Doctor Who

I am not a Doctor Who fan, but my husband is. So because I love him very much, when I heard there was going to be a Time Lord Fest in Tampa, Fl. I made plans to take him to it.

It was quite fun. Most of the costumes I saw were beautiful and very creative, and others made no sense to me at all because I don't watch the show. John was explaining most of the things that were happening, because again, I don't watch the show and apparently, you really have to to understand 90% of what's going on. :P

My camera is still acting up so we had to resort to Johns phone camera to get pictures so the quality stinks, but hey, pictures.




This was the first picture of the night, my proud hubby standing in front of the TARDIS. (It's bigger on the inside.) He was so happy to be there.

John with Doctor #5,(Tom Baker) definitely one of the best costumes there, at least I think so.

John with TARDIS from the episode "The Doctors Wife" Her costume was A-MAZE-ING. She is a costume maker from Orlando and the construction of her dress was jaw dropping. (I love this picture because Johns blushing, and thats just cute. :D)

I was really surprised that there was only one K-9 running around the place. I expected to see a few more, but hey, K-9!

Alright, I think I finally got this. This is a picture of.. A lady dressed as a TARDIS, with a tattoo of a TARDIS standing next to the living consciousness of the TARDIS, in front of the TARDIS. *pants* Right?

It was a long but fun night. We will be making plans to go again next year.

Bath Time

This weekend Duke was in a particularly cranky mood. When Duke is cranky, Duke is LOUD so making him happy or at least relaxed is a priority in the house, for humans and other birds.

There is a good side and a bad side of Dukes noise making. The good is that it makes Echo talk a lot more in soft smooth tones and sometimes it actually works in calming Duke down. The bad side is, he's freaking loud! Kenya has actually taken up to telling him to "Shut Up!" rather sternly.

So, for the sake of all of us with eardrums we had to distract him and fast. So impromptu bath time! Yey! And of course I took pictures. Double Yey!


Here Duke is displaying his back and wings for John who wields a pretty mean spray bottle.

*Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle* More water STAT!

Thats one wet chicken! Duke is actually comeing over to tell me that I am too close and he wants me to move back.

This is actually mid bath, he ended up soaked to the boane and happy as a clam. Thank goodness.

This weekend went from one extreme to another. Saturday was a pretty lazy day, some light shopping then a nice long nap and some husband snuggling. Sunday on the other hand was busy from the moment my poor husband opened his eyes.

First I really wanted to take Gunnar to the dog park. I am not sure why I wanted to, I usually get depressed at the dog park as I am kind of ignored and snubbed while my husband and my dog become the social butterflies of the park. But this time was different, all of us had a blast. Gunnar got to run around like the crazy moose-dog he is, and Hubby and I actually got to talk to other people, something that rarely happens.

Scarlett had to stay home since she tries to eat the other dogs at the dog park and their owners tend to frown at that.

Then once we got home and puttered around the house long enough for my poor husband to settle into the couch for what he hoped was a nap I sent him outside to talk to our neighbors about the nifty tree lift thingy they had brought home. This of course lead to my slightly scared of heights husband having to saw down tree branches from a secure but wobbly crane bucket. This did not make me happy but the now cleared branches will let in the morning light to my flower beds which makes me very happy.

Escape

Last night while checking on everyone one of our green cheeks got loose and went flying about the house screeching.

"I'm a Green Cheek Conure and I'm on the lamb!"

Scarlet ran and hid, bravery is not one of her finer points unless it's something on the other side of the window.

"It's right behind me, isn't it!?!"

Gunnar sat and watched John and I as we wrangled the bird.

"That way, he went that way!"

Echo, who was on the bird stand, wanted to help. He hopped down and ran around the floor squawking back at the flying green cheek following it from the ground.

"Notme bird up there! Notme bird up there! GET IT!"

It was a very amusing night. :D

Napping is good

Most of us have good days and bad days. Some of us can even tell when our moods rub off on the people around us. Fewer can see when our moods rub off on the animals around us. Even few then that let our animals moods rub off on us. I am not sure who started the cranky pants party over here but it was in full swing between the grumpy bear husband and the cranky African Grey, all weekend long.

What brings on this crankiness, no one knows, what we do know is when the crankiness happens, keep repeating "I love you." as much as possible. Husbands saying "I love you too" have less time to contemplate stabbing you in the eye with a fork. ;) Which since I like my eyes un-fork-ified, is a good thing.

So in the middle of all the cranky, it was deemed that both Man and Parrot should take a darn nap already. So they did and of course, I took pictures. (Click pictures to enbiggen)

Snuggling into the couch for a nap. Towel instead of blanket because bird poop is messy.

Smooches then nighty night.

Bear passes out.

Bird passes out.

Spontanious snuggling. Awwwwwwwwww.

It was very hard to keep from giggling during the napping. Every time John would move, Kenya would wake up say "Ooooo" and smooch him either on the lips or somewhere in his beard. The noise always preceded the smooch and I found this highly amusing. I actually had to leave the room when one "smooch" got a little ruff. Laughing at them might not have helped with the cranky. :3

Play time with Zora

In the confusion at my sisters house, she accidentally left on vacation with my camera bag, which of course had my camera in it. I have in turn borrowed hers. It's a nice camera, a full auto focus Fuji, and it takes nice pictures...when it works. :(

So Monday night I was playing with the camera, admiring the nice colors and trying not to over expose the pictures I was taking with too much light. While I was doing this Zora started getting antsy, she loves the camera and is a little ham so I decided to try and get some nice photos.

First of course we get "fluffly" Zora.

"Look at all my pretty plumage."

Then she relaxes and starts to whistle and chitter happily while I take pictures.

