Nikki Post: Puppy Playdate

A while back, Steve and I took Eva to visit with our friends Lauren and Lisa, both of whom have dogs we thought could be good friends with our pup. Lauren is also our dog walker, so we figured that if the socialization experiment went south, she'd be able to intervene and keep everyone chill. As it turns out, HER dog Sneakers was NOT interested in playing with a bunch of spastic dogs. Lauren was pup-sitting for Nala, who also wasn't very interested in playing, but was at least game enough to wander around while Lisa's dog Shao Khan and Eva acted like best buddies on crack.

Warning: I was NOT paying attention to the fact that I was recording sound, so you'll get to hear our conversations while watching the video. If you dislike cursing, just mute the video; you won't miss out on anything really cute, puppy-wise.

Introduction

Warming up!

As night falls, the pups wind down (relatively speaking).

Nikki Post: What's Happier Than A Happy Dog?

As I'm sure all of you (even my few international readers) know, last week a psychopath went on a shooting spree in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado and killed a dozen people while also emotional scarring hundreds of other people. Everyone I know out here is thankfully okay, and the response from the community has been overwhelming positive. Luckily there haven't been many copycats, mainly thanks to the vigilance of various police departments across the country.

I've been looking for something to post to the blog to act as filler between adventures and also make some people smile. Good fortune (and my local animal shelters) have given me two adorable pets and a camera phone to record their silliness, so I'm going to make three posts full of pictures and videos of my pup and kitty. I hope you enjoy them and that you share them with someone you know who needs a smile.

Eva's Adventures at the Dog Park

Cherry Creek State Park has an off-leash dog park for members and the general public to use to give their pooches some much-needed running around and socialization. I've taken Eva there three times, and she's LOVED it. She's also very good about coming when called (thanks to treats) or at least "checking in." She loves to play with other dogs in the water and run through fields sniffing stuff and pooping in REALLY inconvenient places. She hurt her paw the last time we went (she was playing too hard), so it's been a while since we've been there. However, we're camping the first weekend of August, and the dog park is one of our top locations to visit.

Running through the water is one of her favorite things in the world. Throw a ball for her, and she's in Heaven.

One part of the creek area is accessible only by throwing oneself down an eroded shore. Eva is REALLY good at running up and down the side.

This video is from her first time at the dog park. We weren't sure how she'd do, but she was a hit with everyone, dogs and people both.

Part two of her first time at the dog park

The most recent time Eva was able to go to the dog park. It's much more fun after there's a little rain, and the water level is decently high.

Nikki Post: Eva's Field Trip

Steve and I took Eva to Cherry Creek State Park on Father's Day evening to sniff around and see the beach. I thought she might get a kick out of playing in the water and walking along the trails. The pointer in her LOVES smelling things; I should have renamed her "Toucan Sam"! ("Just follow your nose!") While she was a little hesitant about playing in the water, I eventually got her to splash around in it by standing up to my calves in the (thankfully warm) water. She kept trying to drink the water though! Hopefully it'll be ok. :p

Here are some cute pictures of her adventures at the park. Enjoy!

Pulling "Daddy" towards the park

So excited! So many things to see and smell!

We're finally on the beach!!! Look! There's people! Let's be friends!

I sure do love getting my paws dirty! (Shadow is Steve's)

This sure is a BIG bath!

I'm done with the beach. Let's go exploring! I bet there's TONS of little animals I can chase!

BONUS VIDEO!!

Random Post

Nikki still needs to edit the pictures from our camping trip last weekend for me to post up here. She ended up taking more fancy-pants pictures that she'll post to her Facebook fan page than she took of pictures of me, but that's ok. At least she took pictures. :p In the meantime, I thought I'd share some pics and a video and a random armadillo fact I've got laying around. So this is a filler entry, but hopefully it's at least a little interesting.

First up, my interesting armadillo fact, brought to you by @FunFactFriday and @drew_eckman on Twitter.

Armadillos, opossums, Nolins, and sloths
spend about 80% of their lives sleeping.

Here's my fun fact: I have no idea what a Nolin is, nor could I find anything about them by Google searching.

