Andy and I have had an interesting and fun past couple of days.

Anyone who knows us knows how many animals we have kept in the past. For those who don’t, our current animal situation in such a small space should be fairly telling. We have always kept a lot of animals in every home that we have had but one of our favorite things to keep is fish.

In our house, we had two 75-gallon aquariums, a 46-gallon aquarium, and a 4-gallon aquarium.

Though we have a small betta tank in our motorhome, we miss having a large aquarium.

So, on Thursday, we decided to take a trip to a few local fish stores around San Diego. And they were amazing!

We used to do this in Minnesota as well, to get ideas for our own tanks and just to look at all the fun stuff. The stores around here are pretty impressive.

We only went to three, plus a bird store, and we are excited to check out the others. Definitely dreaming about when we can get a big tank again!

On Friday night we did something a little different. We’ve done a lot of beer and wine tasting but we found a place that offers hard liquor tasting — right here in town. We each got two tasters and a mixed drink (as a chaser).

It was an interesting experience for sure! Tanner, a friend Andy met through pool league, and his friend John Paul, came along for the adventure. I have to say, liquor tasting might be a little bit much for me. The mixed drinks were amazing but I think I’ll stick to beer and wine for tastings.

Afterwards, we took off to play some pool.

Playing against these guys can get pretty embarrassing for me sometimes. Both Andy and Tanner play in leagues and also practice whenever they get a chance. I do not. But I do really enjoy playing when I get the opportunity — I just don’t always like to play by their rules! I have to say, though, I did pretty darn well this night.

The new plan these guys have concocted is getting a pool table to put in our little yard so that they can practice whenever they want. It sounds like a fun idea!

For a change of ambiance, we decided to hit up a different bar. They were playing live music.

I hear a lot of country music in our little town, something I’m not much of a fan of. Friday nights at this place are supposed to be rock music so I was excited to see what it was all about. They were playing rockabilly music so some of the songs were good and easy to recognize but it got a little repetitive in sound after a while and they eventually shifted into country anyway. I’ll have to check it out when another band is playing.

It’s hard to move to a new place and completely restart, especially when you don’t know how long that place will last. We have been having a blast exploring this area and it is even better now that we have met some great people!

On Saturday, Andy and I both had long days of work. He was actually working and I volunteered at the Wolf Center all day. By the time we got home, we were exhausted. We decided to relax with the dogs…

…in this free pool we found on the side of the road.

It was a good night! Other than the ending where Theo decided he didn’t like my new book…