its a bird...its a plane...its a bushbaby?

This past week was pretty much like every other week, walking animals is always on our list of things to do and it was the last Friday that we were closed of the season. We took all three cougars for a walk and i walked my baby Ashkii. What a good boy he was!
He only freaked out a few times, it wasnt too bad except when we were trying to take pictures and he pulled me all over a grassy hill, got some nice bruises from that one!

This is most of the cougar trainers. We took some time to pose as group on the front stage- and oh my goodness we actually got a picture of all of us looking right at the camera!

One of the coolest parts of my job is training actual behaviors and show routines. This is a six month old bushbaby Java. He is such a cutie pie and so young but I am working on getting him to be able to do some behaviors for our Wildlife Theater Show! We start with easy things for the babies and bushbabies can actually jump over 20 feet in the wild! Java here started with just three or four feet at a time and by the end of the day i was getting him to go about ten feet! This is him getting all geared up to jump!

And here he is flying through the air! I think its pretty cool!

All of this working with animals there are always some very horrible accidents. Some of you might have heard about the grizzly that killed his trainer last week. Sadly it was a horrible accident and as life has it such a small world we live in. The bear that was involved in the accident was a bear that was born at bear world where i used to work. I worked there with his dad and brother and sister which are great bears as bears go! That bear went to Cat Tales where i went to school then on to Randy Millers predators in action in southern california. Now one of the students i managed works there and was a back up during the attack. Thankfully she was not hurt but my thoughts and prayers go out to her as well as Randy and Stephan Millers family. And to all of you i would appriciate your prayers in my daily work routine as well. Even when all safety precautions are taken accidents still can happen in this line of work!

On a happier note I would like to say huge CONGRATS to Corey Lynch, one of my closest childhood friends Cissies husband who was drafted by the Bengals! We wish you absolutely the best and im excited to wear a Lynch jersey someday! Love you guys!

sometimes you need to take a break from picking up poop and put on a dress!

So my lovely friend Abby had a bithday this past week. She decided to do something unheard of for animal people and actually have people dress up:) It was so strange to see all of my work friends walking around in dresses and heals and not head to toe in kahki smelling of various animals:) They all clean up so nice!




This is me and the birthday girl herself- Abby~

hanging out with some of my coworkers.... I guess David needed a good place to lay down!

One of my best buddies here in the bay area, the lovely Angela, and Captain Lee peeking out fron the back!

And my handsome husband. The ladies just cant stay away from him, but really can you blame them?

strictly work...

Just some photos of the last week or so at work.... its a tough job but someone has to do it!



Walking the cubbies, that arent so little anymore. This is me and a tiger trainer Ruben:) with Takoda and Yazhi

Odin the famous diving white tiger:)

hangihg with the bushbabys Mo and Java

Mara in front of the dolphin tank:) shes a pretty girl!

VIP seats for a great view of Shouka and Merlin:)

Visit from the Robisons!

So we got to have our wonderful Idaho family come and spend some time with us this past week. It was such a great time to see them. We swam with dolphins, played in the city and ate lots of great food:) We havent see them since we moved to California almost two years ago. They are such great people and took such good care of us when we lived in Rexburg! We love you guys!

Jacobs 24th birthday!

What a fun/interesting last few days we have had!


Today was Jacobs 24th birthday but we actually started celebrating on Monday:) Jacob is not so into the whole birthday thing ("im turning 24 not 4" in his words) anyone that knows me knows that i am always up for a celebration! As I look back at the past few days i just have to laugh at how things turn out...

All the madness started a few days ago after we finished our week of work and both of us were ready to enjoy our nice long three day weekend together! Monday we went to Sonoma Valley and enjoyed the beautiful gardens and yummy cheese factory:) it was a lovely day for the most part and we had a nice day together.

Tuesday was a little bit more exciting. We decided to go a giants game, thats what Jacob really wanted to do for his birthday so we got some cheap tickets and went in to the city to enjoy the day. as it would turn out it ended up being very windy and very cold! We tried to walk to chinatown and check that all out but we ended up getting a bit turned around so decided to head to the stadium instead. Turns out its a good thing that we did, if anyone reads the newspaper they were bringing in the olympic torch through san francisco today and i guess there were hundreds of angry protesters that got a head start on the torch! Glad we didnt get in the middleof that! So we shared some snuggles in the car and bundled up to head to our game.
AT&T park is huge and beautiful. What a cool stadium, one side of it is directly up against the bay so you can see out into the ocean and last year when Bonds was breaking the record there would be kayaks all over in front of the stadium trying to catch homerun balls:) How fun, dont even get me started on Barry Bonds though... thats a whole other topic!

There was lots of good advice throughout the stadium:)

We couldnt believe how cold it was! Oh goodness we were all bundled up with winter coats and blankets! we never thought we would go to a baseball game in California and freeze! I guess next weekend its suppossed to be in the 80s.... of course it is!

Jacob in front of the field... They ended up winning 3-2 against the Padres. It even went into the 11th inning. Unfortunately the bitter cold drove us home before that:(

So today was the actual birthday. We went to Fairfield to continue the house seach and looked at a few places. Nothing too spectacular today but its always good to look! We met a group of our friends at Red Robin for some dinner. Kelly and Carissa got jacob some good birthday stuff:)

He even had to wear a pin that said "Happy Birthday to Me!" and he let the red robin people sing to him without getting too angry. Our night finished unfortunately with a flat tire... but i guess thats how it goes sometimes. Now we are home and ready to head back to work for another week:)

Work Work Work...

So it seems as though its what i do... its how i spend so much of my life right now... working. I guess I cant complain too much i do get to play with animals for part of my day, but oh my goodness it can be exhausting. Its hard to explain to someone in the non animal how irritating it is to have a coati that wont do her behaviors because she just wants to cuddle, or a fruit bat that will only work when he feels like it. I took some time this weekend to hang out with our mexican porcupine Cholla. This little girl only weighs five pounds but is covered in 20 thousand needle sharp quills!

This is Burma, she is a 22 year old Giant Indian Fruit Bat. She can be such a grouch sometimes but pretty cute at other times:)

My spoiled rotten Coati Mya. Oh she can be so difficult sometimes but i love the little monster to death! And yes, she is sticking her nose up my nose in this picture that nose goes everywhere and you cant help but get it in your nose and ears when you have her out.

Jacob finally got to meet her this past weekend, he thought she was the coolest ever since she was a tiny little baby!

Other than the animal things going on in my life, we are still on the search for a house. Waiting is such an irritating process! My goodness, i just want a decision but we are trying to be patient. I am so excited to here my sisters are going to be coming this fall, Sonnet for sure and Menda i hope with all my heart you will be here too, there is plenty of sushi, indian food and fondue to be shared with you:) Its going to be such a busy summer, Jacob has a birthday in just 8 days, Robisons from Idaho come on the 11th if April, Becky comes in May and then the family starts their visits in June! Well I am off to head towards bed, i just finished my weekend which went by WAY too fast and now its back to work... and to my crazy little animals!