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!!
So much of my life right now is not catalogued publicly, due to time constraints and poor internet (and the distractions of outside), but one thing is for certain: I love taking pictures. I have hundreds of photographs on my camera, waiting to be uploaded and to be used for blog posts, facebook memories, and photo albums, but once again the previously mentioned distractions are a reason why they are still held prisoner within my Rebel. There's something even more convenient that I snap pictures with every day though, and that's my iphone. Here is a little montage of my life since March, a life instagrammed.
left to right
row 1:: on St. Patrick's day, I downloaded an app that transforms iphone photos into polaroids (since I'm secretly incredibly whimsical and love hipster things), so I played around with it. Chagh looks like he's trying to be an Abercrombie and Fitch model haha//Megan LOVES St. Patrick's day and had to miss her brother's surprise 30th bday party/st. patties day extravaganza, so we surprised her with our OWN St. Patrick's Day party! Leeann and Troy are both holding jello shots in their hands//Our bowl of jello shot. We no longer bother with actual cups, we just dump some lemoncello into lime jello and voila! We labelled spoons and Megan and I jealously guarded the bowl all night long (well, for the half an hour it lasted)//we started our party early, like 6:30 PM, since we had to work the next day (it was a Sunday). So to make us feel less bad about being wasted at 8:00 PM, we put post-it notes covering all time-relaying devices on the counter, assuring us that it was only time to party.
row 2:: A series of selfie shots with the MN family during the St. Patrick's Day party. I love them all so much :')
row 3:: A watercolor painting of a Great Grey Owl//I finished my first journal in years. A documentation of my life in the woods//what I wore Easter Edition: my fancy blue and black lace covered dress with black leggings, sparkly rainboots, and my Batman hoodie (well, I had to go feed my owl)//Nolarbear and I
row 4:: Chagh, Troy, and I at the St. Patrick's Day party, shortly before Megan, Leeann, and I all danced on the countertop to Ke$ha//Poppy aka Pop, Lock, and Drop It sprawled out on the classroom steps//Eagle Bluff's beautiful Turkey Vulture that I was obsessed with, I love vultuls//more TUVU love
left to right
row 1:: more "what I wore" on Easter Sunday, the less owl feeding/still cold weather version//my new cleverly designed (if I do say so myself) yoga pants//rainbow birds watercolor painting//Falcon Heights was a school that both Megan and I liaisoned for and when we started taking down signs after they left we found this written on the whiteboard in the lounge. I was pretty happy about it
row 2:: my brother and I had a late night text conversation about people in animal facilities who ignore others because they deem them unimportant or less worthy. Even though it's definitely true that animal trainers are hot shit (I mean, come on), but that doesn't mean everyone else is unimportant. In fact, those other people are working hard to make YOUR life easier, and to sell people on YOUR show. So this entailed//my baby girl stepped up with no trilling or evading, she is doing so well in comparison to last year//visiting an organic, free-range and humane kill livestock farm where they raised adorable fluffy scottish cows that rubbed their heads against fences and ruminated for minutes on end while maintaining eye-contact beneath their bangs//an amazing yet slightly terrifying jaguar cat hat that Troy found somewhere and gave to me. I've since then given it back to the public aka our house
row 3:: looking through old baby photos, I found this stellar picture of me pretending like my crib is a convertible and I'm picking up babes//indulging in one of my favorite pastimes: painting and watching Netflix//the finished product//a woodcock we named Lars trying to find bugs outside our house. Snow in April = no fun. Please also check out the adorable woodcock dance that they do, we saw Lars perform it right outside our steps
row 4:: a watercolor painting I did for my sustainable energy class//we had a surprise luau party for Jess, our intern coordinator, and I drew this sign for her with all of us present in stick figure form//this...was May. FML//little bird tracks on top of the ice. SO CUTE
left to right
row 1:: one of Erik's adorable little birds he draws to mark where he's been//cooking maple syrup over the fire (or more appropriately the sap, which is now thickening into syrup)//my Daddy visited me and the boys set up a whisky tasting for him//taking advantage of the maple syrup fire, sitting around and drinking
row 2:: a sad and beautiful thing, a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet with its breeding crown found dead outside the dining hall//the wetlands on an evening birding walk//my dad and I found a blue-spotted salamander in the boot hallway in front of the dining hall, so we brought him back to the house for a mini-photoshoot on our little moss cup//cute little guy (no worries, he was returned to a safer location nearby the boot hallway)
