Us Cotter Kids:)

Jacobs family came to visit this week.... We had some fun being tourists in Napa Valley



Cristin and I at V. Sattui
Jacob, Me, Cristin and Caleb

Domaine Chandon, kisses for my honey

Jacob and I shared a hug in the sun.... I love him so much, what an amazing man i married!

Happy Birthday to ME!

So really these are some photos over the last week or so with my birthday pictures at the end... but hey it works

This is a group of us swimming in the tiger island pool. They cleaned the whole thing out this past week and it happenned to be 104 degrees that day so we decided to take a dip in the pool and do some under water tiger poses. For anyone that hasnt seen the show the tigers dive under water to grab pieces of meat and push right up against the window... just like this:)

This is one of my last photos with Mara, sadly she wont be around much longer so a few days ago we took her out for a long walk and cart ride... she really enjoyed herself!

Hanging out with Kong one of the tamaduas... showing off that prehensile tail!

These are the two tamanduas kong and kamala, they found themselves a nice little sunny spot and decided to take a little nap:) They were so cute and cuddled there for such a long time!

So here we are the actual birthday! I had to go into work at 6 in the morning for a radio appearance so i was half way done by the time everyone else got in. Kimberly made me a dirt cake... yummmmmm the best! I was so sugared out by the end of the day! Kim brought the dirt cake, Eric got me pie, Jennifer made me a cheesecake and Lynette brought me a peach cobbler and when i got home Jacob had an ice cream cake.....it was good stuff but i did not feel good by the end of the day!

Here I am posing with Jordan one of our servals. he didnt cooperate very well!

some of my friends from work all went to Olive Garden for my birthday. This is Angela and Ricky, she is one of my best buddies here in Cali!

Ruben made me this shirt for my birthday- if you cant see it it has Erics face on it, its sort of an inside joke but its pretty hilarious... well Eric didnt think so:)

So that was in my 24th birthday and now its over:( Jacobs family comes this week so it will be great to see them! Angela and I are having a double birthday get together in a few weeks so i guess i can keep celebrating right:)

A Visit from my best friend!

Yay for the month of May! It has been an absolutely fabulous month so far, and yes im still like a 5 year old child, i get so excited for my birthday and I chose to celebrate it all month long! So this past week my absolute best friend in the entire world came to visit me and it was oh so much fun! Some of you might remember her, she was in my wedding her name is Becky:) Becky and I went to Grace together so we have known eachother since Junior year and we were always together when i lived in Anchorage. Becky lives in Virgina now and is a barn manager where she works with horses. Because of the distance we have only spent about a week together in the last 4 years, a few days at my wedding and a few days at Amys wedding two years ago. Needless to say there is nothing better than being with a great friend, and we both were so in need of some time together!
This is in Napa Valley, we went and did some sight seeing, its fun to be a tourist when people come to visit!

Becky loved the anteaters so I got to do a meet and greet with her and Kong after a show:)

One night we went to Monkey Buisness it is a company owned by kevin Keith. He has different types of monkeys and other animals he does a show with. He is like the only guy in the US that works a full grown uncut male baboon its pretty scary!this is Mickey one of his baboons. It was so crazy having a baboon on my head! You cant tell in this picture but Mickey likes to "play bongos" on your head, so i ended up with some pretty good bruises from where he hit me:)

We of course played at the park and took pictures with a bunch of the different animals. This is us posing with Shouka the killer whale.

This is the handsome dolphin Merlin:)

Sorry you can see down my shirt here a bit:( that was not on purpose but i love this picture. This is Sivuqaq he is our big male walrus at the park, the one that was in the movie 50 first dates with Adam sandler. He is so huge it is absolutely amazing and when he gives you a kiss it feels like a giant suction cup that is going to take your cheek completely off!

Of course we also have the looney Tunes Characters. Heres Marvin:)

On Beckys last day we went to the City and played all day. Here we are in our matching shirts in front of Lombard street. the crookidest street in the world!

I had to take a minute to give my honey a smooch on Pier 39:)

And here we are, one last picture with the city in the background as the sun was setting on the bay! It was such a great time with Becky, i had so much fun and cant wait to see her again! And for those of you counting down with me.... Only 10 more days until my birthday:)

dolphin kisses and animal paintings

This past week we did some animal paintings. We attempted Mya the Coati. The paintings turned out pretty cute but I think I ended up with more paint on me than the canvas did!

Here she is taking a little rest from her tough job as an artist!

Look at those beautiful paintings:)

Shouka our killer whale also made me a painting. It was pretty awesome, obviouslly she doesnt have feet to walk on a canvas so she is actually trained to hold the brush in her mouth and actually paint with it:) it was really awesome to watch!

Here it is all finished, i think she did a fabulous job!

After we were done with that we took a little break to hang out with Merlin the dolphin:)

and what visit with a dolphin is complete without a kiss:)

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:)