The simple pleasures in life

I'm very appreciative of the beautiful world we live in and I feel that I'm pretty good at recognizing the beauty of my surroundings. In Michigan I loved the lakes, the green grass and all of the trees-especially in the fall. In Utah I absolutely loved the mountains, and here, I LOVE the palm trees, the beaches, the mountains, and the sunsets. I realized the other day, however, that I don't notice the small things enough.

Like the parrots we have flying around outside of our apartment. Every night.

The lady that lives behind us mentioned once that since she moved in 25 years ago, there have been parrots flying around. Apparently a couple of them escaped an Aviary, mated, and have made lots and lots of baby parrots. Anyway, we forgot that she told us that until a few days ago. We are pretty used to the loud birds here, (we have crows that wake us up every morning-they like to play right outside our bedroom window) but we don't pay much attention to them. However, the other day there were some really loud ones outside and Kyle was watching them out the window and noted that they looked "kinda funky". We had a couple over for dinner and I think it was Chad that realized they were parrots. There were tons, it was crazy! (Imagine our surprise had we not heard about them first) They're so pretty-mostly green and a couple other colors. Sorry about the bad picture. I have been trying to capture a close-up but have so far failed. It's so weird, they come around at the same time every night-between about 7:15 and 7:45. I've never even noticed them before and now I can't wait to see them every night. I think we're officially the coolest aunt and uncle ever-we live near Disneyland AND we have about 100 pet parrots. :) If only our nieces and nephews were close by to show them off to...