The next two parts of this entry come from our friend Jared M. Gordon, who not only posts horror stories about people's bad dates, AND writes about random topics, AND keeps a travel blog too (why he'd bother writing one without an armadillo is beyond me), but is also a decent guy who enjoys Mexican food and witty banter. (PS: Jared, if you don't link more prominently to this blog in at least one of your many social networking sites, I'll send a cousin of mine after you; he has leprosy. Hard to make movies when your nose is falling off!!)

Jared is on his yearly cross-country road trip, and he stopped by Denver to say hi and crash on our couch. So far, he's amazed at how nice everyone in Denver is. Nikki has a theory that the air in Colorado is so thin that no one can maintain rage for very long. However, she proves that theory wrong every time she gets cut off in traffic. :p

Today, he's visiting the Denver Zoo and sent Nikki this video of a monkey (it could be an ape; hard to tell) swinging from a trapeze line at the zoo:

Jared also sent her this picture of him being besties with some hippos:

Finally, we have a new addition to our family, a new permanent resident in our household. Her name is Eva, and she's a spastic three-year-old pointer-mutt mix. Nikki & Steve had spent about a month looking for dogs on Petfinder.com (Nikki can now tell you the breed of any dog she sees) and visiting the Dumb Friends League, looking for the perfect pooch to bring home. They weren't even going to visit with Eva, as her former family had given her up for being "too hyper," but the volunteer at the check-in counter said, "One person's hyper is another person's normal," so they met Eva, fell in love, and brought her home.

Eva isn't "hyper" so much as she's paranoid that we'll stop loving her at some point. She's SUPER eager to please and LOVES having her belly rubbed. She knows very well who the "alpha dogs" are in the house and just wants to be around us all the time. (Tasha, as you can imagine, is horrified, although she's not mad at Nikki and Steve like she was when we had Stella the cat.) Eva's family neglected her when they had her, and probably just tied her up in the yard and left her there. We think this is why Eva's such a spazz. (Nikki and Steve are signing her up for obedience training classes today.)

I suggested that we take Eva camping with us last weekend, as it'd be nice for her to get out of the apartment and have new places to sniff and explore. Here are a few pics from that adventure.

On the way up the mountain. She was remarkably calm in the car.

On the way down the mountain. She loved sticking her head out the window!

That's all for now, folks! Hopefully I'll get to update the blog soon. :)

SNOWVENTURE! Part Two

Now that we're done having our fabulous Snowventure in Evergreen, let me show you how fun it was so you can be TOTALLY jealous!!

Evergreen got about two feet of snow during the recent blizzard. Using Steve as a yardstick, you can see how much snow his aunt Pam and uncle Rob got on their porch!

Since it never really snowed that much in Maryland, Nikki and Steve don't own any cold weather gear. As such, Nikki had to borrow Uncle Rob's waterproof ski pants for our sledding adventure. Luckily, T-Rex and I were fine with just ear muffs and a scarf.

Aw man, T-Rex!! You're facing the wrong way! You'll go down the hill backwards if you're not careful!

Steve went down the sledding lane with a giant jump in it. Check out the look on his face!

The cold and wet aftermath of getting some sweet air.

Oh my God! I can NOT stop LAUGHING at this picture!!! Look at the look on her face! Ahahaha!!
[Nikki: I went FLYING down the damn hill but wasn't on the sled properly, so when I hit the jump, I flipped in the air. This is the exact moment I realized that I was going to die. And NO, there wasn't a video of it...thank God.]

Nikki faceplanted SPECTACULARLY. I mean, seriously, everyone went SILENT because we thought she had broken her neck and was dead. She just lost her glasses and hat and got covered in snow. THIS HAPPENED TWICE. The second time was just as funny as the first. After that run though, she decided just to stick to taking pictures. :p

Steve's aunt Pam spent all of her rides down the hill screaming bloody murder and laughing hysterically.

This is a hilarious video of me, T-Rex, and Nikki sledding down the mountain. Getting back up the hill was the hardest part...for Nikki. Neither T-Rex nor I have arms big enough to carry a snow tube back up a hill. ;p

After our trip down the hill, T-Rex and I spent the rest of the day chillin' at the top of the mountain. We saw what happened to Nikki, and even though we don't have any bones to break, he and I didn't want to risk it!

