flashback

It's been two years and three months since I moved to Texas and boy it has been a WILD. RIDE. I never in a million years thought I would live in Texas, but here I am. I'm lucky in that I have a job that I'm incredibly passionate about where I get to do exactly what I want - play and train with birds all day - and I have an amazing community that I get to hang out with almost every day. Throw in the costume parties, dance halls, beach days and bonfires, cheap drinks, wonderful birding, and several other hundred adventures I've had since arriving and you could say it's a pretty good life. I found some collages I made of iphone/instagram photos within the first couple of months living here and decided to share them here, since that's what this platform is for :)



from left to right down the rows

• My first beer-rita, with a Blue Moon
• Harrison's Landing, a bar and restaurant floating on the marina that truly takes advantage of the beachy atmosphere
• Jess and I at Whiskey River, a two-step dance hall that we used to frequent
• Nacho in her enclosure; she's come a long way since then!
• Getting ready for the St. Patrick's Day Block Party, sporting green (plus green Maeby)
• Green beer at the block party, literally a week after I started working here
• Roxie and I at the Spasmatics, the first time we ever hung out. Oh, how I love the Spasmatics!!
• Whiskey River selfie with Elise and Jess! Miss those girls
• Maeby is getting attacked by a dinosaur chicken nugget

• Riding in the moving van on the way to Tejas
• Some last peaks of mountains before heading to Flatsville (aka Corpus)
• Manny and Maeby getting along while I unpacked in my new room with the NyQuil green carpet
• While Mom was still here helping me settle in, we visited the Botanical Gardens. I was a bootiful butterfly princess!
• By my old place there was a stream running along first the street, and then it wound into unmapped fields. I loved exploring there and finding raccoon tracks in the mud
• The USS Lexington at sunrise on one of my first early shifts
• Maeby likes to hang out on heads
• An alcoholic cherry limeade at Fajitaville before they changed their beach bar. Now it's kind of weird with not that great of food and more expensive drinks :/
• I took this photo specifically thinking, "Everything's bigger in Texas", because those apples are GIANT!

• Jess and I used to have Wednesdays off together, so we called them "Wild Wednesdays" and went on adventures. This particular day we visited the science museum
• Roxie and I at Whiskey River
• I house and pet-sat for Tilt for like two weeks a month into the job, so this is me cuddling her cat Diego
• Ah yes the famous Settlers of Catan night where we ate dinosaur chicken nuggets and I basically ONLY hoarded sheep since I didn't really understand the game
• The badass Sandhill Crane named Bonaparte who got a robotic prosthetic limb that we found at the science museum
• The Spasmatics!!
• Our Orphan Easter spread. Orphan Easter of 2014 was the best, Kelsey fell asleep and didn't show up with plates or cutlery until late in the evening so we ended up eating out of solo cups; I learned how to cook a ham!
• We witnessed the fireworks from The Hooks game across the way from the Spasmatics concert
• Back in the "dark days" we didn't have many reliable show segments. I took this photo to remind myself that it LITERALLY could be a two animal show, and that's…that's just insane

• Eva, Jess'es adorable pitbull, in her pirate costume
• Bonding with Toby back in the day
• I found this under our Employee Handbook shortcut on the server…I wish this was the real copy
• Visiting San Antonio for the first time - a riverwalk boat tour!
• I love horses, I want to ride one again SO MUCH!
• Ripley's Believe it Or Not museum with a giant Trex head
• The Alamo! I've been there twice now!
• My Opa came and helped me purchase a new car for the first time in my life. I was at a loss when I was rear-ended at the end of my first day of work and my car was totaled; I cried so hard I almost threw up. I'm so blessed to have such an amazing family to send someone to help me out, especially my kind and patient Opa. We ended up getting Spixie, my bright blue Kia Rio, this day
• Look at the difference between the rental car and Growler's poor crumbled back end

