Travel

Our Disney Honeymoon

July 11, 2011 by Jess Leave a Comment

Finally I’m just getting around to posting some pictures of our honeymoon. We got to go to sunny (and very hot & humid) Florida to Disney World! So awesome!!!! Just thinking back on all the fantastic memories brings a smile to my face.

We stayed right on Disney property at the Boardwalk Hotel. Gorgeous! We had a suite and it looked right out at the boardwalk and we could see the Epcot spaceship earth in the distance. It was a great location for us too cause we were about halfway between Hollywood Studios and Epcot center which were both in walking distance. Oh and we could see the Epcot fireworks from our patio which was a nice treat on those night that we were in our suite at 9:30pm.

Quick trip re-cap. We left Los Angeles Friday night for our night flight at 9:30pm. After some delays, of course, we finally got underway and I planned to sleep the entire trip, but yeah, that didn’t happen. It was the most boring flight ever. I had a magazine that I read cover to cover in the first hour, then all I had to read was the Skymall magazine that I found in the pocket of the seat in front of me. (however, I did find a very cool gadget in there to get dogs to stop barking in the house). So basically I was awake the entire night, but Steve managed to get a bit of sleep so that was nice for him. We arrived in Orlando at 6:30am. Our luggage was set to meet us at the hotel – a great service by Disney! So we didn’t have to worry about that, so we just found our way to the Disney’s Magical Express and got on the bus to our resort. We arrived at the resort by 7:30 am and we couldn’t get our room until later but they said they’d text us when our room was ready. Text us. How great is technology? So off we go to Hollywood Studios. 2 reasons for this. 1. it was already open and some of the parks didn’t open until later, plus we could just walk right over there. 2. It was Star Wars Weekend. That’s right, STAR WARS weekend. Steve is the biggest Star Wars freak FAN that I know. So of course we had to go there, and the brand new Star Tours ride had just opened the previous day. The park was crazy busy of course but we bolted to Star Tours to get fast passes. It wasn’t even 8am yet and our fast passes weren’t good until 1pm. It was super hot too so we just walked around, went in and out of stores to take advantage of air conditioning, and had an early lunch. I was so tired from not having had any sleep yet. We managed to go on a few rides like the backlot tour (which was not as good as I remembered it from years ago) and the Great Movie Ride. Then right as we were in the line for Star Tours, I got the text that our room was ready! yay! I do have to say that the new Star Tours ride is pretty awesome, it’s a HUGE improvement from the old one! During our week there, we ended up going on it about 8 times. For the special weekend they had another Star Wars store set up with exclusive merchandise and character interactions/ autographs, that sort of thing. There were Storm Troopers everywhere, lol. Steve did get a new light saber, and a Jedi robe – which I might add, that he wore when we went back to Hollywood studios a couple nights later.

stevejedi — Steve in his Jedi robe with light saber. Yep, that’s my husband. Aren’t you jealous?

So we spent the week going from one park to another, usually starting our day very early, coming back to the hotel in the afternoon to get out of the extreme heat, then going out again at night. It was tons of fun, we had a blast! First time we got to spend time away together – ALONE! Imagine that?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Yep we wore our “Just Married” pins, lol!

We spent one day at Blizzard Beach Water Park and that was awesome! We both loved the lazy river and spent most of our time floating around the park in that.

The Magic Kingdom itself was pretty much how I remembered it from the last time I was there, when I was 12. Not a whole lot of changes, same with Epcot.

Animal Kingdom wasn’t around then so that was all new for me and I loved it. We got there super early and they let Resort guests in an hour before the park actually opens. So we got to go on all the rides before there were lineups! The Dinosaur ride and Everest were so much fun! Then we got to go on a 3 hour VIP Safari tour that Steve’s mom had heard about and booked for us. That was really cool, and they gave us an awesome lunch too – in this private hut in the middle of their Safari. Rhinos running close by, giraffes grazing at the trees a little ways away, so cool! There was only 9 of us in the group and we got to go over neat suspension bridges with crocodiles underneath, cool stuff like that.

