My first post here guys...

Since Amy and I recently rechristened her old blog as our new blog, it's now the Amy and Dusty Show, so I need to get postin' on here! ...Or go postal...or whatever...one of the two. :-)

Recently, Amy and I have been making an effort to take one of our Sunday School Teacher's advice to heart, and so we've started trying to date on weekends, where each weekend we take turns picking what we want to do. The rule is that at least one of us (the person whose turn it is to pick) has to really like what they're doing, and so neither of us have told each other what we're going to do until right when the time arrives...because we don't want the other person to dread the rest of the week. :-)

We paper-rock-scissored for the first go-round, and I won, and so naturally, I picked something with animals. We headed for the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake, but on our way there we heard on the radio that it was "Ice Day" at the Hogle Zoo, so we went there instead. They brought out blocks of ice -- some filled with fruit -- for the animals to play with, lick, suck on, etc.

Here's an orangutan doing just that.

And here's my shout out to the Logsdon boys...a monkey giving his buddy a (for lack of a better term) proctology exam. Thought Jason, Jeremy, and Michael (and Nathan) could appreciate that. :-)

I've always enjoyed bird shows. When my family and I went to Sea World growing up, the bird show they had there was my favorite part of the entire day. While the rest of my family went to watch a ski show with stunt people from Baywatch, I went and watched the bird show again. They've trained these birds to do all sorts of tricks and fly over your head, inches away from touching you -- huge birds too, like Greater Horned Owls (think Harry Potter) and a variety of eagles and condors.

They had this going on at the Hogle Zoo. We got a kick out of it. Amy freaked out when a flock of white doves flew over her head (even after the showman told everyone to be still).

This hilarious Cockatoo was taking wildlife conservation donations after the show and dropping them in the slot.














Overall, it was a good visit, and Amy even bought herself some zoo paraphernalia before we left.

And so next week it was Amy's turn to pick our date. Nothing could have helped me guess her idea -- face painting. I have to admit it was kinda fun. She picked an idea for my face out of a book that she checked out from the library...

her book...

and the end result.

Then I went to work on Amy...I used my own imagination and decided to make a checkerboard out of Amy's face...it was cool. As I went through the photos, I just busted out laughing because you can see all the sides that Amy has to her personality. So, here we go...

First, the serious Amy.

The cute Amy.

The sad Amy.


The scary Amy.


The poser Amy.


The crazy, psychotic Amy.


The sleepy, tired Amy.


And finally...

The joker Amy.

Ya know, it's funny...Amy wasn't consciously trying to make all of those random faces...her "little person" just kind of came out in the photos. It was a lot of fun...she didn't even know what I was painting on her face until I showed her at the end. Same with me. I told her that her face was paybacks for kicking my trash at a game I taught her how to play (i.e. checkers).

More soon!