Honeymoon: Day 4 Xcaret!

Day 4 of our honeymoon journey, we did our last of the three Xcaret Tours, this time to Xcaret! 

Since Jordan had not been feeling well I was afraid we were going to have to skip our last tour, but I loaded him up with drugs (tylenol) and we shipped off on another bus!

Xcaret is a giant park that has cultural displays, nature exhibits, animal sanctuaries and beaches. There was a lot to take in!

We watched some of the cultural displays including the flying men (Jordan got a cool video of this but I do not know how to upload it.) The men basically come down from ropes by their feet and spin around while one man stays on top and sings and plays a drum. It is a way of honoring the gods.

We walked around and checked out the animal exhibits like the flamingos, jaguars, and manatees

 

Of course I could not miss an opportunity to make Jordan dress up as a turtle since I always call him a snapping turtle! (He snaps his jaw all the time.)

It was REALLY hot so we again did some water activities including some snorkling. We had to lock up the camera for this part so no photos. We also checked out the cemetery, stain glass windows, and butterfly pavilion. 

 

As you may know, I am kind of bird obsessed, so of course I dragged Jordan around the aviary. There were all sorts of parrots, flamingos, and water birds. 

 I was a bit disappointed since all of the pictures in the advertisements had parrots sitting on people, yet none of them seemed to want to be my friend. 

At the very end of the day we discovered my FAVORITE part of the park - the gift shop! Inside the gift shop were these bird eggs in an incubator that were hatching as you watched. It was amazing! All of a sudden you would be watching and ::CRACK:: a baby chick would go flying out and run around on top of the other eggs. I think I was literally crying I was so excited. Jordan joked that it was a good thing we did not see them earlier or I wouldn't have wanted to go see anything else.

We had the option to stay for a cultural show with dancing and music, but neither of us were feeling too good by this point so we decided to take the early bus home after having a traditional Mexican dinner.

Ghreylin’s 3rd Adoption Day!

3 years ago today, a very important member person (bird) joined our family. 

You can see his introduction post here…This blog has been around as long as Ghreylin (Weird!)
 He has made several appearances throughout his time including at Christmas and New Years.  I adopted him from the Animal Rescue League of Boston and have not regretted the decision! I am happy to report, Mr Ghreylin has found his forever home.

Ironically Jordan and I had just started dating a couple months before, we were not even "official" when I told him I was getting a bird. He said "Ugh, don't get a bird, I will never come over!" - 3 years later, and here we are, one big happy family! Jordan living with Ghreylin, and Ghreylin has even switched over to Ghreylin Garry (It has a nice ring to it I think). 

He still remains to be ‘hand trained,’ I have given up on that and accepted him to be more like a cat. He walks around the house, has his favorite spots, gets mad at you when you try to pet him, but they when he wants to be patted he comes over and rubs against your hand (or foot) until he gets what he wants.

He gets a long very well with his "brother" Leo. They enjoy hanging out together, and Ghreylin often gets brazen and tries to preen Leo as well, which does not go over terribly well. Ghrey has a tendency to be braver than he should, whenever other dogs are present he just walks up to them and hisses like he is super scary standing tall at maybe 12 inches (including his tail) and 2.9 ounces. 

He only flies when he is scared or for lack of other options. Usually when he flies up high on to something he does not know how to get down and squawks until someone helps him down. He does enjoy walking and climbing.

Ghreylin’s favorite activities include: preening his feathers, taking showers or spray baths, chewing on things such as cardboard tubes, fabric, paper, walls and everything he should not chew. He has a strong affinity for fuzzy objects and hanging fabric, namely my bathrobe, a fuzzy green pillow, and a certain towel in the bathroom. Laundry folding gets him very excited. And he still loves surfing the web! (I think he just knows that is where the music comes from and likes when the computer gets warm.) 

Despite my efforts to get him to switch over to the fancy organic bird pellets the vet recommended, he still insists on only eating seeds and the rare table food, namely pasta, popcorn and oatmeal (my birdy loves his carbs!) 

I was discussing my baby with one of the interns and she said how whenever I said his name she kept thinking of the mice on ghrelin! Ha! Thankfully Ghreylin seems to have a good Leptin to ghrelin ratio (assuming that is how birds stomachs work too?) 

Introducing Ghreylin!

Introducing the newest addition to the family: Ghreylin.

I love birds... I had my first bird, a cockatiel named Dermon, in the 5th grade. She was handtrained, and very friendly. Unfortunately, her time with us was short. After Dermon, I got 3 parakeets... they were nice but they never became very friendly and wouldn't let me hold them. The last of the 3, passed away and I've been expereincing bird fever.

It was exaserbated by my best friend Ariane, getting a new cockateil, Ester, who I got to share a very 24 hour car ride with from Florida back to Mass, so we definitely bonded.

Next semester I am taking two online classes, which I am not excited about, but I figured it would be a good time to get a bird, since I'll have time to be home and bond with it.

I was looking at breeders to get a baby bird, since then they are the easiest to train and get them to be friendly and what not. While looking at breeders, however, I kept seeing postings for adopting birds. This past Tuesday, I went to the Animal Rescue League of Boston to check out the little guys there... which is where I met "Whistle". He is about a one year old cockatiel who was left in an abandoned apartment. When they found him, he was just kind of flapping around the apartment, with an injured wing (presumably from the random flapping around) and mlnourished. He was doing significantly better in the shelter but was looking for what they call a "forever home" and so, I took him home!

Since as I mentioned he had been abandoned, "Whistle" was the name the shelter gave him for his stay, so I decided to rename him, Ghreylin, based off of Ghrelin, the hormone in the stomach that makes you hungry, basically because I always thought it would be a pretty name and I am a nutrition dork.

He wasn't hand trained, but he's warming up. He bites, HARD, if you get your hand too close, yet he'll come and chill inches away from me on the bed, and will eat millet out of my hand, so I am hoping this is the start to a beautiful relationship.

The only dilemma, of course, is that Sookie wants to eat him. I keep trying to teach her, Ghreylin is family, not food.