happy easter

I almost forgot Easter was this weekend, but remembered when I paused to reflect on why everyone seemed to be going home for the weekend. That left just the kids who couldn't catch a plane ride home for just two days, so we had our own Easter celebration!





We dyed Easter eggs, I wore my pretty new dress (even though I had to feed my owl in it and tromp through lake-like puddles), had FOUR egg hunts inside our house (all of which started off violently as we attempted to thwart other people's egg search), made ham and risotto for dinner, got drunk off of the wine we made risotto with, played picture telephone, made sugar cookies, and I chatted with my family on skype. It was a really awesome day.



Fun Fact:

-last year for Easter, my Oma and Opa set up a huge Easter egg hunt for my brother and I that included money eggs. They asked if we wanted to split the money evenly after we'd both found all the eggs, or if the eggs we found were the money (or no money) we got. My brother scoffed and boasted that he would find them all anyway, so to keep it "fair" he would split it. I agreed and we set off to find the eggs. We were ALMOST even, but I found a couple more than him that just so happened to have ALL the money in them. So it's lucky for him we decided to split the monies. THE END.

I know I've gone back to being a bad blogger. It's getting to be our busy teaching season again, but I do really want to share photos from these past few months, so we'll see what happens posting-wise.

See you soon, raccoons!

I've finally uploaded and edited all of the pictures on my camera from the past several months and have them ready for blogging and overall sharing of them via the Internet. Unfortunately, my Internet is being a dick right now (what? Huh? No, I didn't say that...) so basically I am DONE attempting to do anything more complicated than just writing this post and going to bed.

Here are some things I've done this past week:

-took Tim Tam Slams on the living room floor
-used a heat gun to melt caulk off of wooden frames
-made a lot of sexual inuendos while melting said caulk off of the wooden frames (my favorite quote from Jeff, "That's good caulk")
-waited patiently for an uncooperative owl to step onto my glove
-did most of my taxes (actually, my dad basically did them for me. THANK YOU, DAD!)
-studied owl calls on a Saturday night
-created a big cats only zoo on Zoo Tycoon called "No Dawgs Allowed"
-Traveled to Eagle Bluff and met cool new peeps
-Helped flight train a kestrel (one of the best moments of my life)
-Leapt off of a platform forty feet in the air (it was a zip-line. A terrifying zip-line)
-recovered from multiple wounds and a nasty hangover from our St. Patrick's Day party
-sold one of my charm necklaces in our gift store!

Writing it all down makes me realize that I have a pretty good life.

when the parents came

Once upon a time, my beloved mam and dad flew east to what is known as the midwest (sort of confusing, but that's because I used to live in what I refer to as the real west. In fact, Alice and I agreed that we basically live in the west coast... ...) When they arrived, I was so excited that I basically just frothed at the mouth and gave them a whirlwind tour as if I were on crack cocaine. Then they bought us all pizza and booze (and when I say us all, I mean EVERYONE! Including the Minnesota fam!) and we partied it up. No pictures were really taken except for one of my dad and I on the lake in front of the sunset because I was so just so excited that they were there. That night we watched a movie (I think?) and then M and D headed back to their comfy lodgings.



The next morning was sunny and bright (and luckily the weather was in the double digits the entire time they were here, yaaaay!)

We made breakfast sandwiches and then headed out for adventures.







I feel like Dad looks like a celebrity who is pissed off at a paparazzo (me)



I brought a kicksled out for them to try.





Dad really liked it, he was surprised by how fast it was.



Then he gave Mam rides! Awwww!





We went to the barn so I could show Cica off to my parents.



Little perfect bean :)

After Cica, it was time for other creatures. My mom really dislikes snakes. A LOT. But she conquered her fears and held Vulpes, our super sweet Fox Snake.



















After Vulpes, we got Picasso, our Painted Turtle, out for some playtime.









Om nom nom





Like mother, like daughter

Then we got out the big guns, our 7 foot Bull Snake, Arnold.



That sort of put mom over the edge of her comfort zone, so she politely declined. She gained courage when she saw how laid back he was in my arms (since he makes such a territorial show over coming out of his enclosure), so she reached out to pet him. Unfortunately, he hissed at her as soon as she made contact, so that was a deal-breaker. I put Arnold away and brought out Poppy.



