Seriously?!

The date is April 29th. Almost May. Definitely spring. I woke up this morning to beautiful Great Falls in the spring.


This is a slight improvement over the same date last year. Which is sad. This is April 29, 2009 in our rental house here in Great Falls.


I shouldn't be wishing my life away, but I cannot wait until we move somewhere else.

Barbershop

A few weeks ago, we bought a hair trimming kit from Sam's Club. I decided, if Justin would let me, cutting his hair myself would save a lot of money since he has to keep it so short. Well, today was the day I put my cosmetology skills, or lack thereof, to the test. Here's Justin before I touched his hair.

In the door, you can see the reflection of one of the kitties. We sometimes let them outside for a few minutes to sniff around. Mainly, they like to chew on the grass.

And here's Justin after I cut his hair.


Not a professional cut by any means but definitely acceptable for leaving the house. It was the first time I had ever used clippers to cut hair so I think I'll be able to get a better blend next time. It would have been much simpler if Justin let me shave his head with one length trimmer. But he wanted a 1 on the sides and a 3 on top and then blended like they do at the barbershop. So I had a much more difficult task ahead of me than just shaving his head. Overall, it doesn't look too bad. Pat on the back for me.

It would probably be much more interesting if we had children and I posted pictures of them doing things. But since we don't, I like to take pictures of my kitties and post them even though I'm sure everyone thinks "Once you've seen one picture, you've seen them all." However, I think they are super cute no matter how many pictures I take. So here's Fatty.

Tampa, Florida

For Spring Break senior year of college, Justin and I went to Florida. Because we had no idea where we would be going or when we would be leaving Ohio, for the Air Force, we used Spring Break as our "honeymoon" trip. It was the first real vacation we took together, just the two of us. Little did I know, the next two years of our life would seem like a constant vacation. Only now am I realizing we aren't moving again for quite a while. Anyway, we went to Tampa and had a great time.

Once we got there, we looked at the brochures in the hotel lobby to see if there was anything interesting we wanted to do. We saw that there was a renaissance fair and we decided immediately we had to go. Justin and I love renaissance fairs. As usual, Justin got a giant turkey leg.


Another place we discovered from the brochure rack was Big Cat Rescue. It is exactly as it sounds: a rescue organization for large cats including lions, tigers, cougars, leopards, jaguars, ocelots, etc. They do tours of the facility so the public can get an up close view of giant felines. Justin and I both concluded that this was probably the best experience we have ever had. If you are ever in the Tampa area, I highly recommend you check it out. The tours only take a certain amount of people, so you really get the feeling of personalization on the tour. The guides told stories about how the animals came to be at Big Cat Rescue. Some were rescued from cruelty in circuses and traveling zoos, while others were confiscated from people who thought having a pet tiger in their trailer park was a good idea. How people can be so abusive to animals I will never know. Animal cruelty is the one thing that makes me incredibly angry. While we were there, the guide talked about raising money to build a tall barrier around the perimeter of the sanctuary. Apparently, kids shoot paint balls through the chain link fence at the animals. If I ever saw a kid doing that I would chase him down, take his gun and start firing indiscriminately from point blank range. "How does that feel? Do you like it? I didn't think so." Maybe that would teach them a lesson. Anyway, here are a few of the animals we saw.


The fencing makes for bad pictures but it allows for visitors to stand about 5 feet from the animals, which is really awesome. I really hope our next assignment is in Florida so we can go back to Big Cat Rescue.

Our next stop was the sponge docks at Tarpon Springs. At the turn of the 20th century, sponge diving was introduced to the area by Greek immigrants. It became a highly profitable industry until the creation of synthetic sponges. Tarpon Springs has the largest concentration of Greek-Americans of any city in the country. Today, the docks are lined with shops and restaurants.

Justin and I walked up and down the streets, stopping for pastries at a Greek bakery and looking in all the shops. We took a boat tour of the area where the captain told the history of Tarpon Springs and the sponge diving that took place 70 years ago. One of the most exciting things about the boat tour is looking for dolphins. Both times I've been to this area, I've seen dolphins in the harbor. Here are some of the original sponge diving vessels.

I love going on boats. If I won the lottery, I'd buy waterfront property down in the Gulf and get a boat.

One of the last things we did, or at least that I have pictures of, was visit the local aquarium. If you can't already tell, anything with animals is usually a high priority for us. For a long time I wanted to be a marine biologist. Well, more accurately, I wanted to be Jacques Cousteau. Once I realized most marine biologists spend their time in a lab, I gave up that dream and became interested in other things.

This aquarium was pretty good, relative to others I've been to. They had an open-air walk through with all sorts of birds and fish. They also had a penguin demonstration. My favorite part of any animal exhibit is the hands on area. I know, I'm still a child at heart.

I tried to climb in one of the shells for a picture, but they're obviously designed for children so I didn't quite fit.

These giant sea horse creatures were pretty cool. They were one of the few things I was able to capture on film.


All in all, Justin and I had a wonderful trip. It might sound cliche but we really love Florida. Fingers crossed we'll get to live there some day.

We Are Readers

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
- Arnold Lobel

Today we added a 5th bookcase to our library. After everything was assembled and re-alphabetized to include our purchases from Half Price Books, Justin remarked, "I think we need more books."

It rained/hailed/snowed/some sort of precipitation-ed this morning, making for the perfect day to stay inside and read :)

Locks of Love

I've been letting my hair grow out for the last year and a half because I wanted to donate it to Locks of Love. The minimum you can donate is 10 inches so I had to let my hair grow longer than I've ever had it before. Here's my long hair.

I had Justin measure the correct amount and chop it off.

Here I am after he chopped 10 inches.