row 3:: our new BOREAL OWLLLL!!!! Jeff and I went to The Raptor Center to pick him up where I geeked out majorly; this is him (his name is Odin) in his training cube//our beloved Tree Frog who has been at the Audubon Center for the past five years died, so I buried him near the vernal pool:(//Happy Cinco de Mayo! If you think that parties are basically happening all the time, that's because they are. We go through a lot of glowsticks and booze//the sunset from Jessica's porch, where we sipped Tequila Sunrises
row 4:: the traditional Porch Night candle//a beautiful burst of sun from the cloud cover on a walk home//homemade maple syrup gifts!//a (blurry) close-up of Odin
left to right
row 1:: a disgruntled Snowy Owl drawn during a debrief meeting//upon watching one of our favorite shows, "Toddlers and Tiaras", Megan and I had a brilliant idea: A NATURALIST PAGEANT! So we made a sign-up board with three categories, Teaching Wear, Creative Sportswear, and Outfit of Choice. Everyone signed up eventually with a date set and the runway (the dock) booked, but unfortunately it never happened//Mother's Day was spent ordering pizza and watching Safe Haven with Megan. Even though I wasn't with my Mam, I did get to spend it with another one of my favorite people//we discovered a new bar called The Red Star, where we listened to live music and indulged in berry infused vodka and shots called Starbursts
row 2:: My very first martini EVER! I had a carmel appletini with UV vodka (which is apparently made in Minnesota)//delightful burgers that our own personal chef, Chagh, made us for dinner one night//a beautiful day to take the children on a hike//the first signs of spring, tiny wildflowers sprouting from the dead leaves of last fall
row 3:: I went to Penn State for Natal's wedding! She had some hot air balloon themed cookies at her rehearsal dinner, and some unfortunate uncle of hers and to sit by myself, Rikki, and Thao (two of her adorable friends from Boston), so we decided to mess with him. Rikki ate two bites from her own cookie, then put it back in the wrapper and put it next to his plate. Waiting for him to notice was hilarious in its five-year-old prank status//we had a very fun morning the day of Natalya's morning and went to The Original Waffle House, yum!//strawberry waffle plus a side of bacon, mmmm//the art at the waffle house was bizarre, all of them pictured ruined civilizations with fancy birds of paradise perched on bowls of fruit. We decided it must by a post-apocalyptic society where birds now ruled and only ate fruit. ONLY. FRUIT.
row 4:: I did my hair ALL BY MYSELF on Natal's wedding day. I gave myself ringlets and wore my headband with a bow on it. I was happy with the amount of fabulous and adorable//the full outfit, with high-heeled shoes and makeup and everything!//my hot air balloon cookie//I tied a knot in a cherry stem at the bar one night in State College. That's right, I can do it
left to right
row 1:: I loved this picture. Even though it's in the mirror of my hotel bathroom, I think I look pretty fierce//one of the beautiful centerpiece terrariums//drinks at the bar the night of Natal's wedding. A random lady gave us twizzlers and we taught the bartender how to make an AMF//another post hair and makeup shot before the wedding
row 2:: Henry the dapper puppy! One of Natal's friends has a daughter who needed a therapy dog, so Henry came into the picture. He was all dressed up for the wedding, adorably so, and so I demanded a picture//Natalya and Andrew at the alter//walking down the aisle, first steps as wife and husband
row 3:: the reception food was DELICIOUS. Not only was there an open bar where I became fast friends with the bartender (it was only open for an hour, we had a dangerous game to play), but the cookies were SO GOOD. I don't know if I'll ever have a cookie that good, I wish I had hoarded dozens of those cookies and hidden them under my bed. They were like pillows of deliciousness//a lovely stream in the woods that Jessi and I explored the day after the wedding//Greg, Brandon, and I at the bar after the wedding//Darla and Tyson
row 4:: one of the giant paper flowers that Natal and Mama Lahktakia made, I was fairly drunk at this point so this is a selfie of me smelling it...even though it's paper...//also, I CAUGHT THE BOUQUET! WHAT??? Really though, two people caught it before me: a married man and one of Natal's cousins who immediately tossed it away after she'd caught it. Once it arrived at me, I thought MEH sure! Now they're dried and sitting in a cup in my room//the next day, I said my goodbyes to Natal and then hung out with Jessi! My old graduate student from the U! She is now at Penn State for her Post-Doc, so we got some breakfast sandwiches and explored State College, which is ADORABLE//we went to a wetland to go birding!
