A bird in the hand...

My parents got back from North Carolina today. Now Cami and I are talking about buying a house together down there when she graduates. Weird. But it seems like an amazing place, there are about a million environmental groups I could work for and also a community college that said I could teach classes for them. And Duke and UNC both have research labs in the area. It keeps looking better and better. But not anywhere near looking better than getting back over to southern or eastern Africa. I wish there was an easy way to split my time between the two places. Anyway, its great to have mom and dad home. For about a week Cams and I were working, cleaning, cooking, grocery shopping, and taking care of the dog. Running a house is pretty exhausting. Our days off were spent running around taking care of errands and such. At least we know that we can live together without killing each other.
On Tuesday I went with Cami over to Red Horse for her riding lesson. It was so warm and all the doors but one were open to let the cross breezes into the arena. While Cami was warming up I heard a loud smack followed by a thud. I turned around there was a barn swallow on the aisle floor. He had managed to fly into the only closed door in the entire barn. He was spread eagle, with his little butt sticking straight up in the air, wings way out, and his beak buried in the shavings. I thought he had broken his neck, but he slowly pulled in his wings and just sat on the floor. Due to the high horse traffic and his small size, I wanted to move him out of the way, but I didn't want to scare him. The barn manager gave me a paper towel to scoop him up and put him on the side of the wash rack. As I moved him, he didn't really do anything at all, just stared at me. When I tried to slide him onto the ledge of the stall, he hopped right off the paper towel and perched on my finger. I was so surprised. We just kinda blinked at each other for awhile and when he was ready, he flew away. It was the most incredible feeling in the entire world, to have a wild bird clinging to my finger, not scared of me in the least. It gave me this ornithological high (stupid I know, but it was so amazing!) I keep reliving the feeling of the barn swallows feet on my finger. He was so so pretty. And to make the day even better, I scheduled a riding lesson for next Tuesday! It's a hunt seat lesson, but I'm going to tell her I want to start working on jumping. I can't wait!! Welp, time for strawberry shortcake (I picked about 10 lbs of strawberry today...)

Later!

Craziness!

Around these parts, the sun comes up at approximately 5:36 a.m. How do I know this, you might ask? Well, for some reason the past 4 days I've woken up with the sun. This is all good when I'm out camping, but when I'm home in my bed, I would really like to sleep to at least 7:30. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to break this record I seem to be setting. After I forced myself back to sleep for a few more hours, I got up and got ready for church. Thanks to a sunny day yesterday and semi-erratic applications of sunscreen, I have some pretty funny tan lines. Oh well, it goes with the territory. I went to church at Calvary instead of New Life this week. Good service and excellent hymns. I really enjoyed it. Brittney Matthew's graduation party was later in the day, so I spent some time hanging out there, did the whole CHS mingle thing for as long as I could. I did get to see Amanda Kellogg for a while. Her family adopted the cutest little boy ever, Josiah. He had huge brown eyes and this crazy 'fro going on. He was such a little imp, getting into everything with a twinkle in his eye. I really think I want to adopt my kids. Afterwards, Dad suggested that I go to Target to get contact stuff...really the last thing I felt like doing. He wanted to go though, so I gave in and went too. We walk in and who happens to be there but my two best friends! I was so excited, its the first time I've seen them this summer. They were going out to dinner and kidnapped me. We went to a cute cafe in the center of Milford and just hung out and caught up on stuff. It felt so great to sit and talk with them again. It doesn't matter how long its been since we've seen each other, we pick up right were we left off. I've never had friends like them before,they're really more like family. We're planning to go to the beach sometime soon and they're coming over for dinner one night next week. Then after that we're going to over to Ame's art studio to throw some pots. Its great to have friends at home:-) The summer is definitely starting to look up. Okay, I think I'm going to put some pictures in the album I just bought...

Later!

Yummy

This morning I had orange-mango yogurt for breakfast. It was really good.

Stop Running!

I think I'm going to hear those words in my sleep. The 5th grade from Daniels Farm had a picnic at the park today, so we got the joy and privilege of watching them swim in the freezing cold for 4 hours. My throat is a little sore from all the yelling. Most of the kids were nice though, so it wasn't all that bad. Plus they had enough parents\teachers watching them which is always nice. After they cleared out Kristy and I played cards for an hour before the next people showed up. By the time they left it was time for me to go home for the day. I'm so glad my day off is tomorrow. I'm planning on dropping Cami off and getting some stuff done. I talked with Laurel at training the other night and she wants me to come in to the zoo and meet one of her interns. I'm pretty sure she's trying to set us up. He's 27 and used to be a kindergarten teacher but since having traveled the world doing ecotourism, wants to get into conservation. I figure it can't hurt to go meet him since there's not exactly a plethora of availible guys around here. I've decided to make a list of places that I really want to visit (beside Tz, of course), so here they are (in no particular order):

1) South Africa
2) Costa Rica
3) Brazil
4) Maldives
5) Fiji
6) New Zealand
7) Australia
8) Thailand
9) Switzerland
10)Egypt

I think that's probably enough for now. I'm sure I'll think of some more as the days go by (and as I keep getting new National Geographics...)
Tonight after dinner Mom and I went over to Great Hollow so I could get some pictures with my camera. It was really great and I think I'll be happy when I get the film developed. I'm hoping to use some of them when I redecorate my room. The only down side was that I found a deer tick in one of my lens cases. I really do not want to get Lyme's disease. I didn't have any on me though. When we got home I went out and played with Carly for a little bit. I love that dog. I'll have to get some pictures of her at some point this summer, maybe when I babysit for her and the 6 hampsters. Did I mention I love my neighbors? I got to talk with Carissa for a bit today and my grandfather and aunt. Overall it was a pretty sweet day. Oh, and I got to work with Lauren and Kristen which always helps out. And, I found out that my cousin is going to have a baby sometime in November and I'm super excited about that. And, Big Y has strawberries buy one get two free. Like I said, this was a great day. I could go on, but I think I need to get to bed...

g'night!

Long days...

So I finally got around to getting this thing up and running. Now we'll see how much I actually post on it. I had my first 8 hour shift at work today, not so much fun. A grand total of zero people came all day. I ended up sweeping the parking lot, basketball courts and tennis courts. Hmm, and I thought I was hired to be a lifeguard. Oh well. The rest of the day I pretty much got paid to play cards and lay in the sun...quite a nice perk. It seems like no one can work besides me, Cami, Kristy and Eric. I've seen more of them in the past few days then I care to think about (except for Cami of course). There was a really sweet albino rock pidgeon that came to the fountain, so that was exciting. It almost beat watching 10 male bees fight it out to breed with the queen bee. The winner took advantage of his prize only to get dive bombed by the other bees as soon as he finished. Like I said earlier, its been pretty slow at the pool. Tomorrow there's a school picnic, yuck. I'm not working the late shift though, so I'll be home by four which is nice. I'll have to practice being mean tonight so I'll be ready for tomorrow. I've discovered I can be pretty mean when I need to...who knew? I'm looking forward to my day off on Friday. Its only been one week since work started and I'm already getting worn out...not a good sign. I feel so old compared to all the other guards working right now. I can't wait to work with Dan, Lisa, and Steph. We have so much fun together. Welp, my nose is running (thanks to my allergies) and I should probably get to bed so I can wake up tomorrow, so this'll be the end of this post.

g'night all...