Denver Zoo, Part Four: Things that Swim

The THRILLING conclusion to our free day at the Denver Zoo! Or, I don't know,  not really "thrilling," since most of the pictures are of animals that move SUPER....SLOOOWWWLLLYYY...like, so slow, they only look cool moving when a videographer speeds the movie up, like, 100%. Anyway!

The Denver Zoo has a really cool reptiles/invertebrates/aquarium house that you could get lost in for HOURS and still feel like you hadn't seen everything. It was, by far, the busiest place in the whole zoo, which is probably why Nikki had a freak-out at one point and left me with Steve so she could run outside to get air. (She doesn't always do well in large crowds of people, plus, it was really humid in there with all the tropical animals.) I'll have to make her take me back some time when there's maybe fewer people. :P

Fun fact about Nikki: she's TERRIFIED of fish! Catfish especially, and ESPECIALLY fish that are larger than she is. (Tuna, for example, which are waaaaay bigger than you'd think because they only come in those tiny cans.)

This little frog's bright, beautiful color is a warning to those who might think it tastes delicious. Kinda like how Mr. Yuk is a neon green, this guy (girl?) is neon yellow to warn predators that it's poisonous.

Yertle the Turtle? Can't be...I don't see any other turtles piled on top of him!

"Please, sir, may I have some more algae gruel?" - the sea urchin (heh heh)

TOTALLY click on the two pictures above to see the full-size versions. They're totally awesome.

I LOVE starfish! Have you ever seen a video of a bunch of starfish moving all sped up? It's probably one of the coolest, creepiest things ever. I also like starfish because when one of their arms gets eaten or cut off, it grows back, which is totally badass. They don't let a little thing like getting eaten stop them!

Back in the day, Nikki had gotten dumped by a guy who she thought was the love of her life. (This was WELL before she met Steve, obviously.) She was really upset about it, so her younger brother James told her a story about a starfish whose legs had gotten eaten by a shark. The starfish grew his legs back tougher and stronger. When he met the shark again, he was all ready to get revenge...an eye for an eye, a leg for a leg. (Metaphorically speaking, of course, as sharks don't have legs.) But then the starfish realized that, had the shark NOT eaten the starfish's legs, the starfish wouldn't be as strong as he was now. So he thanked the shark and let him live. It's a wonderful parable for the old idiom "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

To end our visit at the Denver Zoo, I'll leave you with some swimmers who breathe oxygen, move fast without the help of camera tricks, and have relatively large brains: sea lions!!

Oh, to be a sea lion! I'd get to swim around and frolic and play all day.

QUEEN OF THE SEA LIONS! :D

Here's something interesting about one of the sea lions, Bismark: he was found without back flippers! You can go here to make a donation to ensure that Bismark gets lots of tasty fish to eat this winter.

The Denver Zoo is for the birds!

I love the Denver Zoo, but I have one problem with them: THEY DON'T HAVE ANY ARMADILLOS! I mean, I'm glad I don't have to see some distantly-related cousins in captivity or anything, but still. What zoo is complete without armadillos?!

Now that that's out of the way, I have to say that I HIGHLY recommend everyone visiting the Denver Zoo at least once in their lives. It's such a great zoo, and they're building a new elephant habitat, which unfortunately wasn't ready when we visited. They also have FREE DAYS, which is great if you're an armadillo (or a person) on a budget. We had such a good time, I'm going to have to make this a multi-part entry. :)

The day we went was a free day, and it was COLD! but so worth it. The first thing we did was make a beeline for the penguin area on the other side of the zoo from the entrance. We wanted to get a good spot for their feeding time!

While we were all waiting for the trainer to come out with their breakfast, a guy near us noticed that the penguins were following the light reflection his watch was making. It was pretty adorable and a great pre-show!

Hopefully you can hear everything the trainer is saying about his penguin friends!

Penguin vs. Machine

No! You have so much to live for!