left to right
row 1:: trying to do the wetland forest justice, it was so beautiful. I felt like we were in a fairy tail, especially when we stumbled across the path cutting through the field of small, white flowers
row 2:: Jessi and I, scientist love//a teeny Northern Cricket Frog//a GIANT water bug found during Stream Superheroes after my whirlwind weekend in State College. Seriously HUGE//a Caddisfly larvae! My very first I'd ever seen, they're super cool and create little sleeping bag cases made of leaves, sticks, rocks, pebbles, or anything else they can find
row 3:: JMack holding an Eastern Bluebird egg//Easter Bluebird egg//the little nest//the secret hiding place of Rainbows the Tree Frog
row 4:: a Swainson's Thrush that I helped Clarissa band. This started my obsession with bird banding
left to right:
row 1:: blowing bubbles in my room because I can and I'm an adult. During the dancing portion of Natal's wedding, a spent equal amounts of time dancing, taking ridiculous photobooth pictures, and swiping golden bird and owl statues, jewels, and tubes of bubbles//my dried bouquet of flowers//an old school coffee tin we found on one of our forest walks//fungus among us
row 2:: I begged somebody to take a picture of me my this amazing tree. Look at its roots!//springtime//I love evening light//a Jack-in-the Pulpit
row 3:: Athena be-draggled after a bath//Poppy chowing down on a carrot. I've started taking more pictures of my animals now since I know I only have about a month left with them and I want to remember everything about them//a friend I made at the zoo. I call them Pharaoh Chickens//me and my new boyfriend
row 4:: my avian rehabilitation notes//Athena brooding an invisible egg//hot dog and sweet corn cookout. We played music, sat around the fire, and enjoyed each other's company on a spring evening and it was excellent//SPECIES FIIIIGHT
left to right
row 1:: my mom and I went to the Lake Superior Zoo and really enjoyed the nocturnal building. Look at this adorable Bat-Eared Fox!//I was obsessed with this chicken in the education room, I made a video of myself talking to it even. She had the sweetest little voice!//BURROWING OWLLLL! I also took a million pictures of this burrowing owl
row 2:: the Burrowing Owls were so chill, it was amazing how down to earth they were. The newest addition to their collection was at first perching on top of the lightbulb (uncovered and dangerous), but then he flew down and immediately started preening in front of me, an anti-stress behavior, really//a guinea pig with a fabulous haircut//little fanged deer
row 3:: tiger is hanging out//preening and stretching, cute little guy!//another close-up of my favorite zoo resident
row 4:: Wrasslin' a snake//a pile of fuzzy goslings//Kookaburra! I used to work with a kookaburra at the aviary named Kinta who would chase after the shredded bottoms of my flares, thinking they were snakes, and who I could make call with my own off-key version of their warble//Pacman was looking for some bigger prey
left to right
row 1:: the baby Eastern Bluebirds grew so quickly, almost ready to band at this point//a mess of feathers//baby Tree Swallow with his clown lips (no worries, songbirds have a very poor sense of smell and the mother will immediately accept her baby if placed back in the nest)//a Tree Frog we found at the wetland blind when my mom and I visited
row 2:: new Tree Frog conquest//my Mom and I went to a local cafe called Amy's where I saw that there was a Leeann's Wrap, which made me miss everyone a lot (because at this point, they had just left)//pigeon drawings from a book//working on the artifact cabinet
row 3:: Jeff was looking for a new daycare, and I think I found the perfect place//Mom ready for some canoeing//taking the afternoon off on a Monday to go canoeing with my mom was perfection//we brought a bag of gummy bears and a trash magazine with us. What's more luxurious than eating gummies and reading celebrity gossip in the middle of a lake?
row 4:: taking my hawk for a walk, nbd//Dakota loves the wind, she lifts her wings and tastes the breeze//I taught Creepy Crawly Creatures to some kids who were not so pleased about the amount of leeches in the vernal pool (which I only told them about AFTER the plunged in), and I found this on the wildlife sightings board later//a large white, fluffy dog that knew I needed some lovings, so he shoved his head into my knees and allowed me to give him a full on hug. Therapy at its finest
left to right
row 1:: Noah's Ark?//we visited a board member's house who lives on a farm and built a giant lighthouse/silo/study outside of his house. It was the most amazing writing studio I have ever seen, the windows were thrown open and a glorious breeze drifted through the round room, a futon was set up in the corner for reading and naps...basically, it was perfect. I would pay money to be able to spend time there//a Barred Owl he sculpted to by the lookout of the tower//banding the baby bluebirds
row 2:: went to Duluth and had watermelon margaritas. We then forcibly brought back summer with us//that night, we saw fireflies and chased them through the field. Then we found perfect daisies and put them in our hair. This is my memory of the first night of summer//TIE DYE! My second official time doing it, I dyed socks, tank tops, and shirts//Megan's awesome rainbow tie-dye
row 3:: Lake lovin'. Lord knows I will miss this lake
row 4:: We found a Painted Turtle in the middle of the road and helped it across. Tis the season//There are a lot of gorgeous wildflowers blooming in the prairie, so I made Megan hike with me to pick some. We suffered a lot of mosquito bites, but it was worth it//my most recent fortune, you are often the life of the party". It's not really a fortune, but it's true...//Spike was so hot one day that he stretched himself across his ice block and laid there for an hour. Spikers love his ice blocks and his walkies.
A lot of quick flashbacks into my life for the past few months, but we're not quite caught up yet. This summer there has also been:
-Outdoor concerts (Trampled by Turtles and Atmostphere!) with all it entails, glowsticks, vine videos, local beer and vodka, Pizza Luce, and dancing like maniacs
-Swimming in the lake, feeling the sun beating down and the wind drying the droplets of water off your skin
-Campfire and cookouts, making banana boats, brats, and sweet corn
-Fish-printing, a naturalist tradition of using fish stamps to make shirts
-Tree Swallow banding
-book reading on the pontoon
-taking Spike for walks
-training both Cleo and Cica
-bike riding through the woods (not enough due to terrible TERRIBLE mosquitos right now, but more soon hopefully)
-destroyed swim floaties from Target
-firefly chasing
What I've been Reading
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill:: This book was PHENOMENAL! The writing was superb, the pacing excellent, and the story incredibly unique. Joe Hill is Stephen King's son, and it shows, but he is much better at ending his books than his dad. Read it, you won't be sorry.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern:: Another good one, though I did "cheat" on this book and start reading NOS4A2 in the middle of it since I was so intrigued by the description given to me by Raphael, then I went back to this book. Though not AS exciting as NOS4A2, and the pacing is a little bit slower as well as puzzle-like, it was still a really good book if you're patient enough to read and piece everything together.
