Piano Gallery down south to see which one we want to buy. I really miss being able to sit down whenever I feel like it and just play.

I know most of you already know about this video, but you should all listen to it again! Jon Schmidt is so talented. Takes my breath away everytime I watch his fingers fly.

Proud Parents...

We've spent the evening adoring our new children-like creatures like proud parents.

At lunch Leif went the Pisces Pet Emporium and spent a lot of money on a tank, rocks for the bottom, flat rocks, a special filter, anti-chlorine stuff, biological waste reduction, and lights to create a house for our babies. The huge tank JUST fit into his car. He called me periodically throughout the afternoon to tell me something he remembered the lady at the pet store told him.

I was hoping one of the men from another unit would be here when Leif got home to help get the tank up here, but, alas, no such luck. I barely could lift the stupid thing, let alone haul it up stairs!! Almost tripped a few times, but no serious mishaps.

I got to cooking supper while Leif started putting everything together. We got the hose from outside to fill the tank because we would have been hauling a lot more pitchers of water than we did (to heat up the water in the tank).

We needed to make a dry place for the turtles to hang out under the lights so we went to Walmart after supper and found some plant pots and dishes. The set up didn't work as well as we'd envisioned, but Leif did some creative manoeuvring and finally got it to work.

Time to add the turtles...

THEY COULDN'T SWIM!!!!!! They tried reaching for the top of the water by standing on their back legs but the water was too high. We figure they've never been in a tank big enough for them to learn how to swim! We had to watch the poor guys (or girls, we're not sure yet) flounder around and kick their legs so hard but not get anywhere. It's been about 3 hours and they're FINALLY figuring it out.

We can tell them apart now too!

One has a pointier shell on top, and more black markings underneath.

The other has a more smooth shell, and less black markings.

We thought the black markings were shell rot at the beginning since it didn't seem like they had ever been out of the water. (Worried parent moment.) We did some quick internet research, and we think they're supposed to look like that.

From what we can tell, Mr(s). Smooth is more daring. S/he has actually moved to the other side of the tank! What a feat! (Proud parent moment.) As of yet, they haven't figured out that they can and need get out of the water. Leif's tried putting them on the sunning rock but they scurry off there as soon as he lets go. (Anxious parent moment.)

And one of the turtles just started eating! That is a very good sign. Turtles apparently don't eat when they're stressed, or nervous, or anything like that.

I'm sick and not going to get better by watching our turtles. Must tear myself away and go to bed. I hope they don't die while I'm not watching them! (Over-protective parent moment.)

Goodnight!

Laura.

We Seriously Have Pets?!

Yes we do. As of this afternoon in fact. And this is a huge deal because Laura does not like pets one bit!!

So the story begins with this house we bought this afternoon. It comes with all the "furniture" in it. There's lots of little gadgets in there too that we're not sure if we get or not. When we first went to look at the house on Thursday last week there were two turtles (YES TURTLES!!!) in the sink with not very much water and they looked mighty hungry. So we fed them some pellets that were beside the sink. (Not sure if we were allowed to, but you shouldn't be allowed to leave turtles in the sink!).

For the long weekend, we went to Fernie and Leif started researching turtles. He really wanted a pet, but Laura wasn't too keen on it. But, little did Leif know, turtles are Laura's favourite and that's one of the only pets she would have!

Then we went to do our own home inspection on Tuesday and the poor dears were still in the sink!!! And the water level had gone down. AND they looked even hungrier! So we added some water from another big contraption beside the sink and gave them some more food. We asked Royal to ask the other realtor if we could have the turtles with the house, and if so, we wanted to take them home as soon as possible because we didn't like that they were in a sink.

Royal called this afternoon and the other realtor called the owner and that's how we got turtles! We have no idea how to care for them or anything. We're thinking we should take them to a vet as soon as possible to get them checked out. We have a bag full of turtle stuff that was in the dirty tank with a crack in it that we also inherited. We don't really know what some of the stuff is.

We hope to keep these turtles alive and happy somehow, so that means we need to name them! Want to help anyone? We'd like their names to match.

Here's a picture to give you inspiration...