I'm wearing a zoo!

This summer, my family spent a week at a lovely beach in Maine for our summer vacation (that's right- no camping this year). It was a week or so before my birthday, so while we were there I bought myself a birthday gift: a (knockoff) Pandora bracelet, and a lobster charm (I was in Maine). I named him Rex.

For our anniversary in October, Jonathan gave me an owl charm. He loves owls, especially the metal one in the original Clash of the Titans, Bubo. Apparently he liked having an easy gift choice, because for Christmas, he gave me a rotund giraffe (Pudge).

And now I'm wearing a zoo.

He also surprised me by asking if I'd go spend a few days with him and his family in New York once the semester ends. On Friday. Pictures will follow :)

I may or may not have a love affair with sticky notes

I am seriously in love with sticky notes. I think they may be the best thing ever. 90% of my organization and planning is backed entirely by sticky notes. Even though I just made that number up. It's probably more than that. I use them for everything- bookmarking readings in my textbooks, writing down quick lists, notes to myself or to Ms. Tiffany, and to keep myself on track for finals week. But first you'll have to get through the weekend.

Friday
Friday was Titans Take on Hunger, a charity event put on by USRH's Foods Committee and Reeve Union Board (RUB).


Instead of offering the multiple choices Blackhawk Commons usually has for lunch, only soup, salad, cheese pizza, and make your own sandwiches were offered. All of the money saved by doing this was donated to a local food pantry instead.

Saturday
Best Saturday ever. Period. First, I went on a sleigh ride through a nature preserve with my Aunt Anne, Uncle Chris, and W. We saw all kinds of cool animals, like albino deer, buffalo, elk, foxes, raccoons, and a skunk.


W enjoying the sleigh ride. We learned all kinds off cool facts about the animals. Like that skunks and raccoons like cookies.


You know who else likes cookies? Everyone. Which is why we ended up baking over 100 of them Saturday afternoon. That should hold me over through finals!

Sunday
Before coming back to school on Sunday, I played a few rounds of hide and seek with W. He's truly a master of disguise.


Or, he would be if he didn't always hide in the same spot.

Monday
And here's where my love of sticky notes comes in. Keeping me on track to the final two weeks of before break. There's for each of my classes (though math and geology are combined since they require basically the same things), USRH, meetings for the next two weeks, and important dates.


Yes, I am definitely in love with them.

Botanical Gardens

One of the things I really like about living around Madison is the number of free things there are to do. Like visiting Olbirch Botanical Gardens, which Jon and I did this afternoon.


We started out in the sunken garden, a traditional English type of garden.


Then we ran into these lovely, huge hibiscus flowers.


When we reached this bridge, I knew we were getting close to my favorite part of the gardens.


The Thai Pavilion! It's one of only four of these pavilions located outside of Thailand, which definitely makes it something worth seeing.


Detail of the inside of the pavilion. You're not supposed to touch it all, since the gold leaf is actually thinner than paper and the oils from your hands can damage it. It's really intricately patterned, and absolutely gorgeous to see.


Later, we got to the tower-type construct they have there, which had this lovely view of some of the grounds.


The Jon found a sun dial, but couldn't really figure it out. Apparently the sun is an hour behind?


I liked the conservatory, where they keep a lot of tropical plants. Look at how HUGE those leaves are! They're almost as big as I am!


We also found some quails, which apparently help keep invasive bugs out of the conservatory. I thought they were just there to look cute and be kinda funny.

Week W

I spent the majority of this week watching my little cousin, W. Here's how it went:

Sunday
I got there Sunday evening, so we had dinner and then W went to bed. And I kind of forgot to take a picture until after that. But once he was in bed, I started watching the BBC/A&E adaption of Pride and Prejudice.


I must say, it was VASTLY superior to the newer film version with Keira Knightly and Adrian Brody. Colin Firth was an absolutely wonderful Darcy, and the entire thing was just so much more in tune with the novel. Naturally, I loved it :)

Monday
Aunt Anne had a hair cut, so W and I got some quality time to play "Sunny Day"


Sunny Day being W-speak for Sesame Street. I was Mr. Hooper. And Elmo. Dub was anyone he wanted to be at the time. lol

Tuesday
Tuesday was a bit of a free day, since Anne didn't have any plans and therefore didn't really need a sitter. We decided to spend the day at the Milwaukee Zoo, and ended up having a blast.


A wild W in his natural habitat- anywhere he can be having fun!


We also rode the zoo train, which was pretty awesome.


However, I think we had the most fun in the petting zoo. W attracted goats like nothing else. At first they kind of overwhelmed him, but then he (kind of) got the hang of feeding them and got more used to them.

Wednesday
Wednesday, W found my giraffe, and dragged him everywhere. He even got a diaper for a little while.


Here they are sharing a delicious afternoon snack of milk and cookies.

