welcome Gabrielle

We haven't posted in a while because not much was going on. I have resumed the life of a desk biologist and Randy was been getting busy with his project at work. Then last week we wento Texas to visit my family and await the arrival of my 4th niece. Gabrielle Skye was born Set 15! - her birthday is 1 day after her grandma's. All went fine and dandy and she is now closing in on 2 weeks old!

baby in belly

baby out of belly

I also met my new feline niece - a beautiful kitten only a few weeks ago who looks so much like Snowball that I almost took her home with me!

Precious Belle

Besides hanging with the fam, RC and I headed to the coast with our kayaks. We paddled the Lighthouse Lakes trails in the mangroves. It was pretty cool being up close and personal with all the wading birds - great blue herons, great egrets, snowy egrets, tri-colored herons, reddish egrets, and 1 roseate spoonbill! We spent ~4 hours paddling, by the end we were heading into a strong headwind and we pooped by the time we came ashore.

We also paddled down a 6-mile stretch of the Colorado River through Bastrop, which was really fun and neat to finally really experience the river that was in my childhood backyard. And we hiked around some of my study sites in Austin one day.

All in all a fun and much needed vacation.

Jack and Tiger were extremely happy to see us when we got home and have been rather needy and attached to us, but it is really sweet:)