Let’s see, what else? Oh we ate at the top of the Contemporary Hotel one night in the California Grill. Absolutely amazing! We had one of the best tables in the house with an incredible view of the Magic Kingdom and we watched their firework show from our table.

One night we went to see the Dinner show: The Hoop Dee Doo at Fort Wilderness Resort. My parents took us there when I was little and I vaguely remember it. We went and I was a bit worried Steve wouldn’t like it all that much but he LOVED it! All the corny jokes they told and everything! They made us get up and dance in front of everyone cause we were the only couple that admitted we were on our honeymoon. HAHA! Steve was so embarrassed when I put my hand up when they asked if anyone was celebrating. It was great, so I recommend it for anyone who is going to Disney World.

We also spent a day at Universal Studios. The Harry Potter exhibit was amazing, they really did an outstanding job on that! I hadn’t even read any of the books or seen the movies when we went and I still loved it! The ride that they had in the Hogwarts castle was incredible. Definitely the best ride I’ve EVER gone on, anywhere! It’s so hard to describe it too, it was thrilling, scary, just awesome all around! As soon as we got off I begged Steve to go get in line with me again! The funny thing is ever since I got to go on that ride and see the little village and everything from the movie, I have been interested in it. Now Steve and I are watching the movies and we want to start reading the books!

So our honeymoon was amazing. Being able to spend time with my best friend all alone for an entire week made me fall even more in love with him.

Once we returned to LA, the real craziness began. We had a day and a half to pack up all our stuff, clean the house and leave for our long drive across the country to Chicago. We rented a big U-Haul truck and we just managed to get all our stuff into it. Steve drove that and I drove the SUV that contained our suitcases and most of the pets. Steve actually had to take one of the rats, and all the reptiles in the cab of the truck with him. I had the 3 dogs, 4 guinea pigs and 5 rats with me. Oh and the cockroach colony, can’t forget them. What a drive it was. I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored. I burned 6 new mixed CD’s and had listened to them all before we even got to Arizona! I had the GPS with me so I had to lead the way and Steve drove the truck behind me. We stopped in Arizona at a Best Western (they allow pets!) to sleep for 6 hours, then continued on our way. Our next stop for the night was just over the New Mexico border in Texas after a terrifying detour through the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. Seriously, I thought some weird kid with a banjo was going to jump out in the road in front of us and we’d be in the middle of “Deliverance.” It was the freakiest road and of course no lights so it was pitch black except for the headlights. And there was a giant cemetery beside the road for a ways too. That was reassuring.

Our third night was in Springfield, Missouri where I found my new favorite ice cream place of all time. Andy’s. I have been craving it ever since! There are some in Illinois but the closest is almost an hour away from us 🙁 boo

We finally made it to Chicago, hot, tired, dying to get out of the vehicles. It was around dinner time and we arrived at our new apartment complex only an hour before the office closed for the night. We got our keys and went over to our new apartment….to find it was not at all like the photos we had seen. Of course not, the photos we had seen were from the MODEL unit. Silly us. Our unit looked like a dungeon. No joke. The walls were made of cinderblock! One of the closet door was painted shut and we couldn’t open it. The bathroom door wasn’t even a full size door – width wise I mean. It was so narrow, that if I was any larger than what I am, I would not be able to walk through it without my hips touching the door frame! And you had to go into the bathroom, close the door completely before you could even get to the sink and toilet – it was the tiniest bathroom I’ve ever seen to have a toilet, sink and tub in it! The mirror was like 6 inches by 6 inches, haha! Oh nightmare. There were a ton of other problems too with it that I won’t go into detail but it was all just so awful that it was everything I could do not to burst into tears. Steve was livid, so livid that he could barely talk to the people in the office when we marched back over there. They said we could possibly move into another unit but it wouldn’t be ready for a few days, but we could stay in the current place until then. ugh. Of course we didn’t want to unpack anything, so we slept on the hard floor for the next 2 nights until the other unit was available. We also started work the next morning so we had to find a doggy daycare for the dogs real quick. It worked out though, and we like our new place so much better then the other place, it’s bigger too which is nice. The weather is something that I’m having a hard time adjusting to though. It’s been so hot and humid and humidity is not something I’ve ever had to deal with for more than a week while on vacation. We both work outside during the day too at an animal facility so we can’t escape the heat/humidity.

