Chestnuts in Arborland: Our Second Anniversary (in pictures!)

Yesterday was a perfect day!

Since Jake is done with class until September, and Tuesday is one of the days I don't work, we were able to spend the whole day together.

We started with a homemade breakfast of mushroom-zucchini omelet and skillet potatoes.

We decided to take it easy since I had a bit of a grueling physical therapy appointment, so we hung around the house enjoying each other's company. In the afternoon we ventured out to the park by our house to see the ducks, but it seems like everyone knew it was our special day!

Since we arrived in Ann Arbor I've been trying to capture a photo of the Great Blue Heron. He is magnificent! So far all I've managed have been some blurry photos of his relative, the White Heron. When we arrived at the river, I spotted a white heron and then realized that standing right next to him was a great blue! I finally got a picture of him (lots of pictures, actually). Isn't he beautiful?

We later saw that there was another white heron-great blue heron couple on the other side of the river. We watched them fly in circles around us, but it was hard to take a good picture of the Great Blue since they are dark and fly against the trees. However, they are just as gorgeous flying, and their wingspans are incredible! They look very much like the white heron, just blue.

After a zillion pictures of the herons, we continued our circuit around the river and saw some more animals that we haven't seen in this park before.

Turtles!

Fish?

In the water were hundreds of what we initial thought were fish. But we now suspect them to be tadpoles! We'll have to keep our eye on them, maybe we'll have a frog explosion soon.

We also saw this pretty little guy. He posed for a cool picture.

From the bridge we were also able to see some young ducks learning to fly. They weren't very good yet and mostly just splashed in the water, though, they did get a little air.

But the celebration in the park wasn't over yet! There was still one more surprise, the most wonderful of them all. After looking at the tadpoles on the bridge, we continued the loop around the river, talking quietly to each other. Apparently, we weren't as quiet as we thought and we startled two large bucks munching some leaves, in broad daylight, next to the path! They got scared and bounded into the forest, but not so far that we couldn't see them. We stood really still, watching, and I guess they were curious too, because they let me take their picture. They were not more than 10 feet away from us.

Camouflage

It was pretty magical!

After the park we came home, cleaned up, and went out for a special dinner at a surprise restaurant (well, it was a surprise for me). Jake had arranged a reservation at a little place downtown, and asked them for their best table. We were not disappointed - our table was that one right in the window!