Day 19: Things to Do With a Koi Pond

Posted by: Cris

What a fun, busy and action-filled day with the girls. I've been taking Tuesdays to work from home the last few weeks so I get extra time with the girls.

Nova woke up in a good mood... Juneau begged me to let her try one of these Jalapeno potato chips.

Are you sure you want this Juneau?

Okay, go for it...

"Hot Face!!!"

Juneau's hot face is hilarious. It used to be totally natural and the funniest thing ever. Now, she realizes that she does it and can do it on command so it becomes a bit of a caricature of itself but it is hilarious!!

Today, we set to the backyard so I could get a start on some landscaping and planning for the fence renovation in preparation for the dogs. These pictures are just so I have record of the "before":

While I was working in the yard, the girls enjoyed playing in the Koi pond (at the moment there are only small mosquito fish and not actual Koi...but give it some time and I'll change that)

The girls had a great time "fishing" with these nets. What are the nets for? Stay tuned.

I repeatedly told them to be careful not to fall in. It is only like 10 inches deep but I didn't feel like cleaning up a soaked child.

They also enjoyed picking these little berry blooms off of the bushes...and throwing them in the Koi pond, of course.

The girls played for almost 2 hours without incident before they switched their attention to our other small Koi pond on the side of the Lanai: About 20 minutes later, from the other side of the yard where I was trimming the big tree, I heard Nova let out a wail and went running across the lanai. There was Nova head first into the Koi pond, body and legs on the porch, left hand and half her face in the water and her little right hand and arm clutching the edge of the porch. She stopped herself from falling clear in but the left side of her face was in the water, she couldn't pull herself out but she was preventing herself from going clear in. If only I had THAT picture...but I was afraid that if I postponed saving her in order to grab the camera and take a picture that people might judge me.

She actually handled it pretty well and after I dried her off a bit, they were back at it...

By the time we headed upstairs for lunch, Juneau was wiped out and almost didn't make it through lunch without falling asleep.

Nova on the other hand must have worked up an appetite falling into the Koi pond. After polishing off 5 Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets, she asked for a turkey dog which she polished off, then asked for Gogurt and after eating that asked for another Gogurt which she totally kicked.

While the girls were napping, among other things I decided to see how pictures turned out from our Lanai with the telephoto lens. Here is a great shot of Mokumanu Islands just off of MCBH (Marine Corps Base Hawaii) To polish off the day, the girls took me to shopping-play followed by dinner in the food court at Blazin' Steaks (Juneau: "I want that pink steak chicken")

Finally, just so you didn't think that playing in and falling into the Koi pond were the only ways to have fun: When we moved into our house, Dan, the former owner, told me that it would behoove me to keep my ears out for bullfrogs croaking. He said that when I heard them I should go down to the Koi pond with a flashlight and the nets. Apparently our Koi pond is like a bullfrog version of singles weekend at Sandals, Jamaica and they propogate the species right in our yard. Dan said he had been able to keep the population under control by going down when he hears them, snapping them up in the net, putting them in a plastic bag and beating the bag against the ground until the squirming stops.

I had gotten my first one a few nights later.

Then, a couple nights ago, Nelson was standing down on the bottom lanai and snagged one. He put it in a bag but Katy couldn't handle the bloodletting so she made him just put the bag in a five-gallon bucket and leave it. The next day the bag and bucket were empty.

So tonight when the croaking started with a major vengeance, I ran downstairs and set to work...3 dead frogs later, I returned to the living room victorious!

If the Koi Ponds are this entertaining now, imagine once I actually get fish in there! (not to mention dogs to be tormented by them).