But we’re here, in CHICAGO!!!! I never imagined I would ever live in Chicago but here I am! 🙂 I can’t wait to actually explore the city some more. If anyone knows of some must see places in Chicago, let me know. One day I’ll make it to Andy’s Frozen Custard, one day.

Bring on the desserts!!!

January 29, 2011 by Jess Leave a Comment

Recently someone pointed out to me that stressed spelled backwards is desserts. How did I not notice this before? How appropriate since this is quite a stressful time right now AND I have a love of everything sweet.

It’s been months since I’ve last updated this blog, it really is hard to find the time. Tons of stuff has happened, and once again, both sad and wonderful things. Rewind to September…… I last posted after the beautiful Golden Eagle, Laramie, passed away. Still sad about that, and I still think about her every time I walk by her perches and her mew. A new semester started though and I got assigned to 2 more animals: Elliott the pygmy dairy goat and Hudson the beaver. I had so much fun with both these guys! They were both in a lot of shows and Elliott just loved being on stage, it was hard to get him to leave it actually. Walking with Elliott around the zoo became a highlight of my day, I just love him to bits. One of our classes was specifically to teach us how to do Outreach (Animal shows in various places like schools), and I really enjoyed this class. Each week we got to go to a different place with some of the animals and do shows. We went to the Los Angeles Center for Blind Children one week and we took Hudson (the beaver) to be in that show. (We let the kids touch him which was really cool). Before it was his turn to be inside the classroom, we let him walk around the lawn out front but he didn’t want to go inside after that. I had to pick him up and carry him inside (he is a heavy 40 pound awkward guy to carry), and just as we entered the hallway he peed and his tail started whipping around in a circle, spraying pee everywhere. And I mean everywhere. The walls were covered, one of my co-trainers who was in front of me got sprayed all up the back of her shirt, and my other co-trainer who was beside me got it all over her face. I got it in my mouth, yes lovely, I now know what beaver pee tastes like. But this is what happens when you work with animals, and because we were in a show we had to smile and just deal with it. It was a good 30 minutes before any of us were able to go rinse our hands/faces/mouth out. Good times.

In September we went to a Reptile show in Anaheim and we returned home with a few new little roommates: a 2 month old Eastern Box Turtle (Shelldon), a 3 month old Bearded Dragon (Kaia), and a Crocodile Skink (Raze). Yep, we’re all into the reptiles now. Oh and how could I forget, also at that show we got 2 adorable baby hairless rats. Yes they are odd looking, just like ginormous pinkies, but they are so sweet. We got 2 sisters, “Fuzzle” and “Evie”.

b-shelldon — So tiny, just a bit bigger than a quarter

b-rat — Angus with one of the hairless rats

b-angusandpoonga — Angus with the baby piggy

b-stanley — Angus with Stanley on his back

In October Steve’s parents and brother came to visit from Chicago so we got to spend time with them and that was a lot of fun. Right after that our entire 2nd year class went on a week long field trip up north. It was such a great time and we went to lots of awesome places: San Francisco Zoo, UC Davis Vet School, Monteray Bay Aquarium, Guide Dogs for the Blind, Happy Hollow Zoo, Discovery Kingdom….so much fun.

