Birdie Tribute!

Here's a collage of pictures (young and old) of our little birdies! Some of you have seen them in person, but for those who haven't been to our house, here's a bit o' a glimpse of our pets :)

Here's my little Bub! He's a gray cockatiel and 7 1/2 years old. I got him as a birthday present from my family in 2000 when I was 12. He's been my best "Buddy" for a long time now. In this picture, he's quite fascinated in himself.

Buddy LOVES playing Scrabble with the family!

Yes, there's the mirror again! He LOVES to sing to himself :) Sometimes when I take a shower, I take him with me and let him perch on top of the sliding shower door. Most times he just fluffs up and relaxes, but OTHER times when he sees his reflection on the mirror, he'll sing and sing and sing, and it feels like I'm in a tropical rain forest! :)

Taking a shower! When it gets warm, I'll take Buddy out and give him a nice shower using a water spritzer.

Ah yes, our little Budge (he was an English Budgerigar)... He passed away when he was just 3 years old due to pneumonia. He caught it at the change of the seasons when drafts are able to sneak in and give the birdies a chill. He was the best bird we've ever owned (we've owned 4 in total... two have died). He was so smart and said most anything and everything you could think of. Later on I'll post some videos of the birds talking and singing.

Budgie adored me and said "good-night" to me every night before I covered him to go to bed. Whenever Garrett or Mom brought him to me, he would run over straight to my face and give me kisses and say sweet nothings :)

There's Budgie and Buddy together on top of Buddy's cage near our window seat. Some days we would open the blinds and let the sun hit them for a bit for some vitamins.

Little Budge taking a bath!

Another shot of him taking the same bath with Kiwi watching in the background.




Buddy helping me sort coins :)




Are you running off with that one?!




Eating a tortilla ;)




Budgie usually helped me with Science, but since he had died, Buddy took over that position. Budgie LOVED Science and History. I would read the text out loud and Budgie would stand right at my mouth and just LOVED the vibrations that my words made. It was so cute! We all thought he was "soaking in every word" and just loved my curriculum :) I guess you just had to be there ;)




Kiwi! She's an 8 (approximately) year old Senegal that we adopted into our family just four years ago. My aunt on my Dad's side of the family was giving her away because she felt she needed too much attention that my aunt couldn't give her. So, because we love birds and want them to have a good home, we took her up to Oakhurst with us and she became one of our new "flock" members. She's pretty much Mom's bird, because that's the only person Kiwi likes!




Mom massaging Kiwi's feet! Well, those birds HAVE to be tired of standing on their feet 24/7! Wouldn't you?




What in the world? Silly bird!




Buddy and Budgie on Kiwi's perch :)




Kiwi playing with a wad of paper.




All hail Prince Budgie!




There's our faithful Humming Bird! He was our constant visitor one year for the longest time. We nicknamed him Hummer. He wasn't scared of us at all. At one point when Garrett was putting up the feeder with new food, Hummer sat down and started drinking it in between Garrett's arms! He was very cute :)


Well, that's all the good photos I have on the computer! I'm sorry I made it so long, but I thought you'd enjoy our pictures ;) I've also included two videos below of Buddy and Kiwi doing tricks for those who have endured my bombardment of photos! Enjoy!


Buddy:


Kiwi:

Last Week

This post stretches back to April! It’s kind of been a “work in progress” so sorry about the delayed information!

On the 23rd, We had a wonderfully tasty brunch at the Polach's home that launched us on towards having a family day in Fresno. We hung out around Fresno, just relaxing at Berean, and visiting Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and even Trader Joes (who ever thought you could have fun at a grocery store?! Well, we do!). This was how we celebrated my dad’s vacation week – something the Valdivias enjoy doing but never really have the time to do!