• Sitting on some bridge steps spanning the length of the river
• Every time I go to San Antonio its during Fiesta, the annual party that occurs around Easter. Here is some confetti from Fiesta the first time around
• Sure does!
• One of Wendell's many walks. He was such a gross and cute animal
• HE THINKS HE'S PEOPLE!
• Buc Days is a festival that occurs in spring that offers up a carnival, rodeo, some concerts, and a lit-up boat parade (apparently, still haven't been do this). I snuck this photo of the rodeo since you weren't actually allowed to take photos or video
• If it fits, I sits
• Said Buc Day carnival in fading light
• Mexican food, since we're basically in Mexico

• Jess and I went on an epic trip to Houston to see Bruce Springsteen! Despite knowing little to NOTHING about Bruce Springsteen, I HIGHLY ENJOYED IT! Also funnily enough, we saw the concert at a venue in the Woodlands where Drea happens to live (or her parents live there now), so it's like fate was bringing me to a place where our spirits could meet for the FIRST TIME
• Delicious DRANKS in Houston!
• I DEMANDED that we get Panera because I've only eaten at this magical establishment a handful of times and they make the most delicious, the most AMAZING food in the entire world. Here are two of my favorite foods - white cheddar mac n cheese and breakfast sandwiches
• One of the huge perks of going to Houston was going to the Downtown Aquarium where Jess'es friend works. We were able to feed the tigers, meet BA and Vana's brother who they mercilessly beat up until they had to relinquish him to the Downtown Aquarium, and also fed a sloth!
• A kitty cat we found outside of Laura's old apartment in Ingleside. He was SO CUUUTE, we kept him in the bathtub during Sunday Funday while we watched Game of Thrones
• Kissing the baby boy, Manners
• Posing at the Springsteen concert with Jess'es friend
• I love fairy lights, if I had my way then everything everywhere would be PLASTERED in them and it would be like everything was covered in minuscule galaxies
• The kitty and I! I hope he got adopted! We dropped him off at the shelter the next day

• Laura likes to flip off EVERYTHING I take a photo of. In fact, I have a nice little collection of her middle finger
• Another stray cat that wandered over to us on a Wild Wednesday while we were at the pool. Corpus is known for its extravagant amount of stray animals :(
• There is a magical place here in Corpus where they sell to-go alcoholic drinks. You can even purchase an extra shot for your drink for another dollar and that, my friends, is how you day-drink in style. They even put colorful duct tape over the straw hole to prevent drinking and driving
• MERLINNN!! Back when we were in charge of otters and my dream was truly complete, as I was able to work with both birds and watery mammals. I adore otters, they're definitely one of my favorite animals, so I was devastated when they were given back to the marine mammal department
• Pool days
• An osprey that hangs out behind Wildflight every summer. The first time I saw her I freaked out because I hadn't seen an osprey since Minnesota, and I was reminded of my magical forest home, but everyone else reacted in a "meh" sort of way since they see them all the time. I still love them
• Since Merlin was about to leave us, we did a bunch of training and photo sessions with him. He's adorable
• Little Merlin
• Feeding him some meatball

• Cinco de Mayo 2014. Jess and I went to On the Border for beer-ritas and queso, YUM!
• The Buc Days carnival!
• Nothing like fair food, fried and too expensive
• We went to sit down in an open-air tent to eat our food at the carnival and there were two twelve year olds "spinning". We read the line-up and saw that they were coined as "DJ Squirrel". It will forever go down in history
• A horrifying carnival ride
• A smooth-as-glass ocean day. We rarely ever have no-wind days
• Drunken ocean lights? I like out of focus light halos
• Carnival shitty light beer!
• The last carnival photo; I can't get enough of carnival photos, apparently

It's been a good two years - cheers to 2016! Going to make this summer count with late nights, summer photo challenges, plenty of beach reading, making my body fitter and healthier than ever, and hopefully LOTS OF TRIPS!!