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon:: I'm not finished with this book yet, but I'm a HUGE fan of The Shadow of the Wind, so when I learned that Zafon had written a sort of prequel to that book, I knew I had to read it. So far the story is intriguing, though I think the writing is not quite as good as it was in his first book (but I did read that one in high school). Still, good writing compared to 75% of the books I've ever read and I love the dark stylings.
What I've been Watching
Beyond Borders:: a mysterious VHS tape we found next to the VCR while hooking it up to watch Legally Blonde, we read the back and it sounded INTENSE. So the next night we watched it and were blown away by how crazy it was. Basically, Angelina Jolie realized that even though they're at a relief benefit, they are all entitled white people so she goes to Ethiopia to help out and pay for supplies. It ends up being a romance story between her and the mostly upset doctor played by Clive Owen, even though they see each other like once every four years. If you feel like paying attention for two hours and feeling really angry about entitled white people and power-hungry mercenaries, watch Beyond Borders!
Cake Boss:: I started watching this today while writing this blog post since the Internet is being miraculously "fast", and it is SO CRAZY. It's fun to see them decorate masterful cakes as well as scream profanities at each other.
Grey's Anatomy:: Um, basically I love this show. It is so incredibly addicting, Megan and I couldn't stop watching it until the Internet forced us to get back to our real lives by refusing to work. It's a drama about medical interns and is the BEST. Oldie but a goodie (new to me).
What I've been up to
-Applying for jobs! I know I want more of a raptor or bird oriented placing, but I still want the education aspect, so I've applied to a couple of places I feel really strongly about. We'll see! I've already been getting more correspondence than I had been this time last year, so that's good!
-Bird banding! I'm OBSESSED! It's so much fun and scientific research!
-Making more charms for the store and attempting to perfect my technique each time.
-Forcing myself to go outside, even though the mosquitos make me want to die. It is seriously so terrible outside, every time you step foot into the woods you're swarmed by hundreds of mosquitos desperate to suck your blood. Luckily, there has been wind the past few days, so that has kept it bearable enough for us to go swimming.
If you've read this entire post, kudos to you. I felt the need to create a large, all-encompassing blog post to pin-point the small but important moments of my life here in the woods. Much love.
Pioneer Day, or Pie 'n Beer Day, is a Utah-only holiday that celebrates the day the pioneers found this desert wasteland and turned it into a city rife with ridiculous alcohol laws and outdoor malls with dress codes. Usually there are HUGE celebrations within the city, involving extravagant parades, fairs, and free events in our scattered non-profit organizations. Instead of getting involved in any of those things, however, my brother and I decided to head up to Lagoon as our combined birthday presents to each other. Getting there was a NIGHTMARE because of the aforementioned parades blocking every main street downtown, dashing our hopes of ever getting to the freeway. Finally, after an hour, we managed to get on the freeway and begin our exciting journey to Lagoon.
Once we got there, we decided to go on all the big rides first. I'd not been feeling very well (either because I was still super hungover from my weekend bender or my body wanted to subsist only on alcohol and food pissed it off), so I figured the sooner we got all the big rides out of the way, the better. I made it through all of them until we got to the Screamer, the big wheel that goes upside down. My stomach doth protest too much on that one. After the Screamer, I decided we should eat some lunch. BAD CALL. Immediately after eating, it all came up. Unfortunate, considering how expensive it was. I felt really ill at this point, so the next hour or two was spent drinking a variety of different beverages (non-alcoholic beverages, LAME, and dippin' dots coke floats) and walking around Pioneer Village. You heard me, PIONEER VILLAGE. That's Utah for you, implementing mormon history into an AMUSEMENT PARK. What a perfect day to celebrate pie 'n beer day though, right?
POSSIBLY THE MOST EXCITING EXHIBIT!
Wow. Shoes.
And then, we found possibly the least visited place in the entirety of Lagoon.
THE TELEPHONE MUSEUM. Man oh man was it the ULTIMATE. We stayed in there for probably five minutes! I sat in the telephone booth and Gabe locked me in. It was unpleasant. After our wild time at the telephone museum, we headed over to a real pioneer cabin! It was dismal. I dared Gabe to crawl over the fence separating us from the furniture and take a pretend nap on the bed, but in the process his pants ripped and I told him that he probably would set off some silent trip-alarm.
After our fun pioneer times, we visited the red elk.
Yakul!!!
I started to feel better at this point, so we started going on more rides. I wanted to start off with kiddy rides, which Gabe refused to ride with me, so I rode some by myself. Some people might view that as pathetic, some people (like me) might view it as badass. After those rides, I finally convinced Gabe to go on an awesome looking water ride called Odysea with me.
My favorite is the fish with the upset face in the bottom right hand corner.
We got super lame, however, because neither of us wanted to get wet (which is why we didn't go on Rattlesnake Rapids), so we skipped out of line. Instead we went on the skyride.
