Kenzie Blogs Life: Animals

Lending A Hand

8:30:00 AM

Helping others is so rewarding. Helping animals is even more rewarding. Don't get me wrong, people are great, but I'm more of an animal person. For one of my classes, we got into groups and had to come up with an idea to help out a charity in the community that is settled around my university. While other groups helped out kids with cancer, individuals dealing with hunger, and many other organizations, the group I was in had a passion for animals and teamed up with our local animal shelter.

We also got to hang out with dogs for four hours

We spent our time volunteering, and setting up a table on campus to encourage other students and community members to come and help tie a tie in the blankets that would later be donated to the shelter.

We gave out snacks, and brochures encouraging people to adopt if they could. The thing is, pets are a life-long responsibility. I had a dog for 14 years. If you're not ready to own something that long, then it isn't right for you. I strongly believe animals have feelings and seeing the older dogs at the shelter hurts my heart because I wish I could adopt them, but I can't (because I have neither a yard nor a reliable income.) But as soon as I do, you know that's the first thing on my list.

Do you have any pets? Have you ever volunteered with an animal shelter before? What is your favorite animal?

Thanks for reading!

xx Kenzie

Animals

Thrift Shopping & Trip to the Zoo

5:30:00 AM

I don't know about you, but so far this Summer has been flying by! There are days where I wish there were no time limits as there is so much to do!
Recently, a large garage sale was set up in my neighborhood, people set out tables and invited people from the surrounding area to come and pick through their things. Hoping one persons junk was another's treasure.

I thought the old type writer was pretty neat!

My step dad and I picked up an ABBA record for my mom and I got a small green glass piece for my grandma! We hopped from house to house, sale to sale, for about two hours before heading home.
A few days later, my dad took my sister and I on a day trip over to GreenBay, Wisconsin. I've been wanting to go to the zoo there for awhile, and we finally all had off and decided to go! We met my grandmother and her husband there and walked around the zoo admiring the animals. Unfortunately, I had packed my nice camera, ready to take really nice pictures of the animals but...it was dead. I thought I had charged the batteries but ah well, I still took quite a bit via my Iphone anyway!

This guy greeted us as soon as we walked into the zoo.

Of course the goats were wondering if we had food, which sadly, we did not!

Watching the penguins was exciting, as they were all swimming and this guy wanted to follow everybody's hands from one side of the glass to the other.

The otters and racoons were all very friendly towards the guests, doing tricks and probably looking for hand-outs as well! We didn't give them any!

The porcupine was waiting for his lunch patiently than the others though.

I did get to see my favorite animal, an owl!

I do wish the sun wasn't hidden behind the clouds, I feel like the peacocks colors could have been so brilliant! Nonetheless, it was really cool seeing him open up and show his beautiful feathers!

After spotting other animals, such as baby Fawns, Moose, petting a snake, monkeys, bears and wolves, we left to eat at my favorite restaurant in Green Bay. It's called Titletown Brewery! It's in the same building as an old train depot, they make homemade root beer and bread! I ordered the Turkey Cranberry melt on Zucchini bread and it was amazing! I took some home and had the rest for lunch the next day!

To end the day, we stopped for some sweets at a chocolate shop nearby. My grandmother picked up some dark chocolate and my dad picked up some peanut brittle! It was very good.

I love going on summer trips, even if they are only a day long.

LOTS has been going on lately, and I hope I have time for a few more trips yet!

What would your dream day trip would be like??

Thanks for reading!

Kenzie

america

Casual trip to London?

3:00:00 PM

In Arizona there is a town called Lake Havasu, it's close to Parker and on the 7th day of my vacation that's where we went. First, we took a detour to see the wild burrows, they're also called donkeys. They were so cute! People have been able to feed them, so when we did stop a few adventurous souls would slowly wander towards the vehicle!
There were a few babies as well and they were adorable.

These two reminded me of my friends cats, as they play fight too!

After viewing the burrows/donkeys we moved on into the town.

I've always had a fascination with the city of London, and there is a bridge in Lake Havasu that was actually build in London, the guy had bought it for the city and moved it to Arizona. Because of the bridge being built, they consider a small part of the area an actual part of the City of London itself. So technically I was in London...without actually have gone to England.

