Polly wanna cracker?

We are really excited because we have a new house guest...a turtledove, who has built a nest in one of our plants! We have affectionately named her Polly la Paloma. She is such a faithful mama to her little eggs, even when i scared her by taking her picture (i almost cried when she started freaking out because of the picture), she kept guard, watching her nest from our neighbor's roof before coming back and settling in again. i love the blue area around her eyes...it looks like she has makeup on. elvis's mom told us that it is a common belief here that if a turtle dove makes her nest near your house, it means that she has found your home to be a place of peace, so we take it as a complement the fact that she has chosen us!

While we are sharing bird stories, there's a video ive been meaning to post for a while of Elvis's mom's pet parrot, Katita Henriquez. One day, we were at her house and thought that elvis's sister's car alarm was going off. we went to check, and turned out it was the parrot imitating the car alarm! it is amazing, you have to check it out:

In anniversary news, we had a great day on wednesday. Elvis made triple chocolate brownies and cappuchino, and so he picked me up from work and we went to our favorite park for a fun picnic. oh, and we stopped by burger king to pick up ice cream to go on top of the brownies!! =) that night, we had our women's group at the house, then elvis picked me up and we went out to eat at Tony Roma's. its cool, we earn points from our bank every time we use our debit card, and can trade them for gift certificates for places like that. we felt like we were in NC...we had a bloomin' onion and elvis had ribs with "Carolina honey bbq sauce", and i had a "Carolina BBQ sandwich" yummmm!
two days later, im still stuffed.
im sure not why i equate in my mind special holidays with having the liberty to eat in an out-of-control fashion. anyways, it was a really fun day, with lots of little details to make it really special. we just still cant believe its already been 3 years!