Before Christmas, we were pleasantly surprised to see how much Carson LOVES aquariums! We did a shopping trip out to Cabela's, and under their huge rock/mountain display of cool animals (taxidermy), we found they had about 15 feet of a tunneled out aquarium. We walked in and saw Carson's eyes light up!! He was looking everywhere and all the beautiful scenery and fish, completely mezmorized!
The next stop was obviously a big aquarium, but the new Portland one I had been hearing wasnt finished yet. We were/still are planning on going to the Seaside or Newport one this summer! Well, my Mom came to visit the beginning of February, and we decided to take a day trip to Seattle. We were eating lunch overlooking the water, when we saw the big Seattle Aquarium below:) We couldnt resist and went straight over! It was the coolest experience!! Carson loved every second!!! He even got to play in the water like he loves to do and touch a starfish! It was definitely an experience to remember!!!
Along with the Seattle trip while my mom was visiting, we spent a day at the Portland Children's Museum, and as you can see below...he even loves their little fishy display;)
Basically what I am getting at, is my son L.O.V.E.S to watch any fish in any aquarium at any time;)
SOOOOOOO.................
that of course meant that we wanted to get Carson a tank of his very own:):):)
We started by going to the petstore of course to see what they had for set-ups and fish. Our first day, im not kidding when I saw we were there for about 2 hours!! We asked questions, talked about what we were actually wanting and what would be best for Carson to be able to fully enjoy! After we Picked out our tank, we started looking at the fish AGAIN to add up the prices of all we were going to get that day with our tank setup. I asked for a piece of paper and pen to keep track of what we wanted, and while he did give me something to take notes on, he decided then was a good time to tell us that since we didnt have our tank set up yet, we couldnt get any fish. For a whole week. :o I can take some of the blame for this for not walking in more prepared and educated about what we were doing, BUT it was obvious around the first hour we were there we had no idea what we were doing. Will was furious at the lack of customer service, since he just stood there the whole time watching us. We left soon after that empty handed.
The next day, I decided to start some research. Oh man, was I surprised! There is so much we had no clue about!! I also became frustrated when I learned that the associate who "helped" us the first time, really half-assed on giving out information even more than we thought. Ugh, he was awful. Anyway, I read and researched until my eyes hurt! There's a lot more to it than we ever thought! I do have to say though, it was fun:) We ended up looking at fish at Petco next (we went to Petsmart first) to find different variety too, but crap for tank display. We went back to Petsmart (of course our employee of the month was working) to get our tank we originally picked out. We didnt say one word to Dill-Weed and had some fun picking out our decor. We went straight home to set up! Even empty, when we were done it looked better than we expected!!:) I sat my butt down to research even more after.
We went to a completely different Petsmart the next day to check out what they had for fish! The best place we've been so far! And this time was a breeze! I felt so much better about what we were looking at and the questions we were asking the awesome girl who was helping us! All of that reading paid off! We left with our first three "starter fish", some food, a water test kit, and even ran into the Dollar Tree for a log journal to keep track of water testing. Almost sound like pros;) hahaha We were so excited to get our first little guys back and in their new home! And we cant wait to get even more this week!! Its been a blast watching them chase each other and hang out in our living room! Carson has the coolest play corner that ive seen;) Lucky lucky boy!!
you can see our 3 little platies in there:)
play corner!!!!