Which took us over to the other side of the park, so we could try the new ride, Air Race. It's a ride where you're in an airplane that spins you around in circles AND spins you around upside down while you're going in circles! It really made me feel like throwing up again. I'm glad I rode it, though. After Air Race, we went on the ferris wheel.
Gabe spun us around like a Speedy Gonzales, which made me feel sick. AGAIN. But it was still really fun.
We went on the Tidal Wave and the swings
And laughed at inappropriately named kiddy rides
We went on a couple of more roller coasters and the Samurai and then decided to head home since we were pretty tired.
On the way home we stopped at In and Out Burger. I was going to eat In and Out, come hell or high water.
And it was delicious. Even though it made me sick, surprise surprise.
This past week has been amazing. My "so. much. fun." preview post does not even begin to explain how MUCH fun I've had and how much I've CARPE DIEMED, as my role models Phineas and Ferb have described in rhyme and song (for realsies).
I didn't carry around my camera at all this past week, so instead I will weave my tale of magic and adventure with Iphone and Instagram photos.
It started out with going to the Farmers Market again on Saturday. I did bring my camera to that, fortunately, but I snapped this special picture with my Iphone
Mustachioed accordion players
Monday
-my brother's birthday! I originally had an appointment to get my hurr did that night, but instead after work we headed over to Benihana to celebrate the 18th year since his birth. If you've never been to Benihana, basically it's an entertaining show that feeds you in the process (aka my dream). A chef cooks your food in front of you on a giant grill and does things like flips shrimp tails into his/her hat (although I've never seen a her before) and does complicated and terrifying knife tricks while chopping vegetables. They make THE BEST FRIED RICE! My aunt and I got super alcoholic drinks (I had a "baby blue ocean" and she had "benihana punch"). I ate until I wanted to die (such delicious shrimp and steak, the "splash 'n meadow"!) and drank a lot more. My second round of cocktails involved the waiter apologizing to me for the bartender for making it "too strong". AS IF
-after I digested a little bit, I went to Nostalgia and hung out with Rachel and Maddie
-went out to Twilite Lounge with Rachel after Nostalgia closed. It's the same bar that we went to with Kit and Fernando the past week, though this time it was PACKED. It was like hipster paradise on Monday night. We got wine for Rachel and a cranberry vodka for me and talked about girly shit like how she and her boyfriend met. Then we hung out with Alanis Morissette guy while he played Pool with our other new friend (whose name I can't remember...a really great new friend). I ended up going home around 1:30 AM and then passed out.
Tree lights outside the bar and a wise sticker stuck to the bench
Driving home with the windows rolled down on a summer night
Tuesday
-my mom won free tickets to The Sound of Music, so I invited Gillian and Alice to come.
-after work we headed to the theater, where I had MAJOR Indiana Jones ride flashbacks. The first happened when I was going down the hallway towards our seats, which was SO LONG and dimly lit. I had this sudden feeling that we were in line for Indiana Jones, which raised the excitement level in my heart. Then, during a specific part in the play, the entire stage was dark and there were fake nazis riding a motorbike, which REALLY reminded me of the ride (for some weirdish reason). So that was weird.
-the play was REALLY GOOD. The girl who played Gretel was SO CUTE!!! She was my absolute favorite. Also the woman playing Maria was really great. We all had a really good time being adult connoisseurs of the arts
-after the play, we headed out in search of a bar. After much debating (and realizing that I know/inhabit downtown bars much better/more than I thought I did), we decided to go to the Beerhive, since it was well-liked by our peeps and also a NEW place for me!
-Beerhive was really chill! There was a strip of ice that you used to keep your drinks cool, which we actually used to draw pictures in. I ordered a Lambic, since I hadn't had one since the unfortunate Flagstaff Hostel incident (also known as the "aborted baby" incident, but that sounds terrible to people when it's out of context of that specific situation. I'll even explain because it's not bad at all. Basically we had raspberry Lambic that spilled, so since it was a red liquid on the floor we thought BLOOD and our drunk minds immediately went to ABORTED BABY so there you go). Anyways, I got peach this time. We hung out, drank beer, and decided where we were going to live and what we were going to do in the future (Alice and I are moving to Capetown, Africa).
left: our line of beers at The Beerhive, right top: the bunny I drew in the ice, right bottom: our drinks at Benihana
Wednesday
-found a service that will transcribe my childhood photos into digital form (I feel like I didn't use that word correctly, but whatever)
-rediscovered Pinterest and posted a lot of drawing inspiration
-went to Nostalgia, drew a lot
I was watching The Fall while I drew these, which is why I created a tiny version of Charles Darwin, my favert.
-this was Maddie's face when I asked her what she'd been drawing.
-The Fall was SO GOOD by the way. Lee Pace was so adorable and I love him and the tiny Romanian girl who played alongside him was ALSO ADORABLE and omg I was in love.
Thursday
-work again, because you know. Money and all that
-went to the TWILIGHT CONCERT!!!
honestly, I've never even heard of Nas. But I wanted to get back into the swing of going to the Twilight Concert, so I headed down with Gillian to meet up with Alice and Mar Mar. Before Gillian picked me up, however, I pre-gamed HARDCORE. I drank three lemonade vodkas and then made Gillian drink one before we went to the concert. I'm a bad influence.
