Aquarium

The household's other big Christmas gift (besides the piano) was an aquarium. It's in the boys' bedroom and it's a huge hit. We populated it with zebrafish and guppies, the kinds of fish Dale works with daily and knows well, plus one snail.

The snail has a surprising amount of personality: she motors around the tank at a remarkable speed, and she's anatomically interesting. Jordan has named her Snaisy. (I puzzled over how to spell that, and decided it must be like Daisy - or Snail, for that matter. Although I was briefly tempted to honor Patrick Swayze.)

The fish are more difficult to think of as individuals: there are six guppies and four zebrafish, a lot of them look alike, and they move fast. But we may yet manage to name them. Here is the prettiest guppy (with Snaisy in the foreground).

And here are the zebrafish, moving too fast to photograph. This dashing around together in the foliage suggests they are spawning. We are glad they are happy and we hope Snaisy eats the eggs; there are enough zebrafish already.