Lep Course, Final Update

A very late final Arizona update…  My apologies!  The Tundra is just so busy!! 

OK, so I left off on Thursday of last week.  I’m so sorry I didn’t update y’all right after we got back from collecting in the desert!!  Why??  Because, it. was. awesome!!!  We all got some really great moths for our collections among other things (I found a bristle tail!  Baller!!  I’ve never seen one in real life and those things are triiiicky to catch – so jumpy!).  I must say, that the highlight of my night, and nearly of the week, happened back at the station, though.

Once we got back to the station we all started processing some of the goodies we picked up in the desert and I decided to “just go check” and see what the station sheets brought in, since we had decided to let those run while we were in the desert.  As I was walking up the hill to check one of my favorite sites I started to realize something: “I’m an idiot!  There are mountain lions out here and I’m going by myself to look at a stupid sheet hung between two trees with a light to try to find some moths…I’ve lost my marbles, officially…”  So, upon that realization you would have thought I would have turned around, right?  One would think, but no I had already committed and was a little over halfway to the sheet so I just flashed my head lamp around a whole lot as I walked and quickened my pace a little bit…as did my heart rate  ;)  I felt much better once I got to the sheet, for some reason the light of the mercury vapor lamp was comforting and made me feel safe (don’t ask why…I was crazy that night…blame it on the lack of sleep??).  I started on the front side of the sheet and got a few cuties then moseyed around to the back side of the sheet and grabbed a few more goodies.  While I was checking out the back of the sheet I saw something rather large land on the front side – all I could see was its silhouette, and I had no idea what it could have been.  The only things we had been seeing of that size were sphinx moths and knew without a doubt that it was not a sphinx.  So…naturally, I walked around to the other side of the sheet to see the beast.  Y’all…again, I nearly peed my pants.  It was a Dysschema howardi!!!  This beauty is the largest tiger moth member in North America!  And it is goooorgeous.  Typically moths of this size (same goes for most sphinx moths and a few others) aren’t killed using a kill jar…it takes them too long to settle down and they end up shredding their wings and just beating themselves to death instead of passing out first like the little guys.  So, for the sake of the moth and the preservation of the specimen we inject them to speed up the process.  I, however, of course, did not have a syringe on me…neeeeat.  So, what did I do??  Well, I couldn’t just leave it there!  It was the only one we had seen the entire week and the only one anyone had seen the entire summer – it, at the very least, needed to be documented.  So I plucked that pretty off the sheet with my fingers, gathered up my kill jars, and ran (yes, ran) down the hill back to the labs to find someone with more knowledge who could help me decide what to do with my gem.

When I got to the bottom of the hill I ran passed a number of my favorite mothers chillaxing at one of the picnic tables – I so wanted to stop but I was on a mission and I had to take care of the moth first  :)  When I got inside the lab room I saw that Hugh was in there – excellent!  Hugh was our course curator and he, like all of the instructors, has a wealth of knowledge about preserving specimens.  I ran over to him, held out my hand and said, “Hugh!  Help!”  He looked up from his scope and just about fell out of his chair, looked at me with the biggest grin and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”  All I could do was shake my head in response.  He stands up and says, “To the lab!”  We ran down to his curation lab where he had all of his supplies stored and he did the deed for me, preserving my beauty in perfect condition.  Hugh injects with ammonia, instead of ethanol, because it works immediately (seriously, the thing was out in about half a second) and keeps the specimen pliable for longer – allowing for a smoother mounting and spreading process (mounting: placing the specimen on a pin; spreading: spreading the wings into a position that reveals the color patterns and morphological characters…also makes them pretty to look at).  **sigh**  My moth was taken care of and after asking Hugh if he needed her for the station’s synoptic collection and him assuring me that the male-female pair in the collection would suffice and that the moth was all mine and if anyone tried to take her away from that he would set them straight we marked back to the course labs and we showed her off to everyone.  It was pretty humorous…people started coming out from the woodwork it seemed!  From that moment on one of three things happened pre-collecting each night: (1) people threatened to hog-tie me so that I couldn’t get the good ones before them (there were a few other beauties I had in my possession that people were jealous of…), (2) people wanted to rub some of my luck onto them, (3) people wanted to make sure that I was at their sheet while we were collecting.  It was pretty funny.

