mexico!
as I posted on here almost too many times to tag, I went to Mexico at the end of February (the very end! my passport is actually stamped February 29th!!!) and came back some time in March. It was lovely!! I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t as ‘magical’ as last year, but who could have expected that? But it was fantastic for it’s own reasons – I spent 10days with Perdues+ and feel like I went home without them being completely annoyed of me, so I consider that a success!! 🙂
below are a selection of photos from the trip …
let’s start with some good old fashioned beach frolicking … who can go wrong there!
This was a random photo shoot that we decided upon because Mur’s mom gave me some dresses to take to Mexico to fight over with Margee … Pretty sure we had a pretty huge audience for this!!! They all loved drinking their beer and watching the blond girls run around the beach 🙂
ha!
but the trip wasn’t all frolicking on the beach…
there was food…
there was beautiful rug weaving (more on that later) …
there were succulents …
and mules.
It was a really lovely trip! A lot of bitter with my sweet, but I made it and made it home 🙂
Probably more to come from this trip in coming weeks… but for now, I’ll leave you craving a beach 🙂
Besos!
Pittie Party! … benefit a good cause
You may remember these two beauties from this post and this post on here late last summer. Lilah is the beautiful pit bull mix and Olivia is her fantastic mama. These two were so lovely to work with and you know WHY I got to work with them?? Because Olivia attended the Pittie Party that was put on by the Minnesota Pit Bull Rescue last year and won one of my sessions in their silent auction. The MN Pit Bull rescue is a really fantastic organization run by people whose bottom line is helping animals in need. Besides this, they have an amazing group of foster families that take dogs in until they are placed in their forever home. These dogs are well socialized and well taken care of. The pit bull name sometimes gets a bad wrap but I have not met an aggressive or angry pit yet. They have all been so sweet!! And so have their owners. I think there is a link there …
One of the great foster families I have been fortunate enough to meet are the parents of these guys …
Their photos appeared on the blog last year here and I have my fingers crossed that our paths will meet again because I’m still itching for a photo of Zeus and Sig cuddling together 🙂
So I’m presenting all this information to you for a few reasons …
1. If you are an animal lover and have been trying to find the right organization to donate to, this one would be an ideal choice! Check out their website for more information. And THANK you!
2. If you are looking for something to do on March 31st in the evening, you should join me at the Pittie Party at Stella’s Fish Cafe in Uptown, Minneapolis! Tickets are now on sale. I will be there hanging out, meeting pet lovers and enjoying a glass of wine … my favorite sort of event! 🙂 And if you can’t make it but want to help the org. please see reason 1 just above.
3. If you have been interested in a pet session with me, this could be an AWESOME way to get it at a STEAL of a deal while helping an AMAZING cause … I am donating 2 sessions again and this year each comes with $100 towards a jaw-dropping-fantastic canvas print… yippee! So head on over to the Pittie Party ticket site, pick up your ticket and join us at Stella’s on Saturday, March 31st!
Besos!
Mexican Beach Cat
… as opposed to last years Mexican Beach Dog.
Normally I’m a little apprehensive of random, stray animals that I meet on the street or a beach, as the case may be. You never know how they will react! That doesn’t mean I don’t try to be long lost BFFs but I’m at least a little cautious about it. But this kitty wasn’t completely random or stray … she was at the same cabañas last year. I got a few photos of her then but honestly, they aren’t great. She had a pretty serious neck wound and you could tell she had just been in a brawl. So when I got back to the cabañas again this year I was actually really excited to see her! And she was as friendly as I had remembered.
you can see in that top right image the scar she has from her battle. and this is 1 year later! I got the feeling that most of my traveling companions thought that I was rather strange for how many photos I took and how much I enjoyed her. I guess any cat that acts like it likes me is fair game for my love 🙂
I love those last 3 because it reminds me so much of Roux! She does this on my dad’s deck all.the.time. Except she is a smidge bigger and the rails are still about that far apart… so it’s just her nose that squeezes through 🙂 I took these photos and then sent dad a message saying “I found Roux in cat form.” He seemed pretty excited to see what that meant.
Have a lovely evening!! I’m looking forward to what looks like an impending soaking and nice, cool sleeping temps while listening to the beautiful pitter patter. Bliss.
“Tut tut, it looks like rain”
the weather …
It’s no secret that I live in Minnesota. And here, the weather is a constant topic of conversation…
“Can I go shovel the walk? You betcha, hun!”
“It’s not so much the heat, it’s the humidity.”
“Did you see those storm clouds move in last night, Sven? What a soaking we had! Boy, it sure is nice out today!”
And in true Minnesotan form, as much as I’d like to pretend I’m not guilty of it … I am. But seriously, have you SEEN this weather?? This week has been beautiful!!! Pretty much all week! So this, in combination with a lot of catch up from being gone in the depths of Mexico, a bunch of new and fantastic opportunities for Chocolate Moose, a heck of a lot of emotions as I take this week to really look at ‘me’ and what that means now and of course, oodles of time with the girls are all contributing factors to why my blog has been silent since I got back.
We’ve been doing a lot of this {see images below} around our house … time on the square and time with the shrimp. Oh boy, the shrimp. There has to be a post about that in the future. Anyone who has been to my house since the holidays knows that this little one here is obsessed {almost to the point of drooling} when I take out a shrimp. She fetches them like it’s what she was meant to do. And maybe that’s just it … Tarrazu was born to fetch shrimp. Ha 🙂 Glad she found her calling in life!
**side note … I’m pretty sure that in the past I’ve defined a few terms for my blog readers that I throw out there all willy nilly, but just in case we have some new folks in town, here is another quick run down.
the square: an incredibly tiny patch of deck real estate that is outside our apartment’s back door. it is large enough to hold 2 cats, myself, a tomato plant and just a few herb plants. want to join me out here? then we should probably move the tomato plant inside.
the girls: my amazing kitties that have filled the last 2 years of my life with excitement, laughter, love, a little insanity and meat muffins. I don’t think I’m a crazy cat lady yet {proof? when they talk to me I’m still not sure what they say} but it’s possible that may be in my future. names of said kitties are Digi and Tarrazu (Tarra)
Just recently someone said “oh fun! what girls are you hanging out with and where is this square?? I want to come!!” So to help paint pictures in your minds that doesn’t involve lots of my girlfriends, martinis and some fancy restaurant patio somewhere {although that does sound AMAZING}, above are the definitions of what the hey I’m talking about.
Well, I’m super excited about everything that is ahead but it’s also quite bittersweet because of that big hole that remains in my heart. But today I’m going to focus on the good things … enjoying the sunshine, getting the girls as much out door time as possible, drinking some fancy new beer I just picked up and making something crafty. Have a great Saturday!