At the end of October we brought home another guinea pig that we fell in love with, a Texel kind (the same kind Fro was) with the fuzzy fuzzy hair. We named her WeeChee (after an Ewok cause she looks like one). Then a week later we discovered that one of our other piggies was pregnant. A little surprise there as we didn’t know. She had 3 adorable babies a week later. 3 weeks after that little WeeChee really surprised us as one morning we found another baby in the cage and it turned out to be hers! We didn’t know she was pregnant either and must have gotten pregnant at the pet store. She only had one baby, a little girl (Poonga), and she was a huge baby!

b-pigs — Angus and Zoey with the baby pigs

b-poonga — WeeChee with her baby, Poonga. The baby was born this day – she is huge!!

Yes, there were many surprises in November, it was a great month. The biggest and most exciting surprise of all was when Steve took me out for our one year anniversary and proposed. He did it in such a hilarious way too, I couldn’t imagine a better proposal! It’s not corny like a ring stuck in a dessert or anything like that. It was unique and funny and totally him! Thinking about it still makes me laugh… and smile, because that is our life together, we make each other laugh and smile every single day. So of course I said yes! We ended the evening with dinner at our favorite restaurant and the next day we spent it at Disneyland (which was where we had our first date). Something very cool that we got to do at Disneyland was have lunch at the very exclusive Club 33. It was AMAZING. The food, the service, the ambiance, all of it. We were celebrating 3 things, our anniversary, our engagement and my birthday. How many people get to have their 33rd birthday at Club 33? 🙂 Very very cool.

A few days later my mom came to visit! It was such a great week! She came to the zoo on Saturday and unfortunately the weather was crappy so all the animal shows had to be indoors, but she watched them all and I took her for a tour to show her all the other animals.

So yes an absolutely amazing week followed by a sad week. Bennie, one of the oldest animals at the zoo, the little almost hairless capuchin monkey, passed away in his sleep on Nov 27. He was about 38 years old. He had not been acting his regular self the few days leading up to his death. He did not want to come out of his heated bedroom box at all so we put his tray of food right inside for him and then had to clean his box while he was inside, which he was not thrilled about. On Nov 26, right before the zoo closed for the night, I went to check on Bennie one last time before we left. I handed him some treats which he took from me, and I put my palm out and he touched my hand with his for a brief second. I then said goodnight and goodbye to him and closed the door to his box. It was goodbye forever. : (

In the morning when I got to the zoo, the first thing I did was head to Bennie’s cage. I had to be in a show with Elliott the goat in 15 minutes but I brought a special treat in for Bennie and I wanted to give it to him first. Steve backed me up and I went into Bennie’s cage, called to him like I always did so he knew it was me, and then I opened his box. I saw his little body curled up at the back of his box and I knew right away. I gasped and closed the box and turned around to Steve. I told him we need to call staff right now, that Bennie had died. Steve went and called the office and I went out onto the back road and saw my co-trainer (on Bennie) walking towards me. Suddenly I could hardly speak and tears were flowing down my cheeks. I managed to tell her what happened and we both went and waited in his cage for staff to come. I had gotten very attached to that little monkey. I knew he was special the moment I first saw him when I came for my meeting about getting into EATM 2 years ago. When I got to be a trainer on him, I fell in love with him. He had passed peacefully though in his sleep, holding a pumpkin seed in his little hand. The necropsy showed that he had possible heart issues and may have had a heart attack or a stroke. He did not have cancer or anything like that though, and they said he was nutritionally very healthy (even though he was super skinny!). I miss him so much. I look at his cage every time I pass and still expect to see him sitting on his shelf looking at me.