-met up with Alibus, Mar Mar, and Gabigail and then danced. Danced like fools. The concert was way fun and, although numbers were projected to be 25,000, it wasn't badly crowded at all. It was a great start to my Twilight Concert season
-we originally were going to get thai food after the concert, but instead we ended up leaving the concert a bit later than we anticipated, so I begged Gillian to take my by McDonalds before we picked Raphael up. We finally got to the movie theater an hour before midnight.
-why were we at the movie theater, you ask? Why, because of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES!!! We were too late to get tickets at an assigned seat movie theater, so we ended up going to our high school haunt, where midnight showings are a free-for-all and full to the brim with high school students (what do you know).
-in order to make our experience THAT MUCH MORE ENTERTAINING, Gillian had brought a rum runner full of vodka, which we emptied into two cherry Icees. They were so delicious, mmmmm. EXCEPT for when we accidentally sucked all the flavoring out of one of them and it turned into a vodka Icee. So I stole the one that was in between Raphael and Alice. The movie was phenomenal, in my opinion. I wouldn't say it's better than Dark Knight, since it will always be my favorite due to the villain, but it was AS GOOD and that is just as great. I would do a huge movie analysis, but I think instead I'm just going to leave it at "I loved it". And that's enough.
-at the end of the movie, we were all in awe. At this point it was 3:30 or something, so we all said our goodbyes and when I got home I PASSED. OUT.
Friday
-even though I had gone to bed at 4 the night/morning before, I still woke up seven hours later (which is still late, but 7 HOURS) because I went to bed drunk the night before. Ergh.
-went to work, hung out with peeps, did the big cleaning for the pigeons (ugh), and then headed over to Clioh's to see The Dark Knight Rises again!
-we went to Century 16, which now has assigned seating I guess, and I reacted the exact same way I had during my first viewing. Though maybe a little less vocal, since during my first viewing I was incredibly drunk (I kept squealing and gasping and screaming at the screen). But I still did all that, just a bit quieter.
-after the movie, we decided to go out somewhere to get dinner. Clioh asked me if I'd ever been to The Rio Grande Cafe, and when I said I hadn't she told me to head in that direction. It was an adorable, DELICIOUS mexican restaurant located in the old Rio Grande train station. There was a huge taco pinata hanging over the front counter with a fake lady splayed out inside it, a jukebox in the corner, and the best homemade guacamole I've ever had at a restaurant. Our waiter was a sassy old man who kept trying to persuade me to get the margarita with five shots in it rather than the lime margarita that only had one in it (hey, I had to drive). I got a grande flauta, and it was SO GOOD. There was no way I could finish it all, it was so huge. Especially with all the guacamole I'd eaten a second ago with the freshly made tortilla chips.
-thinking about is making my mouth water, I want to go back to there. Especially since I can't eat very much right now due to my stomach bug >:(
-the sunset was beautiful
-also their bathrooms were super old school and looked like the Harry Potter bathrooms to me. I wanted to write "THE CHAMBERS OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED" across the mirrors.
-after our delicious dinner (I can't think of another word to use), we headed back to Clioh's house to talk and gossip. When we got there, Olivia (little sister) told us that she and her best friend next door were going to put on a fireworks show for us, in honor of the 24th. The 24th in Utah is a special holiday called "Pie 'n Beer Day" which celebrates when all the pies and beer migrated from their land of oppression to their new desert paradise where they could frolic without religious prosecution and without fear of EVER getting eaten or drunk. Or at least that's what I remember of my teachings. We celebrate with a shit ton of fireworks.
-Olivia and her friend Liv are so hilarious together. Liv will start doing some strange thing, like darting out of her chair to roll around on the lawn, and Olivia will follow. Then they'll start spinning around in circles, singing songs about martians, and then sit back down as if nothing had happened. I love childhood friendships when they're like that. After a good hour of fireworks, we went back inside smelling like smoke and ate some cake before we said our goodbyes and I left.
-the rest of the night was spent watching Netflix and doing NOTHING. Glorious amounts of nothing. I lied, actually I watched Netflix and edited the shit out of photos. One thing I've learned about being interested in photography and having this new camera, I will never not be knee deep in photos ready to be edited and shared.
Saturday
-Saturday morning I woke up early to go get my hurr did for reals so I could get turquoise put in it! The plan was to dye all the underside turquoise while leaving my natural color on top.
-first we dyed it blonde to make the turquoise show up, which looked hilarious. My hairstylist, whose name is Autumn, had to mix a bottle of blue dye with two and half bottles of lime green dye to make it even remotely turquoise. The entire process took about 2.5 hours and when it was done it looked so nice! It's a bit dark, but in the sun it glows turquoise. I felt so good and sassy when it was done.
-on the way home, I took a picture of this sign that has tons of stickers on it that I always pass when I'm in that area. I love stickers.
-I headed over to Raphael's house to hang out with her for the rest of the day until I had to head over to a party at around 7 PM. While there, I was introduced to SKYWARD SWORD!