Mam LOVED Poppy, but Dad was sort of getting bored at this point. I promised that I'd only bring out one more fantastic creature and put Poppy away.



Out came Spikers! It was actually awesome to have him out and playing with us, because in the process I could get some good photos of him.





He climbed his tree for us, so I gave Mom some rodent pellets to feed him.



Awesome photo (if I do say so myself...)







Look at those strong claws for tree-climbin'!









Yeah...I sort of went into a frenzy of porcupine obsession







Dad was pretending to be excited about Spike, but he really just wanted to go cross-country skiing (just kidding...sort of).



Spike crawled into my lap! I love that porcupine.



I put Spike away and then we headed out into the woods for some good old cross-country skiing. My dad loves cross-country skiing (as mentioned before), and I love it too, I'm just pretty bad at it.





I was doing okay until...



..a slight hill came out of nowhere. Aaaaand I was down.





But I got up again (I'm a pro at getting up) and we were on our way! p.s. these pictures were all courtesy of my mom, who said, "What if I take pictures of you falling?" to which I responded, "Do it, that will be hilarious!" and then she literally took a second by second shot of me falling and then trying to get back up. I have some fairly embarrassing ones of me getting up. Just because I'm pro doesn't mean I'm graceful at all. Maybe one day I'll share them...

We headed up to the cultural site and the yurt so I could show them those areas, and at that point Mom and I were tired so we started to head back for a snack.



But first I had to feed Cica.



Love her. We headed out to Tobies to get some snack foods (aka a pile of fried things and soda) before I went into volunteer for Dinner at the Lake. I always work the drink table with Megan, so even though I was technically off, I poured drinks with her at the table and then went to eat with my parents and hear the talk (which was about wolves). It was fun! Plus I got a lil tipsy.









The next day both Megan and I woke up early (5 AM) to do barn before we headed to The National Eagle Center in Wabasha, which is definitely another post in the making. We spent the whole day there, looking behind-the-scenes, going to a cowboy bar for lunch (weirdly), and looking for golden eagles before we drove back home and the peeps dropped me off at a low-key Italian place in the cities to meet my parents for dinner. It was their anniversary (hurray!) so my mom thought it would be fun to explore the Mall of America. She hated it and said their parking situation was akin to hell. We ate a delicious dinner together and then headed home to pass out.

The next day we headed up to Duluth to hang out, go owling, and then (of course) go to FITGER'S!!!



While owling along the North Shore, we saw THREE Great Grey Owls!!! OMGGGG is all I can say about that! I can now officially say I no longer need a BVD of that particular species.



I saw a car parked alongside the road and immediately screamed, "BIRDERS!" so that my dad would pull over. I rolled down the window and the couple simply pointed up at a dead snag across the road, where we saw this beauty. We watched him for a couple of minutes, where I took approximately a thousand pictures of him (plus an accidental video) before we continued down the road. My dad spotted another one almost perfectly blending in with a tree, and the next one was swooping low over a field and then into a tree. It was amazing! Fitger's was also amazing, though my parents weren't as eye-battingly in love with it as I was (but they did agree that the wild rice burger was pretty damn good). We also went to Canal Park to look for Snowies, but had no luck there :(











Also they both got their first look at Lake Superior, which was pretty awesome :)

We drove home after Fitger's and watched Easy A in Schwyzer, our haunted historical lodge on site. I bravely determined that I could stay in there alone while my parents got ready to join me, but it was also a fairly windy night and I literally yelped at a couple of points when the wind blew down the chimney. I had to text Megan, who was probably only 500 feet away, about how scared I was. Fortunately, my parents joined me a few minutes later and we got crunk while watching the movie. It was so much fun, I love my parents!



The next day was spent doing some grocery shopping, eat lemon bismarks, and hanging out together before they left :( I'm so happy they got to come up and spend a couple of days with me, though.

Today I've mostly spent lounging in bed, updating my blog, reading other blogs, downloading photo apps to my phone recommended by Gala, creating an eight hour long dance jams playlist (just in case), and making jello shots for tonight's St. Patrick's Day party. In fact, I hear people beginning to take shots downstairs now! See you on the prowl, Great Horned Owl!