There have been so many great moments here at EATM, but one of my most favorites was during our Outreach class back in early October. It was an evening class and our instructor told us to each go out on the zoo and pick any animal we wanted, but to sit outside their cage for 10 minutes. Just to be quiet and sit there and think of 5 words to describe that animal. Now I love all the animals I’ve been lucky enough to train, but there has always been a special place for dear Bennie. I went straight to his cage, no question about which animal I wanted to sit with. The night was perfect too, it was warm and the sun was still out but was in that stage where it’s starting to set so the sky just looks amazing. It was around 7pm and the animals are not used to us being there that late. Bennie came out of his bedroom as he heard me come to his cage and he seemed so happy to see me. He was making his happy squeaking noises and he came right over to the bars as close as he could get to me. I put my fingers through the bars and he gripped my finger and then turned around so I could stroke his back. He then sat up and rubbed his hand in a circle above his stomach which is something he did to tell you he’s happy, and he smiled. Yes Bennie smiled, usually when monkeys smile they are threatening you, but Bennie smiles and it’s an actual smile. I didn’t want to leave when the 10 minutes was up, this was the best moment I ever had had with Bennie. Oh and my 5 words: Loyal, Happy, Wise, Special, and Sweet.

In December, we all left for a week to go on our first week of Projects. Projects is actually a class we take but we get to go to other facilities and work with them for that entire time. Some places that my classmates went to were: Dolphin Quest in Bermuda, Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, Las Vegas (Mirage Tigers, MGM Lions), various zoos and outreach facilities, etc. I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park to shadow the elephant trainers. However because of recent union rules, I wasn’t allowed to clean or do anything like that, so I spent my week mostly observing. It was very cool though, I learned a ton and I still want to be an elephant trainer.

After projects, I was home for 3 days then our entire class went on our next field trip for 5 days and back down to San Diego I went. We got to go to lots more cool places, see behind the scenes stuff and we got to touch a lot of cool animals too. We went to an elephant facility called Have Trunk Will Travel. (the elephant that’s in the upcoming movie “Water For Elephants” is from there. It’s an amazing place! We all got to help scrub one of the elephants during her bath, hehe. We went to some outreach places, a camel dairy farm, San Diego Zoo and Wildlife Park, and SeaWorld. We had a great time. I loved the area we stayed in as we were right on a beach and I went running along the beach in the mornings, it was fabulous!!

Back to Moorpark for a week and then the 2nd years started leaving for their vacation week. We each were given a week off, either the week before christmas, the week after, or the first week of January. Steve and I both got the week after Christmas, but we were able to leave on Christmas Day after we finished at the zoo. We flew to Chicago that night and arrived after midnight. Steve’s brothers picked us up at the airport but because it was snowing, the roads were terrible and it took us hours to get home! We celebrated Christmas the next day with Steve’s family and went out for a great dinner. We spent a couple days there with them in Chicago then we drove to Indianapolis to visit my family. How awesome it was that it worked out our families were only hours away from each other by car! My parents had just flown in the night before and were staying with my sister, my brother in law and my 2 nieces. Steve and I stayed with them all for the next few days before returning to Chicago. We arrived on my youngest nieces 6th birthday! I still can’t believe she’s 6 already! We got to celebrate Christmas again the next day. I hadn’t seen my sister & her family since before I started EATM. I hope that much time never passes again between visits cause it’s really hard. The girls are growing so fast, I don’t want to miss out on so much. But I know we will be seeing them again in May! The girls are going to be our flower girls in our wedding, and they will be such beautiful flower girls too! The cutest thing my oldest niece (she’s 8.5) said to Steve was when we were hugging them goodbye. She hugged him and said “I’m so excited you’re going to be my uncle!” and then she hugged him again. So sweet. He really liked the kids too and told me he hopes we have kids like them one day. : )

We had a great time with my family too and it was really hard for me to leave them. Only a few more months though and then I’ll be seeing them all again!