I LOVE Zelda, but I don't have a Wii so I had to watch as the rest of the world played Skyward Sword and I played Windwaker and Twilight Princess over and over again (don't hate, but they're my favorites and not OoT). So I forced Raphael to get her Wii out of storage, unwrap the packaging of Skyward Sword, and we started playing it.
IT IS SO MUCH FUN.
Basically you live on a floating island and fly giant colorful hawk storks around. There are little raccoon kitties that turn into demons at night and adorable hedgehog bulbasaur penguins and an amazing GASTON CHARACTER WITH GOLDEN LIP GLOSS!!!
(he's on the left and his name is GROOSE! And on the right are the happy hour swizzle sticks topped with tiny cocktails and beers)
Groose is my absolute favorite character, besides Pipit (who's this upperclassmen who knows EVERYTHING about birds apparently and is super condescending to Link). He is hilarious, and his henchmen are terrifying. Basically the game is amazing and I played it ALL DAY LONG. Finally, at around 7:30, I grudgingly put down the nunchucks and left for my party. I mostly left because Heidi called me in a panic, telling me that all the alcohol would be gone soon if I didn't show up. I noticed as I left that my arm was super sore (and still was up until yesterday), which is called Nintendonitis apparently. All the swordplay is done with the right nunchuck, so all the invigorated slashing and hacking I did while killing moblins and destroying logs and trees really did a number on my arm.
-got to the party and was confused to see that there were two different parties going on in the apartments across the way from each other. I went into the party at the apartment I knew, though a lot of people were at the other apartment. It was like a double whammy.
-this is where I did shot after shot in an attempt to "catch up" to everyone. I double fisted smirnoff and a margarita, attempted to make a disgusting combination of black licorice vodka and what I THOUGHT was limeade (it was POISONOUS) and then I shotgunned a beer
it's black and white, which makes it classy
which was after Kit Fry showed up!
We hung out on the deck a lot, since it was so hot inside (and crowded), and when we did go inside I started talking to a girl who works in another lab a couple floors down from us. She is studying locomotion of parrots, which is so cool. We talked for like an hour about birds and science, though I feel like both of us were pretty drunk at this point. She has a green-cheeked conure too in the name of SCIENCE, so I told her all about Maeby Baby. In the middle of my drunkenness, I asked Ale if I could show Kit their service dog, Cody (who I adore). While in the office, where he had sought refuge, I saw that Ale had framed the drunk picture of a Quetzal I painted them.
derp. This is where I sassed Brooke and she screamed FUCK YOU at the top of her lungs and the entire party went silent. Whoops.
I then spent the rest of the party walking around with my bottle of UV lemonade that I continuously drank from. I got so fucking drunk.
Also this happened.
We decided to leave the party in order to hang out with our friends at Nostalgia. This is where I cried and ran away to hide behind a tree. It was embarrassing (for me to look back on, not like I remembered). Meanwhile, my phone was kidnapped and instagram photos were taken.
My friends, ladies and gentlemen.
I cannot for the life of me remember the rest of the night, though I remember flashes of being at Rachel's house and like crying in her kitchen and trying to pet her cat. Welp. Whatever. Kit took me home and I passed out after trying to apologize to everyone.
Sunday
-woke up at 8:30 (going to bed drunk makes me wake up fucking early) and texted everyone with real, slightly more sober apologies
-Gabi texted me, asking if I wanted to ride up to Lagoon with she and Lisa. We were all supposed to go to Lagoon as one of Lisa's going away events (I was also supposed to go to the Dark Knight Rises drive-in with them the night before, which I clearly skipped out on to get crunk), but I was feeling sick and hungover so I told her it might not happen.
-a couple of hours later, Lisa called me telling me she would NOT take no for an answer, and she knew that I was hungover and not sick, and she was picking me up in half an hour whether she liked it or not. I'm so glad she did this, because otherwise I would have missed out on one of the BEST Lagoon trips of my LIFE!!!
-I hurriedly got dressed and cleaned my birds before waiting for Lisa to pick me up. Once she had, we headed over to Gabi's to mix drinks. We poured vodka into individual lemonade bottles and labeled them according to how much alcohol was in them (drunk, buzzed, and sober). We also brought pinnacle whipped, half and half, and orange juice for whipped cream shots. We packed up the car and headed up to Lagoon!
-listened to SHOTS and KE$HA on the way up
-got to Lagoon and went to our terrace we rented
-rented out to the Beer Goonies, of course
-started drinking and taking shots before everyone else showed up. I was hesitant to drink at first, since I had felt so hungover/sick just an hour ago, but then I decided WHATEVER and drank anyways. Thus begins day two of my bender. There were a couple of people I knew already from other parties and going to Poplar, but then there were a couple of peeps I hadn't met and then two random guys who Lisa didn't even really know because she'd invited them while drunk a couple of days ago. We definitely knew why they were there
-went on the kiddie rides, joked about how everyone thought that the Superman trailer before Dark Knight Rises was about Aquaman due to all the ocean paraphernalia
-rode all the roller coasters
-it was lucky I was drunk for the line for The Wicked because otherwise I would have been FREAKING. OUT. Instead, I started freaking out WHILE on the ride and kept saying "ohmygodohmygodohmygod" before we blasted up the straight down drop
-went on the Music Express, a roller coaster that goes around really quickly in circles, so the person on the outside get squashed. I always forget which side gets crushed, so I accidentally was the one on that particular side. With Gabi and Travis both on the other side of me. I spent the entire ride whimpering "ow...ow...ow", which Travis laughed about afterwards.
