California vacay recap, in which Very Special Things happen

I am back from CA! We had a lovely, restful vacation in Palm Springs and, despite my misgivings, I LOVED the desert. More importantly, my sinuses loved the desert. I've been back in CT for 3 1/2 days and I've had 2 megrims and 1 killer sinus headache already. (Those are migraines for those of you who don't speak Ye Olde Englishe.)

On Sunday, we had a lovely barbecue with our friends Peter, Bill and Jason, who happen to have a vacation home in Palm Springs. I hadn't seen them in over a year and it was great to catch up. Bill volunteers at the San Diego Wild Animal Park (he's a cheetah expert posted by the cheetah habitat to answer any questions visitors may have).

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE VERY SPECIAL THING THAT HAPPENED!

Oh em gee, people. The Wild Animal Park is a phenomenal facility and you should all visit it someday if you can. It's unbelievable. The animals are in these amazing, enormous habitats that both allow visitors to observe them and allow them to exist in an environment that's very close to their natural habitat. They're given privacy. Natural barriers are used wherever possible instead of cages and fencing. It's just freaking amazing.

One of the coolest exhibits they have is this open area that mimics the Serengeti (or whatever)--many different types of animals co-exist in the same enclosure as they would naturally. Rhinos, giraffes, cape buffalos, gazelles, zebras, etc. with a watering hole and native vegetation and OH MY GOD IT'S SO AMAZING.

And...

For some extra money...

You can do this:



That's Willow. She's eating Acacia leaves (not my hand). But that's not all, people. Oh-ho-ho no, it's not. Because I also did this:



!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS A PICTURE OF ME FEEDING A GREATER ONE HORNED RHINO. !!!!!!!!!!!!!

*dies of teh excitement*

Dudes. We freaking fed two giraffes, Willow and Kizzy, and Kaia the rhino. Like, WITH OUR HANDS. I touched a rhino. I! Touched! A! Rhino! I gave her apples! I petted her nose! I touched her funny wiggly lip! I saw her baby tusks! I watched her wet nostrils sniffing around the slats for more snackies when there were no more!

I am in love.

I have to say that the giraffes were hilarious and adorable as well. I shall now torture you with more pictures:

Ben wanted a kiss from the cute widdle giwaffe (whose head weighs almost half of my entire body weight).


Check out the tongue action! It's a little hard to see because her purple tongue is blending in with Ben's shirt but it's curled around the acacia leaf!


bebbeh!!



Honestly, I could bring Blogger to a screeching halt with all the freaking adorable pictures and video I have. I suppose this will do...for now. ;)

We had a few more adventures but it's getting late and I've got to get to bed. More updates to follow!

Wedding picspam and my husband's new crush

Before we get to Ben's new crush, a quick word about my weekend. We went to a wedding on Saturday. The coolness factor of the event (and, really, the couple themselves) can pretty much be summed up by these two pictures:


The placecards. We decided Ben was the Storm Trooper.


Champagne? We don't need no stinking champagne! These were the choices to toast with. We chose the Guinness (OBviously. Guinness is nectar of the gods. Besides, Baileys provokes Biological Events of Which We Shall Not Speak (tm). Fricking dairy.)

Our "placecard" only lasted long enough for me to photograph it.



Me: OMG! Are you eating my ass??
Ben: *big innocent eyes* No! I'm lifting you.
Me: Pffft. Whatever. Hey! Cool. I have both guns. Ha!

But Mr. Storm Trooper's work wasn't done for the evening, oh no:



Last, a pic of the Wishing Wall we got the couple, which they cleverly brought to the wedding:



This environmentally friendly cardboard frame has a corrugated honeycomb inside and comes with lots of colorful slips of paper. The idea is, your friends and family (or you or whomever) write wishes for you on the paper, roll them up and slide them into the honeycomb slots in the frame. I'm madly in love with this idea and want to buy them for everyone for every occasion -- weddings, babies, new houses, etc. You like? Check it out at Uncommon Goods (super great company, btw!).

Onto the new crush...