So now we’re in our last semester here in EATM, both exciting and sad. I got assigned to a few more animals for this semester but had to let go of Elliot and Hudson. Still have Rupee the porucpine, and now have Nick the miniature horse, Kiley the Military Macaw, Eleanor the vietnamese pot bellied pig and Rowdy the skunk. Another sad story here. a couple weeks ago poor Rowdy suddenly went downhill. He passed away of heart problems. : ( Laramie, Bennie and Rowdy. All incredible animals, I feel lucky to have had the chance to work with each of them. They are all missed.

b-rupee — Rupee the Indian Crested Porcupine

b-sunset — Love these California sunsets – this is my favorite time to go running

Now for the stress….. well let’s see. Graduation is in less than 4 months, Steve and I are getting married the day before we graduate!! We have NO idea where we are going to move to after we graduate. Are we staying in the USA, or moving to Canada? No idea!!! Planning a wedding is stressful by itself but trying to do it on breaks during classes and the zoo is really hard. I am excited for the future though. Excited to be marrying my best friend and excited for the many adventures we have in front of us.

A {bitter}sweet farewell…

July 12, 2009 by Jess 4 Comments

Friday night we had my going away party at our house – it was a lot of fun but also sad cause I won’t be seeing my friends for a long time. We were up really really late and got up really early so needless to say not much sleep at all. Yesterday we spent the entire day packing up the SUV with all my stuff and thankfully my parents came for the whole day – they were a huge help with everything, in fact there is no way we would have got it all done and left on time if they hadn’t been there. Jodi and Dasha came by for awhile in the afternoon as well and helped. I had to say goodbye to my parents, Jodi, Dasha and the cats (Gracie and Oscar) so there were many tears. Oh and to my house too as I will never see it again.

We left at 7 and headed straight to the border which amazingly we breezed right through it – literally. The border guard simply looked at our passports and my student visa papers and told us to have a great night. He didn’t even ask about the dogs or ask to look in any of the boxes or even look in the car. NOTHING. wow. We totally expected to be held up there for awhile. So off we went with the SUV absolutely full of stuff, including the 2 dogs and 1 very disgruntled guinea pig (Fro). He was not impressed at being in a dog crate and continuously banged his hanging toy against the side of the crate.

We drove all night, stopping only once at a rest stop to sleep for an hour, then we switched off so each other could sleep for a bit. We went through many energy drinks (they really work though!) and stopped for gas several times along the way. Finally arriving in San Francisco this morning around 11am. We were able to check into our hotel early, then met up with our friends Jen & Peter. (Jen was my best friend all through junior high and high school). It was great to see them again and we had a great time! Thai for lunch, long walks all around the city, Fisherman’s Wharf, Italian for dinner, and Ghirardelli’s ice cream. Oh and we took the dogs for a long walk through a beautiful park and to a dog park right on the beach. They loved it and even played in the waves – already true California dogs!

Tomorrow we continue south for another 6 or 7 hours crammed into the car, and then will arrive at my new home….

dogsbeach

pier39 ghir

Happy Canada Day!

July 1, 2009 by Jess 5 Comments

Well it’s just about over now, but still….Happy Canada Day to all the Canadians out there! : )

I am still in Victoria for another few days and wanted to post a couple pics of my cutie neices. They left yesterday and are safely back home in Indiana. I just can’t believe how fast they are growing up!

hannahjune09

madeleinejune09

girlsjune09

Today I went downtown Victoria to walk around with one of my very best friends (we’ve been friends since we were 5). I didn’t even think about the fact that it was Canada Day and would therefore be complete chaos downtown! Yep it sure was, but it was fun to walk around down there again, it’s been so very long since I’ve been there! If you know Victoria at all, you would probably agree with me that’s it’s one of the most beautiful places ever! Right down by the parliaments buildings and the Empress Hotel – is the inner harbor with the causeway and there were so many people out today celebrating. The weather was perfect too. I managed to get a few phots but they didn’t come out very good. I didn’t realize that my water bottle leaked in my purse – all over my camera!! It wouldn’t even work for a little while but slowly came back to life when it dried out (thank goodness!).

canadaday1

canadaday2

canadaday3

Missing the warm weather of the south…

March 29, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

Well, here I am – back home in cold Vancouver. ( Seriously now, is it true that it might snow here this week?? I sure hope that’s just a rumor!)

