1st Anniversary & 50th Birthday

On August 11, 2008 Peter and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We went out to the Buffalo river the night before and camped out by a waterfall. It was beautiful; the weather was perfect. Our first year proved to be just as people say, "a rough year," but that cannot be said without quickly adding that much good and much growth has been woven throughout our first year as well. We are happily married and looking forward to our second year.



Also on August 11 my dad, Mike Scowden, celebrated his 50th birthday! We had a fun little party at my grandmother's house here in Branson. We gave him some of his "favorite things" that have evolved over his 50 years of life - baseball cards, comics, Culvers, a new study Bible, plus more. He was pleasantly surprised by it all. I love my dad. Looking forward to 50 more years with you, Dad!

Goldfish

Ariel and Chris have a dog, Gretchen and Stephen have boys... we have fish.
These are our two goldfish. "Seabass" (gray) and "Frank" (gold). There was a third fish, "Goldilocks," but she died yesterday from toilet complications. These are not the first goldfish we have had. They are numbers 5 and 6. Goldfish are cheap... and not very resilient.

I had once heard that goldfish have 3 second memories. As it turns out this is not the case. I learned this on wikipedia. Goldfish can actually remember for as long as four months and can recognize specific faces. They also have personalities. Frank, for instance is a bit of a bully. He chases the others around the bowl and tries to bite his tail off. Seabass is a strange one. While the other two swarm for food, Seabass will calmly sit and stare at you with a look that says "I know what you're up to." When he finally gets around to eating the food he stuffs himself but then quickly spits it out. On other occasions, like right now, he swims non-stop laps around the bowl, interrupted by brief visits to the front of the glass to check if you are watching.

Strange fish we have here. Who knows how much longer they will last.