Without Dark You Cannot Have Light

I love you all. Most of you know everything and are very update, but for the few of you who we don't talk often enough, I still love you and here's a quick run down.

*Tajei has sworn in to the USAF and is official
*We've packed, and moved out
*We've unpacked and moved in
*Lou, Padren, and Auriea have all come to visit
*I'm receiving physical therapy for my back finally
Mom's Portuguese Water Dog, Sampson has terminal cancer but is receiving life extending treatments. Currently he doesn't even know he is sick, he is happy, active and his normal self. We don't know how long we have or if his Oncology visits are working, if the shots work, we might have a couple years.. if they don't only a few months.
*Maggie-Mae is allergic to plastic, has a bald neck, new collar and new bowl
*Dixie's allergies are doing fantastic
*Sharkbait is still doing great despite how badly mauled he was all those months ago
*We'll be moving to Ill in the late spring/early summer, near Scott A.F.B
*We'll be BUYING our first house!
*I will be -finally- going back to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville (SIUE) 12 years after the car accident stole my musical future and forced me out of school.
*Dungeons and Dragons online is hot, WoW is not.
*Taj and I went to see Phantom of the Opera at the Fox for my birthday and it was as always breathtaking, moving, incredible.
*Webkinz is still cool, Auriea got me a phoenix for my birthday, Mom got me the Opal dog, and the caring valley brown dog, Taj got me a zumbuddy.
*Tajei got to visit California for a week to see his family
*Dad was in the hospital due to his COPD and his continuing to smoke, he is now home and "ok"
*I've missed a lot of things, but I'm so damn tired, the last couple months have been traumatic. A theme park ride: up, down, sideways, and inside out.

Love you all. I'm sorry I'm so terrible at keeping in touch. I intend to fix that.

Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday to You! Happy Birthday Auuuuuuriea Happy Birthday to You!




p.s. the pic is bigger for some reason LJ is smallifying it
just click it to see

So, I've not posted here much because we've been very busy! Taj's parents came into town for several days and in the middle of that we made a new addition to our family. Yoda the Green Cheek Conure has joined our family. We thought it was going to be months until we could afford a bird of any type let alone a parrot. Well we stumbled on one hell of a deal and Taj's parents bought us Yoda for his birthday.

Yoda formerly known as Herbie belonged to a wonderful family who loved him very very much. He is 2 years old and they have had him since he was 8 months old. Unfortunately the Dad is an electric company line-man so is gone constantly. The children are 5 and 7 and suddenly got into sports, they are gone 4 nights a week. The mother works and is gone constantly as well. They are gone so much they have only seen their horses twice in the last 4 months. (They are well cared for at a stable) So Yoda's family decided to the right thing for Yoda and find him a new home.

Yoda came to us with
a gorgeous 300 dollar cage (It is an HQ cage)
a massive bag of zupreem pellets for conures
a bucket of nutriberries
a bag of millet spray
a rope perch
a wooden perch
a real wood branch perch
3 stainless steel dishes
3 toys
1 hammock
1 fabric covered hanging pipe hide away

All of this including Yoda was 100 dollars. This is beyond amazing. The cage is 300, the toys are about 10 bucks a piece, the hammock is 15, the pipe is 20, the food and nutri berries and millet is about 25 dollars... and Yoda were we to purchase him from the Varitees (a family owned, and run bird only store, who breeds their own birds and has thousands of supplies) would be 175 which is the "going price" for green cheek conures here.

So Yoda joined our family and unlike what we would have expected... He came to us sweetly, knowing several words:

herbie
I love You
Thank you
good bird
whatchya doin'

He knows step up and step down perfectly, and never moped, or bit us. He sleeps late, and goes to bed like a good birdie. He is amazing. Everyone expected a long settling in process, pfffft he loves his new home! He has also learned a couple new phrases in the 1 week we have had him.

Fuck you (said ONCE, he instantly learned. oops.)
Damnit (said ONCE, he instantly learned. double oops.)
good girl (to dixie)
hey buddy

He says a lot of other things that are clearly English, he is clearly trying to speak and repeat them but we can't quite decipher them yet as green cheeks don't have the clear voice of an amazon or cockatoo.

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On the same note, we've come into some luck. Taj's Census position has ended but he's found Humane Society work. We also finally settled his car case! We've got enough to catch up all the bills and then some. Finally. Most of the leftover is going into savings of course, BUT Taj.... (Who Yoda favors, Yoda loves me but favors Taj) surprised me by taking me to Varitees (our favorite place now btw) and putting down a deposit on a baby! Yes... We have a deposit down on a baby yellow sided green cheek conure! It is a color morph of the green cheek. The yellow sided has LOTS of red and yellow on it. This baby picked me... I had originally had the deposit on a cinnamon color morph until everytime I walked past the play place.. this little yellow sided flew over and sat on my shoulder. The little one is still on baby food, 1-3 weeks until weened yet flew over to me constantly and snuggled me!

The yellow sided are actually 275 a hundred more than we were going to spend... but we spend so much time in there that the lady gave him to us for 200. Whenever he is weened he will get to come home to us! I can't wait! They won't share a cage. We have an extra cage, thanks to a very very generous person and that will be the little one's home. We don't want them sharing a cage as they would bond closer to each other than us.

I just can't think of a name... We are going to visit the baby today though and I can't wait!

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Also Shark Bait (ooo ha ha) is doing miraculously well. I think.. he's going to make it. His swelling is all gone, his stress marks are all gone.... hes just a little bruised. He's eating 3-4 crickets a day, running around and acting like a normal anole. You'd never know he'd been chomped by maggie. I'm SO glad. Mom and I going to the pet store this weekend.. she's popping for all kinds of stuff for him. Taj found an old 10 gallon with reptile lid in mom's basement and mom was quite excited that we'll have a MUCH more cat proof home for shark bait.. so she is buying the extra necessities to decorate his new home for him :) (We wanted to wait and be sure he was going to make it first...)

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You're welcome Jon :) Hope your birthday was very very Happy. Come visit again soon! Ryan will be visiting soon, and Auriea and Padren will be visiting for a whole week!

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Fuck you and get bent. Happy birthday bitch.