We walked along the river, as most of the shops were closed (it's a hotspot during Spring Break in the states). It was still gorgeous.

(see technically London!)

The river walk might have been my secret favorite part between the beginning and that point of the vacation, but I was also really excited to go hiking at our next destination!

I can't wait to write about that for you guys!

I hope you enjoyed this one as well!

Kenzie

Animals

A Christmas Mouse

11:18:00 AM

Christmas is so incredibly close, I can hardly wait. I have my cards sent, my gifts partially finished but on the calendar to be given out and the cookies all baked. It's been different these past two years as I have really gotten into Christmas. I'm not really sure what happened, I just started getting really excited about it. It was probably watching Vlogmas last year and some of Zoe's enthusiasm rubbed off onto me (that can happen right?)

Anyway, it started off as a regular day, I planned on finishing up my final paper, and studying for my first exam of exam week over at one of my favorite coffee shops where my friend works. Except, when my sister came upstairs to say there was something in her window well...well I had to check it out.
Sitting in the rocks, trying to make sense of how he had possibly gotten stuck in such a mess, was a Vole...which are also called field mice. I'll be honest, mice are not my favorite animals, though when they're separated by a glass window with no way of getting inside, it's fine.
This little guy was quick. He scurried around amongst the rocks and looked sort of cute. He, whether or not it was actually a male or female is a mystery, became known as Dexter.

My sister and I watched him run around and even surprise us by jumping up onto the window sill.

He had white fur by his mouth that looked like teeth, and I was slightly glad they weren't.
After watching the little guy run around for awhile, I decided that I wanted to save him, as I did with the rabbit this summer which you can read about here

But unlike the rabbit, Dexter was not to keen on getting into a box and would scurry away. Did you know they can run up to 6 miles per hour. That's pretty quick, and when it's small and caught in a small space, it's not an easy catch. So defeated, I had to give up and wait for my step dad to come home and figure something out. I went off to stick my nose in my books and huddle behind my laptop drinking ice tea and trying to concentrate.

Once I came home, there was a board leading down to the bottom of the window well, in hopes that he would climb out and go off. They only live for about 2 months in the wild, and Dexter surely did not want to spend the rest of his little life stuck in a window well, where we could watch him and gasp whenever he jumped up onto the window sill.

It was nice of him to come visit...though I hope he doesn't get himself stuck in a window well again and I definitely hope he doesn't bring any family or friends with him. They can live in colonies of up to 300? Please stay home Dexter.

I hope you all are having a great week so far, even though it's only Monday! I have a busy week ahead so I'm not too sure when my next blogpost of this year will be so if I don't post before the end of 2014, which I probably will. But I hope you have a great Holiday!

See you next post!

Animals

The Great Minnesota Get Together!

12:00:00 PM

It’s inevitable, the Summer of 2014 is coming to a close. For some of you it may have already come to an end, which leaves you in school waiting until next year!

With a little more than a week left of my Summer holiday, my family and I headed off to Minnesota (yes again, we go there a lot). My sister was bringing her friends along, as a celebration for her birthday and staying in the hotel connected to the Mall Of America. Whilst the three of them were shopping, my aunt, uncle, mom, step-dad, cousin and I headed out to the Minnesota State Fair! The fair has been around since 1859 though in 1885 the fair had officially obtained a permanent ground for it to be held on. Since then, it’s grown. A lot.

I hadn't really spent a full day at the fair since about 2010, so it had been awhile. The day started off with a bit of rain, but I was too excited to be going again that I really wasn’t going to let that worry me. The weather did stay overcast though, which in the end might have been better as it was still humid and would have been ten times hotter had the sun actually been shining. The very first thing we did was create a game plan, what we wanted to see, eat and where to go, then we put it to action.

Our first stop was at a food booth selling Gizmo’s. It looked like a hot dog, but covered in cheese and lots of it. A Gizmo is really ground beef and Italian sausage with a special sauce and seasonings, covered with melted mozzarella cheese and served on a toasted Italian roll! Sounds healthy doesn't it? Don’t worry, I purposely ate healthily all week knowing that this was going to be a really bad day for eating!