"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

As I was snapping photos, Zora was getting quality play time with John. I am not sure if I moved suddenly or John did but at one point Zora took flight which began a new series of shots of her in flight. Which isn't easy when the camera has some weird delay. This is the only shot I really got of her flying.

My goal in life is to get a picture of one of the birds flying towards me. I think it would look pretty darn cool.

Holiday Gifts

As I wind down from the holidays I thought I would show off some of the nifty things my family and friends got us. (Click pictures to enbiggen.)

One of my amazingly talented friends Jen quilted this for my husband and myself. John identifies with bears and I with wolves so this piece was aptly titled, Mother Wolf and Father Bear.

The next picture shows 2 presents, the first from my Brother-in-law, Steven, framed word art from Sticks and Stones we chose Romance as our word. Under that is a painting that my sister did for me of more steam punk Sun Conures. I have to say I love them very much, they have really brightened up the mantle.

My uber talented sister also managed to make my big bear of a husband squeek with glee when he opened this...

Yep his very own hand made TARDIS! Let me tell you this photo does not do it justice. It is an amazing piece, made of balsa wood and is light as a feather. My sister is pretty awesome when it comes to making things with balsa wood, She has made quite a few houses and the detail is mind blowing.

So thats all I have to show you for now, did anyone out there get something that they are absolutely Ga-Ga over? Lets hear about them in the comments.

Back Home

Well it seems now that the craziness of the holidays is done and My husband, the birds, dogs and myself are slowly relaxing back into our normal routines. As I promised, I have gotten some pictures of my sisters critters. Well all but the lizard whom I totally forgot to take a picture of.


This is Rocky, my sisters Sheperd/Collie mix. He is a pretty quiet dog, doesn't cause a lot of trouble unless he is trying to push me off the bed, which he tried only once during my stay.

This is Angel, the younger of the two cats. (Under a year old I think) She was the cat my dog Gunnar was most interested in during our visit. She liked to run and has a bell on her collar with just seemed to encourage Gunnar into bouncing up behind her constantly. By the time we left he was very well acquainted with her needle sharp claws.

This is Raven, an older cat who is blind in one eye. She had a pretty bad upper respiratory infection last week. She should be seeing the vet sometime today or tomorrow. I am sure that she will be feeling better after a nice round of antibiotics. I felt so bad for her, she was sneezing and coughing quite a bit while I was there. Gunnar left her alone for the most part, though he was introduced to her "pointy ends" a few times.

This is my sisters Cockatiel. I have asked her and the kids the poor birds name and people just look at me funny so I have officially named her Sweetie. Sweetie is just that, a sweet and pretty chipper little tiel. She sang a lot to me, and we whistled to each other back and forth. She isn't hand tame and with two cats lurking around I didn't want to take her out of the cage so we just stuck to whistling and I think she had a pretty good time.

Gunnar and Rocky had a great time together. They loved running around outside together and chasing one another around the pool. It was nice to see Rocky let loose. I always worry about him, not having another dog to play with.

Here the two of them are watching the yard. A few squirrels were playing up in a tree and some twigs were dropping catching their attention.

The two boys had quite a bit of fun while we were all together. It was pretty neat to watch them.

Sister's Pets

My sister doesn't have as many critters as I do, she just has different critters mostly. For instance I don't have cats, my sister does, two of them in fact along with a dog, a cockatiel and some sort of lizard whose name sounds like something out of some post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller.

When I decided to come up and help take care of her critters for the week I brought one of my dogs with me. The reason for this is that I am a nervous person, being alone in an unfamiliar place tends to exacerbate that little personality flaw, so I bring the dog because he looks like he could eat any would be intruders. The fact that both her dog and mine are about as ferocious as a pair of guppies is besides the point.

Now being that I don't have cats, my dog is not used to them and pretty much has no clue what they are other then, they are fast, and have 5 pointy ends. He has been introduced to each pointy part of 2 cats very thoroughly and still goes back for another sniff.

So last night I am all curled up in bed, two dogs curled up on the floor "protecting" me and all is right and safe in the world. As I sleep I hear this noise that sounds almost like a growl. I shake it off, ignoring it being only half awake I figure it's my imagination and fall back asleep. Another growl, this one much louder wakes me up. I stare at the clock (4:12 am) wondering if I am hearing things or if someone has broken into the house. Another growl, louder and more urgent. I sit up and scan the room, it's dark but there is some light and I see my dog staring at the bed and growling.

Ooook, there is something on the bed...other then me...that he doesn't think is supposed to be there... I pull my feet up and start to scramble out of the bed, all the time thinking of things that could possibly be in the bed that would alert the dog. (Giant spider, rat, dismembered mutant zombie hand...) Then I here the "tinkle tinkle" of a cat bell and my sisters kitten, Angel, peeks her head out of the mound of blankets.

Apparently Gunnar thought I was going to be the next victim of the pointy ends of the kitty. :3

New Year

Hello again everyone. I hope your holidays were festive and you have come into this new year with a smile and all the hopes of making this year better then the last.

As you can probably tell, from my lack of posts, I took a little time off from blogging. I had so much going on and running around that I just had to cut something and this time it was the blog. But never fear, I am back now and will be blogging away about the critters in no time.

Right now I am at my sisters taking care of all her critters while she and her extended family are out searching for snow. ;) Being a resident of Florida we don't see much if any of that down here so if one is so inclined to find snow the must hunt for it. From the messages sent down from the great north, by carrier pigeon, it seems she has found some and has been promptly snowed into place. Makes me happy that I do not miss snow. ;)

I made the unfortunate mistake of leaving my camera in the car, so I will have to wait on pictures of my week long charges, but I will get some, and I will post them.