I really miss the warm southern california weather that I got to experience the last few days. I even have a bit of a sunburn/tan to prove it!

It was a quick trip but I actually saw a lot of places I’ve never seen before. Yesterday I had almost an entire day to myself before catching my 8:30pm flight home, so I decided to take myself on a scenic tour. Thank goodness for the GPS unit my dad loaned me – thanks Dad!!! That little gadget is now on my wishlist, I don’t know how I managed to live without it until now! And to think up until now, I have been using a map book in Vancouver! A MAP book!!!! Haha

I pretty much was able to find my way to wherever I needed to go, with no problems, with this helpful little mechanism. There were several times that I veered off course because I turned too soon or missed an exit, but then the GPS just says “recalculating” and gives another route! Awesome! I did hear “recalculating” a lot for the first little while, hehe.

Anyway, yesterday was my little excursion day. I started off in Simi Valley, then drove to Westlake Village, on through the very twisty (and freaky!) road through the hills to Malibu. It was a beautiful drive through the hills but the road was so crazy, it was like driving through a sort of obstacle course, with sheer drop offs on one side! Yikes!

Malibu was gorgeous and it was a picture perfect day with blue skies and not a cloud in the sky. I pulled over to get some pictures of the famous Malibu beach, then I continued on through Malibu and to Santa Monica.

I was going to go to the pier but once I got close to it, the traffic was unreal. I guess everyone else was thinking of going to the pier too, so I kept driving. A little while later I was at the airport already, only about 5 hours too early! I was not about to go sit at the airport for that long, so I kept driving with no particular destination in mind. I ended up driving through Hawthorne, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and then finally in Redondo Beach. I happened to find a really nice mall there so I wandered around it for a little while, then drove down to see the beach and found a really cool dog park on the way. Too bad Angus and Zoey weren’t with me! Even with all the extra driving I did, I still managed to make it to the airport 2 and a half hours before my flight.

My big purchase at the mall. mmmmm it was such yummy frozen yogurt!

I know this wasn’t a very exciting post! I’ll post again tomorrow with some new class samples. Thanks for all the lovely comments on my book giveaway post : ) There have been some great suggestions for video tutorials! As soon as I get the next set of classes done, I will start working on the tutorials.

Me and my girl

January 31, 2009 by Jess Leave a Comment

Away again, this time I’m over in Victoria visiting my parents for the weekend (and picking up Angus and Zoey since they looked after them while I was in California).

My parents have a beautiful property which is 10 acres of mostly wilderness/ ponds/ trails/ woods. Behind their property are tons of trails that are most often used for mountain biking and horse back riding. I love these trails and I love running on them! Tons of ups and downs and a total hazard for ankle rolling but the challenge is great and I prefer running up and down hills opposed to flat trails. So this morning I ventured out into the cold with Zoey as my running companion. We left Angus behind as he insists on sniffing every blade of grass and every leaf he finds, so it really wouldn’t be much of a run with him. Zoey on the other hand was great! I even took a total risk and let her go off leash the whole way. Well her leash was still attached but I let her drag it along behind her. This way its easier for me to catch her if she takes off into a bush after a rabbit/ squirrel/ coyote/ cougar/ horse….. I did pick her leash up to carry it over the water hazzards we came to, but then gave up and just let her pull it through the mud and water. Her nice pink leash was a muddy brown when we got home.

We had a great run (and I know I probably won’t be able to walk tomorrow, lol) and Zoey was so obediant for the most part, I was so impressed! She even sat and waited whenever I called “Wait!”. Wow, I’m so proud of my girl!! No sprained ankles or run ins with a wild animal. The only thing that happened is that I somehow managed to fling my iphone from my hand and then watched horrified as it tumbled over and over through the mud….ugh.

Another great thing about being back in Victoria is that I got to visit with some old friends who I haven’t seen for awhile. I’ve missed them!