2014

2014 has been an amazing, crazy year. Marc and I have been able to continue to travel and visit amazing new places, spend time with family and friends, and make strides to where we want to get in our careers.

This year Marc graduated, and he is now working as a veterinarian.  He also had his first paper accepted (to be published right at the start of the new year).  I also had my first peer-reviewed papers accepted this year, with another set to come out in the spring.  One of the papers was particularly well accepted by the public; we had a ton of unexpected media interest in our work. It was a great learning experience, and was really positive as we had so much support from everyone.

 I am particularly excited today as I just finished the first full draft of my thesis; a 329 page beast of a paper. Although it will still need some cleaning up, it is a great way to start the new year having the thesis written and ready to go, with plans to defend the viva and graduate this spring *fingers crossed*.

I am so thankful for all the love and support I have had this year.  Can't wait to see what 2015 brings!

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays! To celebrate, we made a kitty advent calendar, full of tasty treats (don't worry, even though the calendar originally came with chocolate, Marc and I took care of that and only left kitty friendly treats for them). The cats had to figure out how to open up the little doors.

Seal Training Student Blog

One of the students involved in my seal training course posted a wonderful blog entry on the course that I wanted to share ^_^

http://kirstyemmagraham.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/a-pause-from-watching-apes-to-train.html

AND the same student shared a wonderful video made by the psychology and neuroscience PhD students for this year's christmas party...I wasn't apart of making this, but enjoy it quite alot :).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yc4ypiEB4o&feature=player_embedded&list=UUJjgemIv1diYZtZ6T556LQQ

Thank you!

Thank you! For the holidays my parents sent a bread and waffle maker. Marc and I are greatly enjoying tasty homemade treats :)

California: San Diego

For the last portion of our trip, we stayed with Marc's cousin in San Clemente. Such a nice area, and great to visit them. And they were so close to San Diego, we had to take a trip to visit :)

It's been a crazy month, and we had a great time seeing everyone. And now we are very ready to head back home and crash!

California! Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz was beautiful, we had a great time! The city is a blast from the past, with a 70's hippie vibe. Marc had fun playing on the pier carnival, and I had a fantastic time seeing the california sea lions and harbor seals. A visit to Long Marine lab was also astounding, they have done amazing work with their animals.

Monterey

We have finally made it to California!!! So excited to be here. Just got in yesterday, and met with Marc's aunt and uncle for lunch, and then spent the afternoon in Monterey. The aquarium is great; I was super excited to see the otters (both wild and at the aquarium). And since they are on the coast, we also saw wild sea lions and harbor seals :) You can see the last photo; the aquarium is right on the water, and even have a tidepool theatre where you can go out and see what naturally washes in. The aquarium was really awesome for their jellies, they have massive exhibits! The octopus, squid, and cuttlefish were also super cool. And they had a little loggerhead turtle who kept playing with his reflection, very cute! A great start to our trip here :)

Des Moines fun :)

Our trip in the US is going so quickly! Had a fantastic visit back home in colorado, and a sunny visit in Florida. And while Marc finishes up at a zoo conference in Florida, I am back in Iowa/Illinois :) First stop was Des Moines, where I visited the Blank Park Zoo (really really nice little zoo). Had never seen how ugly/cute baby flamingos were before!!! Also visited the Great Ape Trust / Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary. The group has had trouble in the past, but has a fantastic new group of staff, volunteers and board of directors and seems to be a top notch facility now. I have never seen a nicer facility for primates, I was so impressed! I would be very lucky to get to work with them in the future.

Another Edinburgh Zoo visit

Had another very enjoyable visit to the Edinburgh Zoo, continueing to explore the possibility of doing some future work with them. Might work with this guy come next year!

Scottish Referendum, the results are in...

...and Scotland has decided to stay in the union. Personally, I think this is a good decision and in the nations best interests given the economy and uncertainties of the future.  And despite the no result, hopefully England will follow through with the promises that were made for more devolution of power back to Scotland, which should help.

Either way, it is so very encouraging that overwhelming numbers of voters came out and were engaged in the campaign, and that the result is being received peacefully despite the near even vote.

Seal training fall 2014

This past week we had a new batch of student recruits go through seal training basics. Very promising bunch, we will get them started with the seals next week :)

Kitty training for asthma meds

This upcoming week we have a new batch of students starting up in my animal training class. We try to branch out and discuss all the awesome ways training can be used, and have a nice example from my critters at home.

One of our cats has asthma, so over the past month we've trained her to let us put her nose in a tube to breath in the medicine. Now that she has figured that with cooperation tasty food is involved, she purrs when we bring it out. Happy cat :)

End of Summer Fireworks

Haven't been posting much. For the next month I will be buckling down, hiding in a cave and writing my thesis.

But Sunday night was lovely as it marked the end of the international festival, and pretty much the end of summer. And the way we celebrated was a delicious veggie dinner at David Bonn, and then fireworks :)

They put on a 45 min firework display synchronized with classical music. They opened with Ride of the Valkeries, pretty cool to see with fireworks. And we watched from a carpark behind the castle, which resulted in the display looking as though the castle was on fire, or at other times that the royalty were actively launcing bombs from the castle at the city. Either way, pretty cool.

And now back to work!

The awkward puffling

On our journey in the Farne Islands, we came across a lost puffling.  Normally, pufflings leave the nest at sunset, jumping from cliffs straight into the water. But this confused puffling left during the middle of the day, and found himself lost in the middle of the island.  But he got a little help from the bird researchers on the island who put a ring on his leg and helped him reach the sea.  It was a very awkward start, but once in the water he seemed just fine.

Creatures of the Farne Islands

We enjoyed a wonderful boat ride out to the Farne Islands and were treated with spotting lots of wildlife.  There were seabirds a plenty (mostly Cormorans, a few gannets, terns, and some puffins).  There were also some seals on a few haul outs, mostly adults getting ready for pupping season but also a few yearlings.