3.27.2010

Two Tortoises and a Microphone

(Disclaimer: There's actually no microphone in this post; I just really like the play on the awesome title of that song.)

 While we were in Utah a few weeks ago, our friends Jason and Sarra watched our kids for us while we went to Scott's cousin's wedding luncheon. As natural born biologists, they both work for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, wherein Jason has been assigned the privilege and dubious honor of ... fostering desert tortoises. 

At the present time they are housing two lovely specimens, who luckily enough woke up from hibernation the day we showed up. What gracious hosts, those tortoises. 

Henry quickly claimed the male tortoise, Jabo (yaw-bo) as his own.

The second tortoise, the female which Ruby naturally claimed, was still nameless. Ruby, however, was determined to fix that. By the end of their three hour visit, she had come up with a fantastic name: Jabo #2.


 Seriously, they were FASCINATING to watch.



Ruby became so accustomed to them she eventually just sat herself down and let them crawl all around her as she busied herself with something equally as exciting ... a dead plant.

The herpetologist himself ... double-fistin' his foster tortoises

Thanks Jason and Sarra for babysitting and for giving your tortoises a stern talking to about waking up from hibernation to put on a sweet show for the kiddies!

"Spring" Break

So Montana's got the right idea with "Spring" Break -- it's a week long. But my question is: How many kindergartners actually need a whole week off from school? The stress of coloring within the lines just gettin' to those little guys?

Montana's only problem, and the reason I put "Spring" in quotations, is that March IS NOT Spring in Montana. Try May. Or early June.

Whatever. Point is, we took advantage (even though none of us are actually "school age") and headed to Utah while Scott went to D.C. for the week.

Here's what went down:

Abram worked on his belated, but celebrated nonetheless, skill of crawling:



 Abram "drunkenly" cuddled with his Aunt Kate ... a lot.


He also proved that it is not only acceptable but downright imperative to eat breakfast while wearing a M-I-C-K-E-Y hat.


We were able to go to Scott's cousin's wedding in the Salt Lake Temple. The weather was gorgeous, the grass was green, and flowers were out. I think if I were a day, I would be that day ... all sunny and warm-like.



Scott only has four cousins on his dad's side so we were so happy we could be there. The happy couple and the other Christensen clan:

So between the Mickey breakfast attire, cuddling, and a wedding -- our nine days passed too quickly.