I defended my thesis this past week... Impacts of Human Physical Disturbance on Benthic Communities in Tributaries of the Niobrara National Scenic River. I'm very relieved to have it over with and excited about it too. I still have some edits to make and then I will be able to print and have it bound. Yay!
Erik and I are getting ready to move back to Minnesota! We are so excited! We have piles of boxes around our apartment and today the packing bug hit Erik a little bit.
Yesterday we went out to Wood River to the Whooping Crane Trust to see the Sandhill Cranes. Definitely something to see when or if you are ever in Nebraska in the spring. We were able to go into a blind and watch thousands of cranes fly and land on the sandbars of the Platte River, where they spend the night. We saw about 10,000 sandhill cranes last night from the blind. We also saw snow geese, canadian geese, and lots of ducks and a few shorebirds.
I'm really glad I got to see and hear them. Their sound is really cool too! I didn't get pictures of the cranes like Michael Forsberg, but I got some neat shots. Hope you enjoy them!
Last night, Erik and I went to a Pheasants Forever Banquet. It was fun. They had a silent auction and a live auction. In the silent auction was:
It is a painting by James Meger. I wanted it so much. I love chickadees. It went for far more than I could spend. (I got this image of it off of a pheasants forever website.) The artist donated them for the banquets to raise money for conservation. Maybe if I can ever find it again, and I have the money to buy it, I will get it.
A wrap up of what has been going on since my last post...
Erik and I went to Minnesota for Christmas break. We were there for 9 days. Last year we were only there for 5 and it was very nice to have more time, although it goes by so fast. We spent time with his family and mine while in MN. Mom, Katie and I made our Christmas cookies - a tradition I love! That night there was a lot more snow then when I arrived and I had an adventure getting back to Erik's parents.
Christmas eve and Christmas day were full of family and fun. We had a wonderful time. It is a balancing act sometimes, figuring out that we doubled our families when we got married and now there are more people to see and more places to be, but we did fine job at balancing and things will change and that will be okay too.
The day after Christmas is Dad's Birthday. Erik and I made lasagna for dinner and we had cake (two oven cake) :). Dad wanted to go tubing at Buck Hill for his birthday, but after driving by earlier in the day we all opted to go out into the pasture and go sledding down the hill. After flattening a section out a little bit we all zipped down the hill. I think we all had a great time!
The next day, Dad, Katie and I headed to WI to go visit our grandparents. We had a nice time there. They had a lot of snow too! We came back to Nebraska the Sunday before the New Year. I woke up that morning very ill. We visited with both of our families for just a little bit and then got on the road. Unfortunately Erik had to make the drive on his own. I slept most of the way back.
We had a little New Year's eve party at our place. It was nice, but fairly quiet (which was nice too).
Since then it has been back to the grind. I've made myself deadlines so that I can graduate and finish up soon. Here they are: Wednesday, January 16th: Introduction Friday, February 1st: Results Friday, February 29th: Discussion & Turn in complete 1st draft :)
I'm ready. I'm ready for a break. I'm ready to be with my family. I'm ready to make Christmas cookies. I'm ready to give presents. I'm super excited! I can't wait. Only a little bit longer.
Last week we started getting winter. It seems as though we have gotten ice more than snow here in past, and it started that way...
But the SNOW has come! Yay! It has been snowing a couple of days now and there is more in the forecast. If it is going to be cold there might as well be snow to play in!
