I guess it is time to tell Sunny's story, "The Best Christmas Present Ever." We sure didn't know it at the time though. We had a beloved little Quaker Lulu who was really my husbands bird, and I had told him I would like an African Grey. He would always tell me two birds were too many to travel with which I thought was true. We travel with a trailer for about four months each year with our business. Space is obviously limited. A grey was as big a bird as I would consider. Certainly, I did NOT want a macaw. It was about a week before Christmas, 2010 and we had agreed not to buy each other Christmas gifts except little things and wait until afterwards to maybe get something for the house. That evening as we sat watching TV, I turned my computer on and opened Craigslist just to browse. At that very same time a family made the decision to part with their bird in hopes of getting her a better home. I had never heard of or seen a Catalina macaw and there she was! Included was her 3 by 4 by 6 1/2 ' cage, three stands, and assorted stuff, all for a rehoming fee of $350. Had she had a macaw price, reality would have bit, and I would have gone on browsing, knowing a macaw would never fit our lifestyle. As it was, taking complete leave of my sanity, I asked my husband if we could rethink this Christmas thing. "What do you want?" he mumbled not really paying attention. I turned the screen of my laptop toward him. He sat up stared and said "can you get it?" Within a couple of minutes, the deal was made and the ad was removed. Three days later we were off to town with the pickup to bring Sunny and a full pickup load of her stuff home. I should have noticed that it took carefull loading to get all that to fit in the back of of that big dually truck, but I was too interested in the bird. We took a wire dog crate for Sunny to ride in the backseat. Sunny was polite when we met her, but coming home she was sure she was kidnapped and turned into a growling, screaming, monster trying frantically to bite through the wires of the crate. I turned and tried to talk soothingly to her. At the top of her lungs she screamed "SHUT UP!" First words she ever said to me. We went through several weeks of a very angry, heartbroken and frightened bird, that did at times make me wonder what I had done, but we all worked it out and now have the companion of a lifetime. I know some of you have read Sunny's stories already. She loves to travel and entertain people at the shows, has her own Facebook page where her funny sayings get recorded, and has fans around the country who come to see her and take her picture. She rides between us in the truck, has her own nighttime cage in the trailer, has been canoeing with us, to garage sales, Home Depot, First Monday, Petsmart, and anywhere else she is allowed in. She has a vocabulary of around two hundred words and phrases which she uses very appropriately. We were her fourth home in her first two and a half years. She spent the last year before we got her living in a back yard next to a school bus stop and we think she got her big vocabulary talking to the kids. This one was meant to be! Me? I'm still looking for that old African Grey in need of one last home, who would enjoy the company of a very adorable Catalina. Lulu is gone now, RIP, and much missed. Last fall a professional photographer came by our booth and was so taken with Sunny she sent me this picture. This is the work of Laurie Haughton of Epona Portraits. And as Sunny would say to all the above "dats a fact".
I know that you were very good luck for me in finding a breeder close & in finding my special girl. 
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