Weeks 2-3

I am a week behind on this, sorry about that. I was lazy and then I got busy. Things at work have been improving, I am getting to know a few of them, especially the girls that I work with in the raccoon nursery. Speaking of which, we have had a few laughs in there. I have let one or two raccoons loose but don't worry they can't go anywhere because they are confined to that room, we eventually catch them. Three of our groups of raccoons are getting ready to be moved outside which is exciting; they are growing up so fast! We now have assignments of which tasks we are supposed to be doing sometimes. It helps us figure out who is supposed to be doing what when we are slow. Unfortunately I am still stuck in the raccoon room for most of my shift though. They still haven't had the raccoon training class so other people can help us. However, I was a staff assistant one afternoon and got to see a couple of baby birds and a red tailed hawk admitted to the center. Then we treated a turtle with a broken shell and got to feel a different turtle that was pregnant! She was feisty, naturally :) I don't have any pictures though because it is hard to carry a camera without it getting dirty while working. I will try to do better. Recently, I got to see an albino baby whooping crane, awesome! It was a true albino with red eyes and white down feathers, down feathers because it is that small. What other interesting things have we seen…some extremely young (eyes aren't even open)bunnies, of course more raccoons and baby birds, that is about it. When I left for my days off yesterday we didn't have any hot water, haven't had any for a few days, that has been so much fun. Doing dishes turns your hands numb, not even rubber gloves help, they are coming to attempt to fix it tomorrow hmph!
On my last set of days off I went to the Lakefront Festival of the Arts in Milwaukee with my roomie Linda. If you have Facebook you have probably seen my pictures I posted. Basically it was a festival for artists to sale and display their artwork which included metalwork, jewelry, painting, sculpture, glasswork, etching, pottery, etc. There were a lot of artists from across the nation, mostly higher end artwork but still nice to look at and appreciate. There was music, food, kids activities, and of course artwork. Most of it was outside under tents but you could also go into the art museum. I must say the architecture was mind blowing. The building was built by a famous architect, I don't remember his name though. He made it so that the "wings" can open during good weather and let in the air. You should go check it out on Facebook if you can, I don't have my pictures with me to upload right now.
Then Linda and I walked around the lake and saw the Summerfest venue. Hopefully I get to go to Summerfest!!! We wrapped up the day with some tennis :D

At home we have had a lot of deer come around and on my way home one ran in front of me into the cornfield. One deer came right up to a tree in our front yard and ate the figs off of the fig tree. On my way home a chipmunk ran out in front of me….he made it to the other side and before I left the driveway at work a bunny was sitting there staring at me. I had to stop before he eventually moved into the grass.

I went with Linda to the local store called Brennan's, kind of like a market, where they have fresh produce, cheese, wine, and flowers for gardening. That place is amazing because they have samples of pretty much EVERYTHING for you to try. I think we sampled more than we bought and they have samples every time you go! Can't get much better than that. It is like Sam's but you don't have to buy everything in bulk and they have waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy more free samples at Brennan's; just what a kid out of college needs-free food :)))

This weekend I came to see my sister play volleyball for the Air Force volleyball team at Great Lakes Navy Training Center  in Illinois in the All Forces volleyball tournament!!! Yay go Sis!!! I am excited, I got here all by myself with mapquest, a GPS, and an atlas. I arrived here after I got off of work last night, only about 85 miles from my home in WI. Mom, me, and Sis :) Ohhhhh here is one for the money. Well you see there isn't much around the base in terms of real restaurants so Mom and Sis had already gone to Chili's the day before I got here. Their waiter was a cute college kid named Derek so they went back yesterday with me and asked to be seated in his section!  Are they really related to me?!? So now we have a friend at Chili's for the remainder of time that we are here hehehehe.  Now today we wanted to have tacos for lunch so we went to the NEX which is like the store on base to buy tortillas. They don't sell tortillas so my brilliant sister wanted to go to Taco Bell and see if we could buy some tortillas from them!! Yes, my mom actually did this! The woman working there just stared at us for a few seconds and then gave us giant, I mean GIANT like the ones used for burritos, tortillas and didn't charge us for them. My sister said we probably shouldn't go back there while we are here, "Oh here comes the crazy people from Texas again who wanted to buy tortillas!" We got a kick out of it, it was my sister's idea but my Mom is the one who asked, go figure huh?