OK, enough ogling over my moth collection…  ;)

The rest of the trip was just as incredible as the first half was.  It was such a blessing to be able to be in the presence of and build relationships with the lep gurus of today.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t star-struck the entire week.  I now have some remarkable friends and connections to help me along as I continue in the field…at least for the next two years.  Again, I’d be lying if I said that this last week didn’t make me want to reconsider the idea of finishing my master’s and moving forward to get a PhD in the field…I really do enjoy research.  And the collaboration that goes along with the community is so fun and allows for a broadening of knowledge that is priceless.  I think I’d be much happier in a museum position than I would be in a professorship, though.  But, I still have at least 2 years to figure out all of that, for now I am enjoying my time in the community and enjoying my project.  I got a lot of pointers and clues about my group while I was I AZ, as well.  Like I said, priceless.

Our last official night of the course (there was a scheduling faux pas and all of the instructors headed out a day before the students were told to leave…woops!) was an absolute blast (surprised, much?).  After dinner we all piled into vans and trucks and made our way over to New Mexico for some non-collecting fun at the Rodeo Tavern.  The instructors had been talking this place up all week, so by the time Saturday night arrived we were all beyond excited to finally make our way to the little hole-in-the-wall.

This place was a hoot!  We upped the customer count by about 5 times…and so probably doubled their weekly earnings!  It was fun watching the locals watch us – a few of those cowboys tried to play it smooth on the dance floor, too, it was too funny.  But those locals sure knew how to play pool!  I don’t think our people (and we actually had some really good players) won but one match against those cowboys.  We all took a couple turns around the dance floor – I even got out there a couple times.  I tried to tell Jim that just because I’m from Texas does not mean that I know how to two-step…he laughed and pulled me out onto the floor anyways.  We decided to blame my lack of dancing skills on the fact that I was wearing chacos – that’s right, two-stepping in chacos.  How’s that for a mental image??  Gotta love entomologists, am I right?  We closed the tavern down (at about midnight…who closes that early??) and headed back to the station to continue our final hoorah before a good chunk of people left the next day.  I think we finally called it a night around 2 or 3am…so just about right on time for most of us!

Sunday consisted of clean-up, packing, and farewells…talk about depressing.  It was like being at summer camp and leaving all those awesome new friends and counselors who had been your life for that last week.  Isn’t it amazing how quickly people can get to know each other and build relationships when you’re surrounded by each other 24-7?  I just love that about people.  Oh!  I almost forgot!  I got up extra early Sunday morning to hit the road with Hugh.  He had set up a few extra light traps out and about the desert and other areas Saturday night and I told him I would help him take them down.  So we headed out around 6am and started collecting traps.  We had a great time driving around on empty, gathering the traps, and chatting the early morning away.  We got back just in time to catch the tail-end of breakfast and then set to sorting the traps with everyone for one final moth search before we got the clean-up and farewells.  In those traps is where I found my second Euchaetes zella!!  It was my last once-over on a whim at one of the traps I hadn’t picked through yet and caught the corner of a wing out of the corner of my eye and thought, “No way that’s a zella…”  I picked it out from under a couple other moths, flipped it over and, sure enough, it was indeed a zella!  It was rather thrilling, to say the least.

Sigh…I still can’t believe that week is over and I’m back in the Tundra getting back to the old grind…  I so wanted to stay in that hidden-away oasis.  It was so refreshing to be unplugged for that week with some internet access here and there…when it decided to behave.  I never carried my phone on me…that never happens.  It’s practically glued to my pocket here.  I’m going to work on making it less of an appendage of my body.  I’ll still have it on and around, but I’m going to work on not having it a finger’s length away so much.  Aside from being unplugged that week in AZ was just what the doctor ordered for my mental and physical health.  It’s been a rather stressful summer on my front and I’m convinced that is why I’ve been feeling so poorly the last few months (headaches, body aches, migraines, etc…).  By the second day-in in those gorgeous mountains I was feeling so good, even though I wasn’t sleeping, that it was a no-brainer…stress = bad news bears!  Everyone needs to really stop and leave the stressors for some amount of time – even if it’s only a day or two.  I also need to be better about eating full meals…it didn’t matter how tired and run-down I was going into a meal at the station, by the time I left the mess hall I was feeling completely re-energized and ready to tackle some more moths!  Lesson learned…I need to rest and I need to eat (better). 

Well, now that I’m back home I’ve been processing my specimens from AZ (once they are all spread I'll show y'all the goods!) and trying to get back into the swing of life in the city.  The moving process has also begun.  We got most of Megan and Justin’s things moved yesterday and today we are taking the bulk of my stuff.  We can’t move into the house until Thursday, but we have access to the garage for now, so we’ve been piling as much into that as we can while we have access to Justin’s parents’ truck and trailer.

And, with that, dear ones, I’m off to get back to the packing!  Can’t wait to give y’all a “tour” of the new place once we are all settled in,

Praying your Sunday is a blessed one.

Lots of love,

~MW

Lep Course, Day 5

18 Aug 2011

Why helloooo, there!

Ummm…wow…I canNOT believe that it is already Thursday!!!  How did this happen?!?!  Time is so fleeting, per usual.

Mercy it’s been a long week, though.

So, remember that time we were supposed to have lectures and such until 2am?  Well, that plan changed a little bit, but not in my favor.  The lectures got moved around and so we were left to collecting circa midnight.  At this point, I decided that I was going to grab a couple hours of sleep and get up at 2am to go hunt down some moths for a couple hours and then head back to bed.  And, that my dear ones is exactly what I did…well, sort of…

I got up at 2am, sans alam clock even!  How that happened, I have no idea.  Anyways, I went off hunting and actually happened across a fair bit of stuff that I hadn’t seen/collected yet, so that was super exciting.  But…haha….here’s where my plan changed…I ended up staying out until 6am.  Yep…6am, folks.  Dedication?  Maybe…probably more insanity  ;)  I was looking super intensely for some of my moths, but, alas, I did not find a single one.  I found a member of one of my outgroups…but no Euchaetes.  Booo….   I was not happy.  Especially when I realized it was 6am and was just going to bed – yeah, breakfast is at 7:30, ha! 

Needless to say, that made yesterday an incredibly long day.  I had to duck out during one of our wetlabs (it was dissecting…I’m solid there, but seeing other techniques would have been nice, nonetheless) to catch a couple hours of sleep.  Even after that I was a total zombie. 

Overall yesterday was a good day – lots of talk about morphology (my favorite!) and all that jazz, so it was fun for me.  It was also nice to have a little bit of a leg up to help out some of the other people here who haven’t done dissections or gone through the morphology all that much yet.  Yay, teaching!

Collecting last night was slow, but OUTSTANDING!!

Y’all, I caught a Euchaetes!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just one, and it’s the only one I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been here (5 days already!), but it’s a Euchaetes!!  Euchaetes zella, to be exact.  It’s one of my favorite species in the genus.  It’s a little more petite than most and has the super distinctive whit darts on the forewings which are a dusty deep chocolatey-almost-black-brown (I know, I need to come up with a more solid color description…it’ll get there), and pale white-cream hindwings.  The abdomen on these critters is gorgeous – it’s a strikingly vivid orange-ish red with the tell-tale-Euchaetes black spots running down the midline and the sides of the abdomen.  Ahhh…I saw that beauty fly up to the sheet and I just about peed my pants!  It is now safely pinned and stored away in my insect box.  The only sad thing about this story is that zella is a species that I have a fair number of representatives of already, but, fresh material is always exciting and it proves, in real time, that my guys are here…it’s just a matter of finding them  :)  I stumbled across a number of other pretty little things last night as well.  So overall, the diversity was up, though the numbers were low.

We all called it a fairly early night and was thrilled to jump in bed at midnight clean and satisfied with a good night of collecting.

Today has been a pretty easy day.  We had a few lectures this morning and then went on a butterfly walk and I was lucky enough to come home with a couple beauties to add to my collection and family representation count (we’re supposed to have a minimum of 25 families in our collections by the end of the course, I’m up to about 18-20, almost there!).  More lectures took up the rest of the day and now it’s just about dinner time (yay, food!!!)  After dinner we are heading out to the desert for collecting and then might close the night at the Rodeo Bar that is near the site we are collecting at.

Here’s to another night of good collecting and finding more Euchaetes!!

Hope all is well in your realms!

‘Til next time,

~MW

Lep Course, Day 3

16 Aug 2011

Whew!  What a couple of days this has been!  The half day we had at the station on Sunday was pretty chill (and by pretty I mean extremely…) in comparison to Monday and today.  Heavens, all I want is sleep, but there simply isn’t time for that here.

We start our days bright and early.  Breakfast is at 7:30, so I’ve been getting up around 6 to look over some notes and things and mentally prepare for the bombardment of information that will accost my brain come 8am.  ***I’m going to have to start getting up earlier, though…I’ll need to start going around to the sheets and traps in the eeeearly, daaark mornings to hunt down the moths that don’t come out until later in the night.***  We have been doing a lecture or two in the mornings and then heading out for some good hours of field collecting (3-4hrs has been the norm thus far) outside of the research station grounds.  It’s been a lot of fun to drive even 20min and see an incredible difference in fauna and flora, not to mention terrain.  We eat lunch somewhere in there and then hit the lectures or field again.  Then there’s dinner and then maybe another lecture and, of course, the highlight of our day: major collecting!! 

Since the majority of Lepidoptera are nocturnal moths (though there are a number of diurnal or day-flying moths) the best collecting (unless you are hunting butterflies specifically) is at night at a light.  We use various different bulbs with white sheets set up behind them to help attract our moths…and of course anything else that sees our wondrous orbs and simply can’t stay away  ;)   There actually has been a fair bit of insect diversity which has been a lot of fun for those of us who don’t consider every order outside of Lepidoptera as “trash.”  I’ve seen a fair number of scarab beetles and tons of other beetle, ichneumonid wasps, caddisflies, mantid flies (!!), true flies, stink bugs and other hemiptera, leafhoppers and other homoptera/heteroptera, antlion adults (!!), and much, much more.  And, yes, I have most definitely snagged a few of those lovely specimens  :)  I even got a solifuge (I’ve never seen one alive – I totally let the cutie feed on a couple moths before I tossed it in some EtOH) and held a wicked awesome whip scorpion (this thing was as big as my hand – so sweet!)!!!  It’s been quite the exciting trip even outside of all of the lep awesomeness.  I’ve been able to collect a few members of my subfamily of moth, but none of my actual critters yet…it’s OK, I still have 4 more days after today to snatch some up!

We have been focusing more on caterpillars today which has been great fun – they’re such cuties.  It’s always remarkable to me how these creatures can often times go from a super showy caterpillar to a severely drab moth and vice-versa.  Not to mention the changes various caterpillars go through!  It’s like looking at a completely different animal at each instar (molt) for so many of these guys!  If any of y’all are interested in looking at some way pretty pictures of caterpillars check out Dave Wagner’s Caterpillars of Eastern North America.  It’s an incredible field guide…worth every penny.  And!  I now get to say that I have collected caterpillars with Dave Wagner (living the dream!!!)!!!  I feel super privileged to be able to say that.  He knows so much!  I’ve been blown away.

It’s been an intense day of lectures and collecting…and when I think about what else we have lined up for today I’m realizing that today (even though it’s 5:30pm here) is really just beginning.  After dinner, at 7:30, we go back to the drawing boards and embark on an all-nighter of lectures and collecting.  Meaning, we don’t even have the option of going to bed until 2am.  Yeeeeowzas!  Tomorrow is definitely going to be a loooong day, haha.  It’ll be worth it, but I’m definitely going to need to take a day or two to recover once I get back to the Tundra.  I’ve been crawling into bed between midnight and 1am the last two nights, but that extra hour of brain use pre-shower, pre-bed is going to be rough, y’all.  For knowledge!!  Haha.

Alrighty, kids, I’m off to snag a quick nap so I can study and begin processing the onslaught of info that has been the last 2.5 days before it’s rock’n’roll time again  :)

I’ll keep the updates coming as long as time and the internet allows.

Praying all is well!

Shalom,
~MW

Helloooooooo, AZ!!!

Hello, my happy readers  :)

Praying this Sunday finds you well and enjoying your weekend.

As you might remember from a previous post (I’m typing in the airport and internet access is lame…so links and such probably won’t be happening for this post.) I had a trip planned for this month - a trip to Arizona for field work and a course on Lepidoptera.  Well, I’m off!  Got the critters carted off to their respective caretakers (Thanks so much Amy & Tony; Matt and Judy & Dex!) for the week and I was carted off to the airport bright and early (Thanks Christine!). 

