Celebrating My Birthday

My birthday was in May. A few days before, I got together with some friends who have birthdays in May and June and we had lunch together. That was a nice relaxing afternoon.

Stephanie had these pictures taken with her camera. 

 

On my actual birthday, I was going to take a nap but ended up finishing The Duke's Bargain by Megan Walker. 

I did an online book club with her for Lakeshire Park and Miss Newbury's List where she shared things about her writing of those books and I got to meet her and get a hug from her when she came to Utah in April. 

In May, I was part of a different online book club for The Duke's Bargain. Megan shared a few posts on there about her writing of this book. I love that the two main characters in this book were the antagonists in the first two books. I also love that the main characters from the first books made appearances. It was fun to see the growth of the "villains."

 

Also on my birthday, Jeremy made lots of pizza for me (and the family). I LOVE pizza!

 

We had cake and ice cream. Jeremy put the candles in the shape of a heart. He's so cute.

I opened my birthday present, which was a tea kettle! I wanted one. Since there's been so much herbal tea drinking with all the Seeking Persephone movie watching and Proper Romance book reading, this was perfect. 

 

P.S. Jeremy was so pleased with how this picture turned out- there was still a tiny amount of flame on the candles. Have I mentioned my husband is cute?

 

P.P.S. Jeremy texted me the day before our Southern Utah trip saying he wanted to give me my birthday present early because it would be helpful getting ready for our trip. He had previously told me he debated about giving me my Mother's Day present early because it might be useful while we were out celebrating our anniversary. I like to take selfies when Jeremy and I are out birding together. Ultimately he gave it to me on Mother's Day and you know I've definitely used it since. So he told me he decided to give me my birthday present early and had Nichole bring it to me unwrapped when I got home.

"Dad told me to give you this." As I was opening the box for the portable vacuum cleaner (to help clean out the van), she told me this, "Dad also told me to tell you he'd never give you a vacuum as a birthday present. You'll have a different one on [your birthday]." 

Ha Ha Ha Ha. He really is cute.  

World Turtle Day 2026

Road Trip! 

We got ready for our road trip on National Road Trip Day but took the actual road trip on May 23, World Turtle Day.

We got up really early in the morning... again, and drove down to St. George to Tonaquint Park where we celebrated World Turtle Day at the nature center pond.

Sooooo many turtles.

We also saw lots of birds. Hmm. Go figure.

Recently it felt like the pictures with our birding camera were not turning out very well. I'm not sure the reason but bird pictures were not coming out clear for a while. We didn't get such great bird pictures on our Northeastern Utah trip earlier in the month.

Then all of a sudden something snapped and the camera started working right and we started getting good pictures again. I don't know what happened but I'm very happy about it because we got some cool pictures on this trip. Let me tell you about it.

We spent a lot of time walking around Tonaquint Park. Check out these pictures of a black phoebe and blue grosbeak.

I made my family suffer through pictures of all of us using my selfie stick tripod Mother's Day gift, so we could all be in the picture and not just one of us in focus.

Someone had the idea that I could extend the selfie stick and get closer to wildlife with my phone camera without getting closer myself. It worked. I tried it on a lizard on a fence and a turtle that was on the side of the path.

Others could zoom in with the fancy cameras but I was able to get phone pictures. Fun. 

(Fancy camera view) 

Nichole's camera views: 

Jeremy reminded me to get some juggling pictures and videos so I did at various places we went. He was so nice to take most of the pictures and videos for me.

After Tonaquint Park we went to various other places in and near St. George. 

Jeremy had some target birds for this trip and we were able to get two of them- lifers. He was pleased about that. We got them both driving around a certain area.

The first was Gambel's Quail. We get California Quail in our area but the Gambel's Quail are found down South. We got a quick glimpse at one point but we got better views later. There is definitely a difference in look from the California Quail. We didn't get the best pictures (some through the windshield) but we did get to see some babies following their mama across a parking lot. So fun.

The other bird was a cactus wren. I saw a picture earlier so I kind of had an idea of what to look for. Jeremy also let me know earlier that it looked like a wren but bigger and its coloring was mottled.

We were in a neighborhood with a lot of different kinds of cactus trying to follow the GPS to a certain spot and it brought us to the end of a dead end street where there was a big cactus plant. Jeremy joked how funny it would be if we found a cactus wren actually on a cactus. All of a sudden this bird flew into the plant. I got my binoculars on it and asked Jeremy to remind me what a cactus wren looks like because I was pretty sure what I saw fit the description. It came back a few times and I was able to get a couple of decent photos. Man, it is definitely bigger than the marsh/Bewick's/house/rock/canyon wrens I'm used to seeing. Wow. I've seen a few different kinds of wrens, haven't I? I just realized, those are wrens I've seen multiple times, but there are a couple I've seen maybe once- Pacific Wren and Winter Wren.

I think the cactus wren was my favorite bird of the day.

 

Once we got those two target birds, we headed North to Cedar City area to try to find more birds. Some places felt like a waste of time. Sigh.

We did got out to Cedar Canyon and had a bit of fun (and juggling). 

I was determined to try out my tripod selfie stick as a tripod for juggling since there will be times when there won't be someone to video me or take pictures of me. Do you know how hard it is to juggle and push a button on a remote at the same time? It's hard. Jeremy said I could just set a timer on the phone but...

I dropped a lot while trying to get still pictures. Video works much better because I can put the remote in my pocket instead of having it around my wrist and push the button before and after.

While I was trying to figure out my own pics and videos, Nichole was getting artistic with her brothers. If you look closely, you can see me in the background of the picture Jeremy took.

I wanted yet another family picture so I told everyone to come over. I made sure to push the remote button at just the right time. Heh Heh.

When we got back to the van, it was a bit breezy.

Jet: Mom, now you need to do your hair again.

Mom: This is my wind blown look. 

 

 

We finished our day at Parowan Gap Petroglyphs. That was a new place for us.

Besides seeing the cool petroglyphs (and juggling), 

we saw a family of ravens doing their thing (and being very vocal about it- young'uns wanting something from Mom and Pop) and we found both a rock wren and canyon wren (pictured is the canyon wren).

I love this family of mine and I love the adventures we go on. 

Since it was World Turtle Day, Nichole read some Terry Pratchett and the kids explained to me the Glorious 23rd of May (also from Terry Pratchett).