Happy Birthday, Mom!

What do you get for the girl who has everything? Well, if that girl is my mom, you get her a wild turkey. And so, after an injured knee, three very long hunts, and a bruised ego, I did just that. Dad and I went out Saturday and Sunday and finally came home with the perfect birthday present for my mom. She now has eleven packages of turkey breast to make her famous chipotle wraps. (I just hope there is some left for my next visit home.) I did get a special prize for my successful hunt...a jar of jalapeño jelly from my Uncle Stephen.

It's funny to think about my dad and me hunting together after all of these years. When we first started, we headed to Sabinal to hunt on the Shudde Ranch because there weren't any wild turkey's on our place. But after many years of raising wild turkeys in our backyard in the city, we were able to introduce a healthy number. My dad was my age when we first started this adventure, and I'm having more and more fun as the years go by. This year, I saw a dramatic change in our hunting relationship: Due to age and gravity and two very strong wills, I can best characterize our time together as Elmer-Fudd-Meets-Driving-Miss-Daisy. You really had to be there!

Here are a few pics of the prized bird, a rare three-bearded tom. Yes, he actually has three beards, but we didn't know that at the time. I must say I stood a little taller and quickly forgot about my missed shot (though my guide had some fault in that one) after hearing my dad say he'd never taken a double-beard. Not bad for my first Paris Ranch turkey. In total, he had 19".

The ranch is beautiful right now. We have a ton of wildflowers in bloom and the recent rains have greened up all the pastures. The cows are fat and happy, and we were able to work a few of the calves to get ready weaning. What a blessing it is to have such a special place in our family!

Playing Hookie!

Yesterday I took a personal day to spend the day with Joel. He's been working strange ED shifts this month and is scheduled to work every weekend. So we decided to pick a day to spend together, and we couldn't have picked a more beautiful day. We slept in a bit and headed up to Winter Park to ski for the afternoon. The temp was warm in the high 40s without a cloud in the sky. This is the first time in two seasons that we've been able to ski together...just the two of us! I'm able to keep up with him on any blue, and I even beat him down one run. Just to make sure I didn't get too full of myself he quickly took me up to a bowl, where I invented my own one-legged windmill ski style. It was quite a sight!

After we got home, Joel dusted off the grill for some buffalo bratwursts, and I finished weeding and cleaning out the flower beds. We are catching up on Lost and started season five. It was such a fun day, and we had a fantastic laugh when my sunburn started to appear. Of course, I have the signature "I skipped work today to go skiing" look, which is a sunburned outline around my ski goggles. This morning I found new ways of using concealer to hide my shame. Even though I took a personal day, and I can spend it however I choose, I just didn't feel right going back to work today showing all the evidence. Thankfully, the concealer worked, but I had a hard time explaining why I was sweating all day long... ;)

Off to China!

This week I received my acceptance letter to teach in a teacher training program (JESIE) in China! I'm still working on the travel plans, but I will most likely arrive in Shanghai on or around July 2 and travel with my group down to Nanjing where we will be teaching for about two weeks. I will be working with three other teachers from Denver, and the rest of the group is from across the US and three providences in Canada.

Since I began teaching in Denver, I've been working on gaining my ELA (English Language Acquisition) certification. Additionally, this semester I'm involved in the National Consortium on Teaching about Asia, where I've received an in-depth look into East Asian art, music, literature, culture and history. It seems like all of my new interests have serendipitously met in this summer experience. Joel and I are excited about this opportunity and are looking for ways to do this type of work together in the future.

More details to come....