The first leg of the trip went without a hitch.  Flight was smooth and on time and now I’m sitting in DFW waiting for my 12:45p flight to Tucson.  Once I arrive in Tucson there’s supposed to be an airport pick-up waiting to take me, and anyone else arriving today, to the Southwestern Research Station in Portal.  Who I am supposed to be looking for, however, I have no clue.  It’ll be an adventure!

It’s pretty depressing being in DFW and not being able to walk out that exit door or catch a flight to somewhere else in TX…cruel…just plain cruel.  I’m hoping that the return trip on the 22^nd will afford me the opportunity to see some Texas loves who might make the trek to the airport to see me since I have a 3hr layover   =)   **hint, hint**

I’m not too certain as to what this trip will entail as we haven’t really received any info regarding what we will be doing…just a, “Don’t forget sunscreen” message.  So…we shall see!

I am excited to meet other people working on leps and make connections with them that might help me with my project or undertakings in the future – plus, it’s just fun to meet people you share some sort of interest with.

Things have been busy, busy, busy on the Tundra front, but all is definitely well.  It’s very bitter-sweet to start thinking about moving in a few weeks.  While I’m super excited about the new place and adventuring the year with my new roommates, I’m quite sad to leave my current abode.  I just love that it’s my space.  It’s all decorated the way I like things and it just feels like home.  I’ll miss routine there as well.  But!  All good things do come to an end, and generally something else steps up and fills their place just fine.  I am quite excited to build a new routine at the new house and to collaborate with Meg about decorating, etc…we highly doubt Justin will have anything to say about anything we do.  As long as he has his projector room he’ll be happy as a lark  :)   It will also be especially nice for Jake to have more space and not have to worry about running into other doggies in the play pen.  Plus, the place is simply beautiful…I mean really, really beautiful.  Yay newness!

OK, all, laptop is about to die and I don’t feel like packing everything up to go find an outlet…

Until Arizona!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have arrived!  Found the airport pick-up meeting place after using my resourcefulness and looking up the number for the research station to find out (Apparently an email went out with loooads of info…I never got it.  But!  At least my name was on the airport pickup list!) who/where we were supposed to meet.  Got the info and made it to the meeting place just fine.  From there we all piled into a 15-passeneger van and made the 2-2.5ish hour (Maybe more?  I was too busy oogling over the mountains and beautiful nature through my window) trek to the research station from Tucson.  We actually ended up passing through New Mexico for about 30min (ish?) since the shortcut road was all washed out from the rains.  4 states in one day (MN, TX, AZ, NM)!! 

The research station is beautiful.  I mean, beeeeautiful.  It doesn’t look or feel like anything I would ever imagine for Arizona, other than all of the rocky mountains.  Gah!  I so wish I had a camera!!!  Im hoping I can get some of the people here to share some of their snapshots with me so I can show all y’all eventually.

Once at the station I had a little time to unpack my gear and toss it all neatly into some under-the-bed drawers (it’s like being at summer camp!) and chatted with my bunkmates for a little bit.  I actually know two of the girls and they happen to be collaborators on the overarching project that my project is a part of.  They’re grad students of one of my committee members, JZ, over in Wisconsin.  It was nice to see some familiar faces.  I also got to visit with JZ for a good spell and then we went to set up a trap before dinner.  Dinner was pretty tasty – complete with brownie sundaes!  Deeelish.

We have a little bit of downtime now and then we’ll head off for a big info meeting type deal and from the sounds of it, collecting!!

Internet is pretty spotty here, so blog posts, answers to emails, etc. will be posted when possible.  There is absolutely NO cell reception however…so, if any of you beautiful people need me at all this week, your best bet will be to email/facebook/etc. me.

Happy Sunday, loves!

Shalom!
~MW

HOME, SWEET HOME!!!!!!!!!!

We found it!!!!

OK, OK, I know I need to back up.

So...my latest housing update was a little less than cheery, though hopeful.

After finding out that Panda wasn't going to be able to make the great trek north, I was rather disheartened, but knew that there was something else in store for my next year here...sadly, it just wouldn't involve my little brother adventuring with me.

A couple days later I was presented with an opportunity to get a place with two of my friends: Megan and Justin.  After considering that option and weighing the pros and cons of having roommates again, I decided that the pros far outweighed the cons.

Some of the big pluses:
1) CHEAPER RENT!!
2) Option to have a nicer/more spacious place...with still cheaper rent
3) More outside space for Jakers (a huge deciding factor for me)!

