Little Armored One

I had originally planned on starting a recap of my trip to Hill Country with my parents but I had a massive headache most of the day & am fairly exhausted (...and trying to read/comment on blogs from the past few days...) so I'll just share this funny video with you instead.  Ever since my road trip with Kickass Cousin almost 2 years ago now we've had an odd obsession with armadillos...so naturally we both found this video to be hilarious.  I hope it at least makes you smile...or ya know roll your eyes & think "this chick is crazy..."

100 Things I'm Thankful For/Make Me Happy

1. God

2. Family

3. Friends

4. Having a job

5. Having a place to live

6. Never having to go hungry

7. Having a car

8. My dog

9. Having clothes

10. Sunsets

11. Sunrises

12. Having been in love

13. Graduating from high school

14. Graduating from college

15. The opportunity to live in another state

16. The many road trips I've been on

17. Having been to Europe

18. Being American

19. Having the right to vote

20. Being able to afford luxuries

21. Growing up in a small town

22. Getting to experience city life

23. The fact that my parents are still married & in love

24. My health

25. The ability to cook

26. Country music

27. Cute boys in trucks

28. Boots

29. Bacon

30. Having gone to many concerts

31. The experience of a military relationship

32. Growing up in the country

33. Having my heartbroken

34. Constant laughter

35. Not having to wear make-up

36. "Spirit Day" at work ie. JEANS

37. Baseball

38. Roach spray

39. Having met my favorite band.

40. A fairly high metabolism

41. Jack Daniels

42. Bud Light

43. Bloody Marys

44. WeFest

45. Leaves changing colors

46. Growing up in a state that has all 4 seasons

47. Kissing

48. Holding hands

49. Late night talks

50. Driving

51. Taking pictures

52. Nature

53. The color blue

54. Sunshine

55. Having a tan

56. Babies

57. Shark Week

58. Two-Stepping

59. The ability to make new friends

60. Lessons learned from former friendships

61. Consistently having a job since I was 16

62. The first snowfall

63. The ocean

64. Tattoos

65. Dancing

66. Quoting movies with friends

67. Snail mail

68. Physical newspapers

69. Harry Potter

70. Having a bed

71. Cuddling

72. Sleeping in

73. Coffee

74. Whataburger breakfast

75. Coloring books

76. Camping

77. Fishing

78. Deer hunting

79. Being organized

80. Planning events

81. Queso

82. Rodeos

83. Bedtime

84. Bluebell ice cream

85. Having electricity

86. Having easy internet access

87. Friendly neighbors

88. Never having a bad roommate

89. Blogging

90. Family Get Togethers

91. The feeling after working out

92. Dreaming

93. Reading

94. Musicals

95. My students

96. Mistakes

97. Forgiveness

98. Mountains

99. Being myself

100. Being alive

Adventures of Little Bear

Yesterday I came home to find our dog Jack locked up.  This used to be the norm pre-invisible fencing, but he hasn't been locked up once since so I was extremely confused when I came home to this.  First I called my mom seeing if she knew anything; she didn't.  I then called my brother thinking maybe his collar wasn't working or something; it was.  So why was my poor dog locked up?  Because we had a baby (toddler) bear in our yard!  My brother said that it had probably been long enough & that I could probably let him out.  Well a couple hours later I hear Jack barking so I go out to look & there's a little bear in the woods.  So I put Jack in the garage incase there is a mama bear around & then go back inside to mind my own business.  Well maybe an hour later I decided to just go sit on our back deck since it was so nice out.  As I do this, luckily with my camera already in hand, the bear came back!  I stayed outside but right next to the door just incase mama decided to show up.  Baby bear sure, mama bear no thanks.

So I'm sitting there snapping pictures & taking video trying not to scare the thing.  Mama bear never showed so I started scooting closer to the edge of the deck.  We got as close as probably 10-12 feet apart at our closest.  It was such a neat experience!  For 2.5 hours me & there bear just hung out in my backyard.  He was so cute, but also a brat.  He ended up bending one of our bird feeder poles so that he could get to them & eat the bird seed.  My dad came home & eventually scared him away so that he wouldn't become a problem.

Well it turns out that today he came back!  Luckily he didn't get into it but that stinker found our dumpster so I had to move it into the garage & lock up poor Jack again.  He also bent our other feeder pole so that he could get to the seed again.  As cute as he is he needs to go.  My mom called the DNR (Department of Natural Resources for those of you who don't live in MN...side note I did not know that this is not what it is called in every state until I was in Colorado in March) anyway... she called them & left a message to see if they could move him or something so that he doesn't become a problem for us & the other neighbors.  They haven't returned her call yet though.

In that 2.5 hours yesterday though I managed to literally take hundreds of pictures (there were 545 when I uploaded them onto my computer).  Don't worry I deleted most of them and there are now a reasonable 17 of the bear plus 2 videos.  Here are just a few: