Last evening we had Jake (another Jake) from church over for dinner. He is going to be staying at our house when we go to PA in December. We like to have someone here when we are gone, especially in the winter when its so cold around here. He wanted to come see exactly what we wanted him to do. There really isn't much for him to do though. Peanut will be going with us and we don't have the cat or the chickens anymore. So basically its just feeding the fish and making sure things don't freeze. But we may not even have fish by then. Algernon (the algae eater) died yesterday. Well, I noticed him floating yesterday...he may have died a few days ago. :) It made me a little sad. He was my longest lived fish. I had him through three sets of other fish. He was huge and ugly but lived for three years! Funny story...we tried to flush him down the toilet to his grave but he was too big to go down. lol I ended up taking him out and putting him in the river. I wonder how far he'll go...you think he'll make it to the ocean? So we can't decide if we should just let the other five fish (who we are un-attached to) die or get another algae eater. I hate to just flush the other ones since they are healthy...I mean, they are living creatures. But we were going to not have fish for a while because the filter and the heater use electric. Anyone want some fish??

Anyway, we had fun with Jake. We played most of a game of Phase 10. It was fun to play with more than two people. Jake (the other Jake) was ahead when we quit but my Jake probably would have been doing a lot better if I hadn't cheated and taken his wild card. :::sigh::: I need to get a handle on my cheating addiction. Sometimes I just can't help myself. I justify it because I always tell the other players after I cheat...so its not lying too. Thats better right?

Lydia is doing good...still sleeping good. :) My next challenge is to get her to take a bottle again. She had taken 5 or 6 of them when she was younger but for some reason we stopped giving them to her and now she won't have anything to do with them. It was suggested that I get different kinds of nipples to try and see which one she likes best. I've been letting her play with one of the nipples so maybe she'll get used to having it in her mouth...except that she puts the edge of it in her mouth, not the top of it. :)

Here are a few pictures of Lydia from yesterday. She likes to watch the fish (one reason

we should keep them) so I sit her in the saucer under them. Its good exercise for her neck muscles. :)