During our Fresno trip, we also celebrated my dad and mom’s wedding anniversary by eating at Claim Jumper (my grandma sent money to help with a dinner out so we got to pick a place we’ve never gone to before due to financial constraints). Boy, was that a good choice! Everything there tasted great. Mom ordered herself a "Frisco Burger" (grilled-toasted Parmesan sourdough, hamburger, Swiss cheese, 1000 island, lettuce & tomato) with fries, and Dad had a "New England Chowder Sourdough Bowl". Garrett had a "Widow Maker Burger" (isn't that name just lovely? We were watching him eat that monster, just making sure he'd make it through all right! It was a hamburger with double thickness cheddar cheese, avocado, smoked bacon, sweet fried onion rings, butterleaf lettuce, tomato, mayo & red relish! Yikes! Needless to say he disappeared from the table after dinner ;) ). I ordered my faithful stand-by (though everything looked massive and delicious), "Chicken Caesar Salad" with garlic bread (boring, right? Well, it was massive just the same and I was VERY satisfied :) The garlic bread rocked! I think I filled myself up on that before I got to eat my salad). After dinner we ordered a Brownie Finale that had vanilla bean ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, and sliced almonds all over it. It was too big even for the four of us to devour... but we managed to finish it anyway ;) You can always count on us :) On the way out of the restaurant we grabbed an original cheesecake slice (one slice could be split four ways... it's really big) for the next day in celebration of Mom and Dad's 14th wedding anniversary. It tasted SO good! Even Garrett, who normally runs far from cheesecake, wanted more!

Wednesday (25th) we spent a special evening in fellowship with the Carter family. They made great food for all of us to enjoy, and we visited with them until midnight! We didn't get home until 1:00am! We had a great time and we enjoyed seeing them again.

Last Saturday, the 28th of April, was a day to spend in Yosemite with my dad’s best friend from childhood and his family. The dad's are both jokers and they're so funny to listen to! They made code-names for each other that day on the walkie-talkies (Rubber Ducky and Humpty Dumpty) and it's just so hard to be serious around them. Garrett doesn't help the situation either. Now that he's older, he can take part in the jokers' conversations and it just keeps getting funnier to listen to. The fathers decided to hike the Mist Trail, and the women folk (along with Garrett to protect us frail creatures from harm!) went with them about half way, then turned around so the visiting mother and daughter could spend some time in Yosemite Village before it got too dark.

Once the guys were done with their hike, we all met back in Curry Village at around 7:20ish to eat dinner at the buffet. We didn't get done there until about 8:30 or so. As we were walking back to the car, I noticed how beautiful Yosemite looked under a full moon! Yes, Yosemite actually looked pretty in my eyes! Seeing the park in a different light (no pun intended ;) ) was really neat. The rocks glowed and everything looked so majestic. I asked the family if we could stop off at the meadow under El Capitan to soak it in. It was just really beautiful with a full moon. Looking in the moon's direction, you could see the silhouette of the mountain range above you. It was really cool. I kept wishing I could take pictures at night, but our camera couldn't do it.

We were going to meet up at our house and hang out there (that was the original plan) and have dessert together, but by the time we pulled into Oakhurst, all of us were wiped out from the day and about to pass out, so we decided to postpone our dessert until tomorrow ;)

The next day (April 29th... just this past Sunday), the dad's got up early to hike the Lewis Creek trail while Mom and I got brunch ready. We all got together at our house at around 11:30 after our visitors left the hotel. While brunch was being prepared, Dad and Greg looked over their old trophies and signed baseballs, newspaper clippings and other things that Grandpa found in the basement of the house dad grew up in. It was fun to watch them reminisce. Here’s two photos of that “touching” moment.

We gave everyone a good breakfast, and then we all gathered around the computer to show them the Half Dome hike the guys took with a lot of our friends about 2 years ago.

After we spent some time showing them the pictures and videos, we gathered in the living room and played some games together on the Nintendo Wii (virtual sports: tennis, bowling, golfing, boxing, and baseball). At around 2:00pm Mom and I served my homemade ice cream (cookies n' cream and chocolate chip) and her apple cobbler to everyone. It was tasty! Everyone loved it :) At around 3:00 our friends left Oakhurst and headed back home down in Southern California.

That's about all the "exciting" news I have for you right now! Here's some pictures of our day in Yosemite with our friends!