Funeral

After posting about a wedding, it's not fun posting about a funeral...but I think I'll make it through this one. ;)

Our family friend and Beta fish of 3 years passed away this weekend. Hayley received this fish as a gift (I believe from Grandma and Grandpa Hatz) for her 1 year birthday. She named him Sport.

Over the years, we actually had a couple of scares with Sport - I swear he 'died' one day because I accidentally put too cold of water in his tank. But I think I just shocked him and before you know it, he was swimming around again. That was kinda freaky.

Then this crazy little fish started sleeping by floating on his side either at the top of the water or on the bottom on the rocks. Until I got used to that, I thought he was dead every night.

This time, he really was D-E-A-D. So we brought the girls in the room talked about Sport going to Heaven...and as Lance and I were being really serious and preparing ourselves for some little girl tears, we all of a sudden hear a snicker! The girls were TRYING to be serious, but they were holding in little giggles?! We were...uh, surprised, I guess...and maybe it was good that they were not taking it too horribly?? Who are we kidding, I was down right a little ticked (probably because I'm really the one who took care of Sport and talked to him and fed him and cleaned his fish tank most of the time....so as I'm on the verge of tears, everyone else is laughing)!!

We finally got the girls to be a little more solemn about the situation and we went to the bathroom with Sport and we each said something we liked about him. Although Hayley needed a little help with this part too:

Hayley: "Uh, I like that he's dead."
Lance: "No Hayley, you need to think of something you liked when he was alive."
Hayley: "Oh, I liked when he swam around."
Lance: "Good, that's nice."

Samantha liked when he ate his food. :)

Hayley then said a pray and the girls flushed him down...because...you know...that's how fish get to Heaven. (And yes, they laughed when they saw him swirling down the toilet too - ah well, you can't win 'em all.)


We took the girls to Petco later and thought we'd replace Sport or get two gold fish. They were really not that interested and wanted to see the ferrets, snakes, lizards, mice and rats (ewww) instead. So we decided to tell them we'll just wait...like maybe until Christmas...to get another pet. Maybe then they'll take it a little more seriously. At first Hayley started to whine about that decision, but then we mentioned McDonald's and she was fine with waiting. Go figure.