We then moved on to look through the Campers, if you don’t know what a camper is it’s basically a trailer that people hook up to their cars (mostly trucks) and pull behind. Inside the camper, is usually a small bunk bed, a queen or king sized bed, a kitchen and sitting area as well. It’s like a tour bus but smaller.

After moving on from the campers, we stopped to try other foods as well. It had only been twenty minutes. Don’t worry, everyone was sharing and not buying a full size for themselves! There was jerky, and samples of popcorn as well as Pronto Pups!

(Kettle Corn) (Turkey Jerky)

Coca-Cola even had a “personalize your coke” booth, which of course I had to try!

We did finally make it to the Brownie stand, where they bake fresh brownies right there and serve cold milk to go along with it. They’re so good! There were also amazing fresh chocolate chip cookies at a booth called Sweet Martha's! Every time I go to the fair, it's a definite must stop!

At the fair, there are loads of activities and buildings to take a walk through. You can take a peak at new inventions, see things for your home, watch demonstrations, try out some games and go on some rides! There’s also an international bazaar, which was really fun to see. There was a man playing an neat looking instrument, booths ranging from Africa, Thailand and Ireland!

Rides! Inventions

Home Goods

"How to put out a fire" demo

Taken at the Baazar

Haunted Mansion

We stopped in the dairy barn just in time to see the Princess of the Milky Way getting her head carved from actual Butter! It looked really cold inside the glass case she was sitting in, as she was wearing a winter jacket and gloves!

Sticking to the cold theme, we took a short walk through some Christmas lights, which were really fun and made me wish winter wasn't actually cold in Wisconsin.

We did stop, at one of my favorite places, the animal barns! In it’s own unique way the Minnesota State fair holds a barn full of baby animals and their mothers. The fair offers its visitors a first hand experience at viewing the actual live birth of pigs, cows and sheep! They also have an incubator where eggs from different types of poultry are warmed and watched to hatch. The little animals are so adorable! I really wanted to take one home! We were just in time to see the newborn pigs! After seeing that, I spotted my favorite treat to cool down with!

Shaved ice! They had a variety of flavors and I could mix and match them so I went with strawberry and peach! It was delicious and really helped cool me down since it was so humid outside!

I'm wearing Turquoise and Caicos on my nails by Essie!

As we made our way through the fair, there were tons of other food booths as well. Flowering Onions, French Fries, Lemonade, Tacos, Poutine (remember when I wrote about Irish Fries?). There was gummy bears on a stick, olives on a stick, pickles on a stick, you name it it was probably on a stick!

Flowering Onions, Lemonade stand

Tacos

Poutine

Strawberries & Creme Deep Fried Olives on a stick

Sweet Martha's Cookies!

Cheese Curds (Clearly not as good as Wisconsin as we're the dairy state)

We also went into the cow, sheep and pig barn next! There were more piglets which I did get the chance to pet! It was so cute!

We then moved on to the horse barn. Even though I had been to the Minnesota State fair before, I don’t ever remember being in the horse barn. They had some really unique ones standing there, and they were so cute! I love horses and part of me wanted to get on one and ride off!

We moved away from the animals, onto tasting more food and taking a ride on the giant colorful slide! The view from the slide was pretty neat as well!

We did wander into a part of the fair that happened to be next to the grandstand where we could hear Toby Keith doing his sound check! It was so cool! They have a lot of great acts and big names that come to the fair. Last time I was here I was able to see Tim Mcgraw and Julianne Hough!

The Grandstand

In one of the buildings they had a man blowing bubbles from Liquid Nitrogen! I thought that was really cool, it didn't feel very cold though, but when I blew the bubble away it disappeared into a cloud of white mist.

The woman behind me is clearly shocked by the whole thing.

(I'm wearing this flowy tank top by Atlast)

At the end of the fair, like usual, we let our tired and sore legs and feet rest by using the sky ride. We had a neat view from up high, and the breeze was perfect to cool down with.