-we went on the FIRE DRAGON aka the Colossus. We made friends with the ride attendant, so when we started to brake to get off the ride, Gabi said, "One more time, Andrew!" and he nodded and was like, "One more time!" and we were off again. It was awesome.
(top left: the main fountain at dusk, top right: I thought this was HILARIOUS because ensign is an LDS magazine and since it has a little picture of Utah next to it, it totally has mormon connotations, bottom left: little Spongebobs as a prize at a game, bottom right: one of those amazing singing/dancing shows that occurs every half an hour)
-when we heard that a show was starting, Nikki was like, "LET'S WATCH" because she used to do a singing/dancing gig, but as soon as we started watching it she was like, "I'm over it." I love the stage shows because they are HILARIOUS
-we went on the old rickety "white" roller coaster (which is actually now just brown because the paint has been stripped off), which was basically just pain. The seats are too small for my hips, and it's so sketch and decrepit that it's terrifying. Terrifying, but fun.
-we often went back to our terrace for more drinks, so we were all pretty shit-faced by midday and in desperate need of some food. I especially was hungry because I had eaten little to nothing in the past 24 hours. I had half a sandwich before I left for the party because I was only halfway through the sandwich when Heidi called me, and then for breakfast I'd only had a couple of pieces of watermelon. So I happily went to my favorite pizza stand that sells HALF BREADSTICK/HALF MOZZARELLA STICK COMBINATIONS THAT ARE FUCKING DELICIOUS! And I ate and it was amazing
-during lunch there were a lot of sexual innuendos. Including "I touched that while it was fresh" and "grab some meat out of that sweaty bag"
-we went on Rattlesnake Rapid and booed at a man wearing a bright orange rain slicker for being lame. Then we got soaking wet, even though I screeched and scrambled about the raft like a crazed squirrel. Even though I love the water, I hate getting wet if I'm not going to be fully immersed and if I'm wearing real clothes.
-we went on the Tidal Wave (a swinging pirate ship) and engaged in the "as old as time" tradition of initiating a screaming contest with the other side of the ship.
-went on the swings, one of my favorite rides, and felt a real pang of sadness at having to leave Utah and all of my amazing friends in just a couple of weeks
-as it started getting later, Gabi and I found ourselves hanging out awkwardly with the two guys our entire group didn't know. We went on several different rides with them, including a really awkward one where I had to sit in the lap of one of the guys.
-Gabi and I hung out while everyone else went on the Rocket, watching as a family tried to persuade a crying girl to go on the Rocket. When I say persuade, I really mean they were telling her to stop being a baby and to just go. I used to be that crying girl, so I felt really bad for her. I told the family that I would watch her while they went on the Rocket, and surprisingly they were like, "SURE!" and left. While I am by no means a terrifying looking criminal type, it's still strange to me that parents allowed a complete stranger to look after their kid while they go on a ride. Anyways, we watched her until Lisa came back, and then we ditched both of them to go on the Samurai.
-as it started getting dark, we focused more on games rather than rides. Travis was super into playing games, so when we passed the ring toss and saw the irresistible prizes...
...the game lackey told us he'd give us two buckets of 90 rings each for just $7. WHAT A DEAL. Travis took the bait and immediately seven of us started throwing rings with gay abandon at the milk bottles set out in front of us. ALL OF US MISSED. Let me repeat. The seven of us threw 180 rings at stationary milk bottles, and no one got ONE SINGLE MILK BOTTLE. Geez
-Gabi and I went on the Screamer, one of my favorite rides. It's a giant wheel that spins on its side and then goes upside down. The best part about it was that the sun was setting really spectacularly, so whenever I looked out the side of my cart, I could see the sky alit with pink and gold. It was beautiful
Of course, this face itself could not be any more beautiful
-then we went on the Colossus at sunset. And it was so cool.
-at this point, we debated going home. We were exhausted and I was so drunk and hungover combined that I just felt sort of iffy and done. Instead we hung around some more, which I'm so glad we did. The boys played tons of games while the rest of us hung out at the terrace and Travis won Lisa a baseball cap playing Speedball (a game where, if you throw the ball faster than 45 mph, you get a prize). He then won a Chococat for me and a little red whale thing for Gabi! It was so nice and awesome! Chococat is definitely coming with me to Minnesota.
-it started to rain at this point in time, so we booked it out of Lagoon and headed home. Conveniently, Gabi lives just two blocks up from Ale's apartment where my car was stashed, so I jumped into my car and went to get myself drunk food. Gabi and I accidentally switched up our IDs, so we switched back while I was still in the neighborhood, and then I headed home to crash.
Thus ends my amazing whirlwind week and giant alcoholic bender weekend. The past few days have also been awesome, but this post is already long enough so I'll divulge the secrets of pie 'n beer day and my last book club next time. Niiiight!