Thursday
W was a popular little guy on Thursday- he made and received several calls from Uncle Jim, Nicky, and Sophie.


I doubt any of them are aware of this, however, as he was using a disconnected phone.

Friday
Yesterday I babysat Evan and Tyler instead of William, then drove up to school to pick up Jon for the weekend, since campus is doing weird stuff this weekend.


Attempt number two of us trying to get a picture together. I think we're getting better at it!

Whatsit Wednesday

Ok, I stole the title from the Daily Squee, but it's very fitting. I think so, anyway. Now, onto the whatsit!


Here's what we know about the whatsit:
-It's a puppet
-It's from the Milwaukee Zoo
-It's supposed to be a giraffe.

Here's what we suspect about the whatsit:
-It's a bunny disguised as a giraffe, OR
-It's a giraffebunny

What do you think? Giraffe? Bunny in disguise? Giraffebunny hybrid? Or just really cute?

More W, More Zoo

Aunt Anne and W came to visit again today. We couldn't decide whether we wanted to go to the Children's Museum, the zoo, or the botanical gardens, so we asked W and the zoo was a clear winner. First, though, we stopped by DSW to look for some shoes.


The little man had fun trying on shoes that were much too big for him, climbing on the shelves, and running down the aisles.


At the zoo, we took a ride on the train. It was kind of a short ride, but I think that once they finish some of the construction they've got going on right now, it will be extended through more of the zoo.


This guy was the most exciting animal today. Most of the time, he's hiding somewhere back in the trees and you can barely see him, but today he was out prowling around the entire exhibit. We actually saw him a couple times as we checked out the animals around him. It was very cool.

Words, words, words.

You know how sometimes people get songs stuck in their heads? Well, I get words stuck in my head, too. Yesterday, it was the word "reticulated." I don't know why. I don't know how. It just popped in there. I knew I had heard it before, but not where or in relation to what. I don't know the definition of the word. Just the word, and a faint idea that it was somehow related to animals. So I googled it, and found this:


I figured I must have spent enough time at the zoo this summer that at some point or other, I read a sign in the reptile house or near the giraffes. So I googled to find out what kind of pythons and giraffes the zoo has. The first thing I found? No reticulated pythons. Just a green tree python. So that's out. But they do have reticulated giraffes!


It took Jon and I close to an hour to figure out where the word came from. That's probably kind of sad, but it did keep us occupied and our minds off the heat for awhile.

(ok, this picture is not from yesterday- it's from the weekend we went to the zoo with W, back in the Dub Day post. But the screenshot is from the conversation yesterday.)

Penguins

Ok, yesterday's picture is actually a screenshot from one of the websites I was at, because I thought it was funny.


I was trying to check out the Pibgorn comics on GoComics, and they were having some technical difficulties. Apparently, penguins were behind it. Crazy penguins in fruit hats!

More African Mammals

You've seen my hippos, and I just posted about the giraffes at the zoo last week. So now it's time for elephants!


Apparently, when I was very small, one of my uncles gave me these. Soph has a little one, too (but this was way before Bren). I didn't actually know about them for a long time, but we found them when we were unpacking some boxes several years ago. Since then, they've graced the top of my jewelry box and added to my little collection of creatures :)

Thunderstorms

We have had a TON of storms the last few days. Not to make excuses for my lack of updates, but it's meant a lot of internet outages. Monday and Tuesday pretty much both looked like this:


The only reason there's any light at all in that picture is because there was so much lightening. Since Tuesday was basically a repeat of Monday, I didn't take a picture. Instead, I drew a happy flamingo enjoying the sunshine wherever it is that flamingoes live. Because another storm picture would be depressing.


Yay flamingo!

Early Zoo Post

My sisters and I went to the zoo today, and ended up taking over 100 pictures while we were there. We got pretty excited. So here are some of the cool things we found:


An orangutan handprint. Apparently, they have really huge, stretched out hands.


One of my favorite pictures from today. I absolutely love the giraffes. They're my favorite animal to see at the zoo.


My favorite picture of me at the zoo, of course, also features one of the giraffes. And the back of my head. I wasn't overly photogenic today.

Bonus video, because some of the animals were being cute and I remembered I could record them.

Road trip!

It's close enough to tomorrow to post today's pictures. Also because it's 11:10pm and I don't feel like going to bed. Today, Jon, Soph, and I went on an epic road trip! We had to move Jon back to campus before he moves into his apartment tomorrow. Of course, there are some things a road trip cannot be without:

-Physical abuse (yellow one! ouch! black one! ow! green one! stop hitting me!)
-Music
-Stupid jokes (pee!)
-Funyuns
-Delicious beverages


-Spotting wildlife (we saw a live raccoon, a deer, lots of cows, some horses, and Max, our local crane/heron/wetland bird)


We were also lucky enough to have dinner with our good friend Ben, at a very classy establishment :)