New Pics

Portrait of a Birthday

I didn't realize it had been so long since we had posted, or since I had downloaded my camera! I had over 200 pictures on it! There have been quite a few birthdays so I think I'll start with that. This isn't a complete post...there are a couple more birthdays to add.......

Dad's Birthday

Dad, giving a squinty-eye glare to camera. "I'm not fifty yet"!

Devon's relaxed in the knowlege that he has much longer to go until he's 50.

"I can eat all the cake I want and it won't go to my hips........cause I don't have them!"

Yes, life is good for little Devon.

Devon and Sierra's Birthday Party

I can't believe that Devon is already 1!

Devon is a connoisseur of fine cake.

Is it just me, or does Devon look like a derranged clown?

Speaking of derranged clowns.........

I have the wierdest husband ever!!

We had the party at Peter Piper Pizza, Regen's favorite!

Sierra had a beautiful princess cake, complete with a bottle.

They both made out pretty good in the present department!

The excitement was too much for little Regen, that or she passed out from pizza overdose.

Illegal soda sharing!! Caught in the act Grandpa!!

New Job

A Cubicle of My Very Own!

It's been a couple months now, but I have a new job! No more bookstore with irritating customers who don't know what they want or how to put anything back where they got it!! Yea! After almost 5 years with Borders still not even making $8 an hour, I was definately ready for a change. Last year I graduated with two certificates in medical coding and medical billing thinking it wouldn't be very hard to find a job....guess again!! I probably applied to about 100 Dr offices just looking for a receptionist position to get my foot in the door. I had ONE office call me and set up an interview, ONE. I went to the interview and thought it went really well, but when I called back about 5 days later just to touch base and let them know I was still interested the lady was really curt with me saying she would let the Dr know and he would call me. Needless to say I didn't hear from the Dr. So then I gave up on the Dr office aspect and just started looking for receptionist jobs anywhere! Meanwhile, Ashley got a job at the University of Phoenix starting at 25,000/year with great benefits, paid holidays and minimal customer service aspects. So I went to the website and applied for 10 different jobs. I'm now an Admissions Administrator and I get to sit all day, typing in transcripts and listening to music on my headphones!! I go in at 6 get a halfhour lunch (I had a choice between a half hour or an hour) 2 fifteen min breaks and I go home at 2:30! If I don't want to I don't have to talk to anyone all day long, it's so nice! Sometimes it's a little boring and it's not as satisfying, I miss being able to help people find what they're looking for, but I would never go back to retail! After 6 months I can apply to anyother job in the company and our managers are especially trained to help us advance. On my team of ten people, 6 of them have been promoted in the last 6 months! AND....I get my own cubicle! The company is a big believer in making their empolyees happy so we have pretty large cubicles, ergonomic chairs, and 22" monitors! I've never had a cubicle before and I love it! I even took a couple pics to show you...

When we're on our breaks, they ask that we put up a sign so they don't have to wonder what we're doing playing on the internet or reading or talking on the phone, or where you are. David and I were in Office Max and he decided that I had to have this sign rather than one I just printed off the computer!

My boss thought it was pretty funny!

We got a BRAND NEW CAR!

Ok couldn't resist, but you have to admit it was funny. Unfortunately, our old grand am went kapoot about 3 months ago. The day it went down, I decided that Aubrey and I needed a new car. This is what we got.

This is the 2008 Scion XB

It's a beautiful car and it's not as box-y as it's predecessor. It also has a one feature that's really cool to me, the Deceptive Size. While it looks small on the outside, the inside is very spacious.

Compared to how I look inside Debbie's van

After we took these pics we got bored and decided to show how roomy the whole car is. But first I have to show you how the dash is set up...it's cool!!! Instead of being behind the steering wheel where it is blocked they put it all in the middle...and you can also use the shifter for either standard or automatic(see I told you it was cool!!!)

Ok here's how much fun we had with the camera after the first shots:

I am so happy Aubrey can reach the handle to close it!

The Zoo

The Wildlife Zoo

I got a buy one get one free coupon from work to go to the wildlife world zoo. It's a smaller, family owned zoo about twenty minutes away. I like it better than the Phoenix Zoo, you can get a lot closer to the animals and it's small enough that you actually get to see everything!

It made me laugh to see the peacock sitting on it's own sign!

This is an albino Wallaby.....looks like a giant white rat, doesn't it?

These are giant porcupine, they were really big!

Side story: I've had my camera for a year and have take a ton of pictures! I mean seriously, the camera comes with me every where! It has a pretty good zoom but not great, anyway, I went to zoom in on the giant porcupines and the camera made a funny sound and suddenly the screen was a blur of gray! I actually had to zoom OUT to get this next picture!! I discovered that unbeknownest to me, my camera has SUPER ZOOM! Awesome!!!

Up close and personal with the baby giant porcupine!

The Zoo has a walk in Aviary, I took a picture of this bright little bird with my SUPER ZOOM!

These two birds were touring the aviary with us.....until I ran after them trying to take this picture!

The Galapagoes Turtles were busy digging a massive hole in their enclosure.

My absolute favorite part of this zoo are the Giraffes! They built a large platform that extends into the giraffe encloser and you get to feed them!! Here's David feeding his first giraffe!

This giraffe was extremely tall! Usually, they have to really stretch their necks and tounges and you have to lean your body half way over the rail to give them the food. I actually reached out and touched his nose!

Apparently he thought that was gross because he immediatly went to work cleaning it!

He decided he was full and left us....off in the upper right hand corner you can see another giraffe.

Ta Da....here's a picture of the elusive giraffe thanks to SUPER ZOOM!

There was also a baby giraffe...so cute! This is a picture with regular zoom..

And this is a picture with SUPER ZOOM!

There were a lot of baby animals, here's a momma warthog and her little ones.

For a worthog, the baby's pretty cute!

Zebras were so close we didn't need to zoom!

They're so pretty!

We didn't need to use zoom on the rhino either, which was kind of disturbing, especially considering that the only thing between us were two waist high wood fences! The rhino was really BIG!

This is a leopard! Just beautiful!

We went to the zoo at the perfect time, all of the animals were awake and moving around, it was really cool!

They had two white tigers that were just beautiful!

I've never seen one so close before!

Are you ready for the cutest thing ever?

They were watching the white tigers play, we couldn't get them to turn around but still.....the white dots on thier ears are so cute!

We went into the reptile house, this python marks the halfway point. We were staning and watching him reach up to the ceiling when we suddenly realized........there's no glass!!! David wasn't too excited about that since he had a friend that was killed by a pet python! Seriously!

My other favorite thing about this zoo is the Lorey feeding. On this day I was the only person, beside the worker, feeding the birds. David's back was hurting him so he sat out and took pictures as I was mobbed by the birds!

The End