Some of the bummers:
1) Sharing my living space (I have loved this year of just having to worry about me and my critters)
2) Sharing my living space
3) Sharing my living space...

Yeah...I really couldn't say no.

So!  We embarked on the adventure of finding "the perfect place" that satisfied the desires/needs of all 3 of us.  Well...after less than a week of searching, we pretty much found it!  Justin really gets the raw end of the deal - he's farther away from his campus and core group of friends he's been within walking distance of for the last 4yrs...that will be an adjustment, for him, but Meg and I are willing to cart him over to the East Bank from time to time.

We are all super stoked about making this place "home" for at least the next year.  Meg will most likely be finishing her degree in the next year and a half or so, so we aren't quite sure how long this living arrangement will last.  Either way, this next year will be a fun one.

Meg and I already have visions of dinner parties galore...  It's going to be awesome.

It's a 3 story house that has been converted into a duplex, and we get the top two floors - baller.  There are so many nooks and crannies in this place...not to mention a few Narnia closets (as I like to call them - Meg and Justin are now referring to them as such as well...it's a beautiful thing)!

Our official move-in date is September 1, but our lovely landlady said it will be no problem to start moving things in a little early.  Yay!

I can't wait to take lots of pictures of the pre-move-in unit and then show y'all what we do with it to make it "ours."  Meg and I have lots of ideas...lots  :)

SO!  The Lord is so good!  He provided above and beyond, as usual.  How fleeting faith can be in the midst of uncertainty.  This is something He's been trying to teach me about for a long time now: He is in control and He will never leave me hanging, even when a solution seems impossible...even when it seems impossible.

Praying this post finds you all well and immensely blessed.

Much love!

Shalom,
~MW

P.S. - No, it is not snowing here, but it certainly feels like summer is fleeting (high of 72F today, what is this?!)  :(  The picture of the house is the one posted in the ad...happened to have been taken during the winter.

She's here!

OK...so she's been here since Saturday...but, obviously, I've been too busy enjoying my sweet, precious Elaine to take time out to update...sowy!

But, here you have an update!  No pictures of us yet...she has a couple on her real camera, but I don't have any on my phone, boo...need to adjust that problem  :)  And, since she's still fast asleep (this never happens!  she's always up before I am), I'm not going to wake her to figure out how to steal some pictures from her phoney-phone.  So...y'all will simply have to wait  ;)

Anywho, we've been having a lovely time.  And, the time is flying too quickly - Lord, please don't make me send her back to sweet Texas!  Please!

She made her debut in the 'Sota Saturday afternoon and I was SO excited to see her.  I just whipped into the first curbside spot I could find and jumped out of my car as soon as I saw her and nearly accosted her with a monstrous hug.  I SO MISS HER!!  We threw her little bag in the car and, of course, made our way to the Mall of America. We strolled around for a couple hours and Elaine just took in the "ooooo" and "aaaaaah" of a mall that has a theme park, mini-golf, and an aquarium inside of it...not to mention an American Girl store, a Lego store, and a few other wonders.  Haha, but at the end of the day when some friends of mine asked her what she thought of the mall her response was, "I mean, really, it's just a really big mall...with some crazy stuff added to it" (<--paraphrase, but you get the idea.).

Saturday evening we met up with a few of my good friends here and had some burgers and fries at Snuffy's Malt Shop and then made our way out to Lake Elmo (the town, not the lake...we'll hit up some lakes today) for a drive-in movie.  We saw Cowboys & Aliens....have to admit that we weren't super impressed, but that might have had to do with the insanely stormy weather...like major thunder/lightning (super awesome storm...just wasn't conducive to watching a movie...).

Sunday morning we did our usual farmers market and breakfast run with my gang up here, and it was a lovely morning...thought it started to get way crazy humid by the time we were about ready to leave the market...good thing we were leaving!!

We pretty much just hung out the rest of the day and had lovely convos about life, love, God, everything (it was wonderful) until it was churchy time.  I loved getting to show her off to my church family here.  It was especially great because a ton of people asked, immediately, if she was my sister.  Nope...just my bestest friend...and we just happen to resemble each other fairly significantly.

And now my sleeping beauty is awake so I'm off to soak up more time with here.

Much love!
~MW