Oh. Good. Glad you made it. Too bad no one was watching your awesome jump.

After we were done watching the penguins eat, we decided to see how we measured up to our feathered friends...literally!

So I'm about the same size as a fairy penguin. (What a cute name!)

But an emperor penguin could totally kick my ass. :( Big bully.

I find it strange that my best human friend is only twice as tall as the tallest penguin.

Steve, however, could totally take an emperor penguin in a fight! I know who I'll be hiding behind after smack-talking a penguin!

We went to the bird house to warm up after walking around in the cold, looking at exotic animals that had no business being in the cold. Luckily for me, my nose doesn't run like Nikki's and Steve's, so I didn't need to duck into a bathroom and blow my nose.

It's animals like this that make me SO HAPPY I'm an armadillo and not some crazy bird. See that giant yellow hump on its beak? THAT'S A PART OF ITS BEAK! Scientists don't know why the bird has that thing, but they have theories.

Next up, two technicolor birdies and bffs:

What are these two beauties?

One of the neatest aspects of the Denver Zoo is that they have a large muster of peacocks (that's the official word for a "group" of the birds) that roam the zoo grounds. Steve told me that when he and Nikki first visited the zoo years ago, a male peacock actually displayed his tail for him! We didn't have such great luck this time, but it was still neat getting so close to the birds.

Nikki Post: What's a Tweet-up?

I follow a local Twitter feed that tells people about special events going on in the Denver area. (I Know Denver, by the way.) Last week, they posted a notice that the Denver Museum of Natural Science (DenverMuseumNS on Twitter) was having a "tweet-up," which is a group get-together that you learn about on Twitter. (That's my definition anyway. The Urban Dictionary definition is much cruder.) All they asked was that we a) enjoy ourselves and b) tweet about our experiences and use the hashtag "#dmnstweetup."

For those who aren't Twitter-knowledgeable, a hashtag is like a common link that people on Twitter use to talk about a certain topic. Someone could search for the term "DMNSTweetup" on Twitter and see all of the tweets that people at the tweet-up using that tag were making. Hashtags range from the practical, like the tweet-up hashtag, to the ridiculous like the recent "#thingslongerthankimkardashiansmarriage.")

The tweet-up met up after regular museum hours so we could have free access to the T-Rex Encounter. Animatronic dinosaurs that follow your every movement?! FOR FREE?! Sign me up!! AND we were being given this special access by the curator, Joe Sertich ("Curator Joe"). Check out the website for the details; it's a lot cooler than I could describe. While I'm fairly certain she'd freak out from fear, I'd love to be able to take Mia (my three-year-old niece) to the exhibit. I can see her roaring back at the T. Rex if surrounded by the right audience. ;)

Before I post screen-shots of my tweets, here's the "official" picture Steve and I took with Sue, the museum's famous dinosaur: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmns_photo_booth/6333575962. And here's pictures of other museum-goers having fun with the same green screen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmns_photo_booth.

WHOMP WHOMP for me. :(

 After spending an hour wandering around the exhibit, we were blessed with a special treat: we got to go "backstage" in "the Bone Room," where the museum houses the fossils and bones that are a part of the Snowmastodon Project. Up in Snowmass, CO, a ski town, construction workers were digging a reservoir when they kept unearthing mastodon and mammoth bones, along with the bones of other ancient animals large and small. They stopped their digging, and scientists and volunteers from DMNS swarmed into town. The sheer amount of bones they found is incredible. And these bones are considered "modern fossils," meaning that minerals from the earth haven't replaced the bone. (Thanks to Scientist Steve for helping me phrase that correctly!) So instead of having to brush away the dirt from the fossils gently so as not to destroy the bones, the excavators just had to wash the dirt away. Seriously, read about the project; it's insanely impressive and geek-out worthy.

Note to scientists: I asked Curator Joe if I could touch the tooth first, and I touched it EVER SO GENTLY. Steve, when I asked if he wanted me to take a picture of him touching a mastodon tooth: "I'm a scientist. I appreciate things with my eyes and my mind." His loss. :P

 

BONUS!!! Just found this video of the Saurornitholestes that another tweet-up visitor posted!