You need to understand that we're working our way through the seasons of Battlestar Galactica, which is really great and you should all go rent it right now, amen. I suppose what I'm about to say contains minor spoilers though, really, you can see them coming from a mile away so feel free to read on even if you haven't watched the show yet. ;)

So here we are in bed last night, lights out, snuggled up*, expressing our love in the typical Sweet style:
Me: I promise I'll never divorce you for Lee Adama.
Ben: I love you! I promise I'll never divorce you for Captain Thrace.
Me: I lov--
Ben: Because you're pretty and black.
Me: O.o

Yup. Ben's got the hots for Dualla.



Me? I like Starbuck. Dee's too...nice.



Have you watched the show? If so, who's your crush?


*Well, as snuggled up as two people can be with a 30 pound terrier between them.

The Odd Shots and odds and ends

Thing the first: Go check out The Odd Shots - a new group blog by Ilona Andrews, Jill Myles, Meljean Brook, Nalini Singh and Patrice Michelle. The content will be a mix of craft and general mischief but sure to entertain, no matter what.

Thing the second: I've posted some additonal links for PC users in the comments to yesterday's post about using a timer. If you find one you like, please let me know so I can recommend it definitively.

Thing the third: I thought I'd share this picture of Baby Nephew and Auntie Renee, courtesy of my fabulous sister-in-law:



Things to note:
1. I don't know why I look so damned unimpressed, but it's not true, I SWEAR IT! I superlove my nephew.
2. Srsly, ppl. Have you ever seen such luscious thighs? (His, not mine.) I love the knee rolls.
3. That purple shirt I'm wearing? It's my Prince shirt. Told the little man all about him, yes I did.

I'm likely to be mostly offline for the next few days as I spend my evenings with some real life obligations (volunteering and, oh, Ben's birthday...). Be good while I'm gone. (Well, you know. Mostly.)

*dink dink dink* Is this thing on?

Oh hai. I am back from my whirlwind* period of social activity! I give you a quick recap of the past several days in photo-form, because I have become addicted to posting pics on my blog:

Friday:
Our friends Justin and Larissa got married! Yay! I love marriage!

There *might* have been some dancing. Just sayin'.

Saturday:
Friends of ours renewed their vows in honor of their tenth wedding anniversary. It was lovely and makes my head spin to think that Ben and I will celebrate our tenth in the fall. Where did the time go?

Sunday:

Spent Sunday evening with these guys.
Have I mentioned how much I effing <3 The Fray? I believe I have.

The show was really good. The only thing that kept it from being great was that poor Isaac was recovering from bronchitis and sounded a bit squeaky. Well, squeakier than normal. :)

Jack's Mannequin opened. This dude = insane:



As you can see, this pic is not from the show Sunday night. However, I wanted to try to show you how crazy he is. See how he has two mics and is half standing up? The dude is a freaking powerhouse of energy and passion when he's performing. He's up and down from his piano stool, bouncing all around, switching from mic to mic, sometimes even jumping on top of the piano or keys. In. Sane. They put on a great show and I'd highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance. I'll be picking up their album.

Sunday night through Tuesday were spent in Boston, doing this:



Playing with electricity at the Museum of Science, and creating fake identities:

Can you guess who belonged to each ticket?

We also toured the Sam Adams brewery.

We had dinner at a yummy Thai place with a beautiful fish tank. Unfortunately, one of the fish distracted us through the whole meal:



There he is on the left, showing off his fearsome teeth (gnashers!). But on the right, you can see him sort of listing to the side and his tail is arching in a weird way--that's how he looked for most of the meal. We thought he was going to go belly up right in front of us! So much so, that Ben went and alerted one of the waitstaff in the middle of the meal. She assured us that he was fine and we didn't believe her--until he suddenly started swimming around again fifteen minutes later like nothing ever happened. It was quite distressing, I assure you.

Well, I'm sure I've tortured you enough with the pictures. What's that? Not *quite* enough? Okay. Here's one more:

Tragically, this weekend did not include a visit with the bundle of ridiculous cuteness that is Baby Nephew.

I should be back on a regular blogging schedule now (yay) with *actual* content (gasp!). Topics to be addressed shortly: 1st person POV and hooks (the literary kind, you pervs!).

*Am I the only one who wants to put an extra h in there: whirlwhind? (Besides JR Ward, obviously.)