R.I.P. Phillip :(

Memories of fishy Phil are fresh in our minds...here is Hailey (above) on her 6th b-day (3-17-06) waking up to the surprise of a fish (her first pet)...a gift from lil' Sis Shelby :) She was so excited (as you can tell!) :)...you can see Phil in his lil' cup ready to go in the big tank of pink (not sure how excited he was about that!?)
Sissy was excited too...she loved the fish like it was her own...
All smiles from Hailey, who was a proud pet owner...and then below I had to show you how she's always made him little name plates for his "room"...this was his first...he's had a few more since...the last one Shelby even made one for as well...we will miss our lil' blue beta smiling at us in the kitchen every day :(

Well, this is a tough one for me to post tonight, but in honor of the best (only) fish we've ever had I feel I must give him his very own blog post. Tonight, very unexpectly, we came home from a wonderful Christmas at Kev's parents to find our dear, sweet, 20+ month old blue beta fish Phil was belly up on the bottom of our tank for his night time feeding. I must admit this was quite a surprise to us all as we had just had a nice long conversation with Nina and Poppy S. and hour ago about how they were probably going to have to watch him while we were in FL and how he was a "hearty/good fish". So, needless to say it took us all by surprise when Hailey went to his tank and found him laying there motionless, not to mention I felt a tad bit bad about thinking this week what a hassle it was going to be to find a "fish sitter" at the last minute cuz our regular "sitters" were going to be out of town (love you D&H!). So, what a cruddy way to start this Christmas week...sorry, but our sweet girl just got done crying (actually sobbing) herself to sleep and that just tugged so deeply at my heart. I felt so bad that I even cried. We've never had a pet pass on in our home and she loved that fish from the moment she got him on her 6th birthday. He has been a good lil' blue beta and he will be missed. We said a special prayer tonight for our fond fishy friend that he is swimming with the best of them up in heaven (namely Hailey's friend, Baileigh's fish, Dennis, who recently passed on as well). Tomorrow will be a rough day :( Viewing and Funeral around 10am and burial around 10:05 in the backyard beneath the weeping willow (daddy wanted a flushing ceremony...but I think that might be a bit tramatic on all involved). If you think of Hailey say a prayer for her...she is beside herself with grief and is only hanging on to the promise that mommy said she could pick out a new fish after vacation...though we all know no one could replace Phil :( May he rest in peace. And now for a moment of silence in his honor...