My donation:

I had a hair appointment this morning to get a style with what is left of my hair. As I was driving down 10th Ave towards the salon, I noticed random traffic lights were out. When I got to the mall, there was no power. So, I had to reschedule my appointment for tomorrow. I'm stuck with uneven hair for one more day. Not a big deal considering it still pulls back into a low ponytail.

Yesterday, after Justin got back from alert, we went out to lunch and ended up at Petco. We got a water fountain bowl thing for the cats. It filters the water and keeps it moving. It's supposed to be good for them and we like to spoil them.

At first they were suspicious of the moving water, but they quickly got used to it.

A few weeks ago I was looking for something and found the original bed we bought for the kitties when they were little. I put it on the floor and Fatty climbed into it. He barely fits.


Just for a comparison: When we got them, both cats took up half that bed. Now one cat almost fills up the entire thing.

Last night was a traumatic night for the kitties. At about midnight, Justin went and hung up his flight suit that I washed and Swirly ran into the front closet (unbeknown to us). So she spent the night trapped in the coat closet. At 7, Justin went downstairs and didn't see her but he heard her in the closet. She had pulled a coat off the hanger and made herself a little bed. She's fine but she was stuck in there for a good length of time. Upon his arrival downstairs, Justin also discovered that Fatty had puked a bunch of times. There was only a little on the carpet. Mostly it was on the kitchen floor and the blue carpet we have in the laundry room. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he looks okay now and ate this morning so hopefully he won't be throwing up anymore. The only real casualty was my shoe.
Hopefully, running it through the washing machine will take care of the cat puke on it. Otherwise, I might have to get new shoes.

It's been an eventful 24 hours here at the Jones house.

Fountain Hills, Arizona

Fountain Hills is so named because of the lake with the world's tallest fountain. (It's not the tallest anymore, but it was for a long time.) My grandparents have lived here for longer than I have been alive and I've visited the area almost every year of life. It's one of my absolute favorite places in the world. Over spring break during our junior year of college, I brought Justin out to Fountain Hills for the first time. Lucky for me, he fell in love with Arizona too. Together we've been to Fountain Hills three times.

On our first visit, we went to the Renaissance Festival. We both really enjoy that period of history and the culture surrounding it. The festival itself is great: music, live performances, food, food and more food.

As with any place, the zoo is a must-see for my family. I love the Phoenix Zoo and have as many memories of it as I do of the Toledo Zoo. The great apes are my favorite exhibits, always have been. My stuffed animal collection consists of a few random things, but it's mostly monkeys and apes. I love the orangutans. I could sit and watch them all day.


New to the zoo this year is an exhibit called "Land of the Dragons." Komodo Dragons are really interesting creatures. They bite their prey, poisoning them, then stalk them for weeks until they finally succumb to disease. Here's Justin being eaten by a giant reptile.

If you readers haven't noticed already, most of the pictures are taken by me, and therefore Justin is the one in the pictures. I don't particularly like being in pictures and Justin doesn't mind so it works out. Here's Justin at the zoo with my brother Stephen in the background taking pictures of the mountains.

Spring is really the best time to visit Fountain Hills. The temperature is a nice 75 to 80 degrees and the desert plants are in bloom.

Here we are at the top of a mountain trail we hiked up. People put rocks in a pile at the top so we each added a stone to the heap.

Very rarely over the years have I seen animals in the desert. Usually we just see small lizards that scamper behind rocks when you get close. A long time ago, I saw a scorpion in the wild and a tarantula in my grandparents backyard. However, this past trip, we saw a desert tortoise and a snake.

Everyone was scared of the snake. But it wasn't a rattler and when I looked it up, it turned out to be a harmless little guy. I probably could have picked it up and been fine. Snakes are awesome.

The cholla cactus are abundant in this part of Arizona. On our first visit here, I warned Justin about the "jumping cholla." I told him not to get too close or the cactus will end up attached to you. So what does he do? He goes to look at one and turns around and the next thing you know, there's a chunk of cactus the size of a softball in his leg. Luckily he was wearing jeans so it couldn't dig too far into his skin, but he still had blood and a giant bruise from it. It's sort of a rite of passage to get stuck by a cholla. Everyone gets stuck at one time or another. And believe me, once it happens to you, it won't happen again. I got three tiny cholla needles in my shin when I was about 10 years old and it was super painful for me when my grandpa pulled them out with pliers. Justin learned his lesson and steered clear of the chollas after that.

Here we are on another hike.

Here's a view of the lake and the fountain from my parent's hotel room.

After having been to most areas of the country, this is still my favorite.


Next installment of "Places Justin and I have been".... Tampa, Florida.

One Year Down

It's hard to believe that we've lived in Montana for a year now. In some ways this past year has felt incredibly short and in other ways it has seemed to drag on forever. After experiencing every month in Great Falls, I feel I can give it a fair evaluation. We have had some great times here in "Not So Great" Falls, but on the whole, this is not a place I would ever choose to live. When you stay in the same place for an extended period of time, you adapt to it and begin to view your current location as normal. It's not until you leave and return that you realize just how isolated you are. I forget what it's like to live in civilization. I forget that it's not normal to drive an hour and half to get to the next nearest city. I forget what it's like to have choices in retailers and have the option to choose between such similar places as Lowe's and Home Depot, Sam's Club and Costo, Barnes and Noble and Border's. All the familiar aspects of living in the suburbs are lost.

However...we have made some good friends here in Montana, we have a nice house to live in and there is a lot of scenery unique to this area.



On a random side note: I was looking through all my pictures and realized that before I started this blog, most of the photos I took were unseen by family and friends. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to make posts with pictures from the last 3 or 4 years, of the places Justin and I have gone and the things we've seen.