Hope you’re spending today with the people (and pets) you love! Thank you so much for hanging out with us over the past two years, even when we go weeks without posting. You guys are the best.

Have a very merry Christmas and a fantastic new year!

- Curt & Jess

Can you guess?

- Jessica

Happy Easter from me, Curt, and our nephew Jonah. Doesn’t he make a cute bunny?

Do you all have fun plans for today? We’re having our friends Stephen and Katie over for brunch, then we plan on roaming around the Santa Monica flea market before church. Our church in Manhattan Beach is awesome–we meet every Sunday at 5pm, which is perfect for people who love sleep like we do! It’s a small community but it’s full of amazing, loving people. The Rock Church rocks!

Oh, by the way, we all found our Easter baskets in record time. So much candy!! Maybe enough to induce a week-long sugar coma. I’m really excited for that dark chocolate and sea salt bar…

- Jessica

Jess and I spent our formative years in the 90s and I imagine some of you guys did too. The other day we were thinking back on (and had a good laugh at) all the crap you “had” to have back in elementary and middle school. How ’bout you? Anything at your school you “had” to have in order to not be considered an alien?

- Curt

It’s our Birthday! Grizzly Bear Modern is one year old today!

It’s been an awesome year. Writing GBM has inspired all kinds of adventures (i.e. we need to do something fun this weekend so we can post about it). We’ve made lots of new internet friends, and we love reading your comments and emails! It still blows us away that people from all over the world are reading our posts, trying our recipes, and downloading our mixtapes. So thank you, readers, for sharing in our adventures! You make our day. You are delightful.

Now go have a cupcake in honor of our birthday. You deserve it. Cupcakes for everyone!

Love,

Curt & Jess

If you were saddened by GBM’s extra-long holiday hiatus… blame this guy. That’s my nephew, Jonah, and he’s incredibly distracting. I mean, who in their right mind would want to spend hours blogging when they could play with an adorable chunkwagon of a baby? Well, not this lady, that’s for sure.

So yes, I’m sorry that it was so silent around here. Really. But don’t get mad at me. Get mad at the baby.

Ha! As if that’s possible. Look at that face.

- Jessica

Happy Thanksgiving! Know what we’re thankful for?

You.

And turkey, and stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and gravy, and sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie cheesecake.

But mostly you.

Love,

Curt and Jess

This isn’t you’re usual GBM fare, but I ran across this story on Gizmodo earlier today and it’s just too amazing not to share. APOPO is a Belgian based NGO founded by Bart Weetjens, a longtime rodent lover and zen Bhudist monk, who developed an organization that provides people with land mine detecting rats. And these rats ‘aint yo friendly kindergarden class pet, these bad boys are African Giant Pouched Rats, some of whom could give a cat a run for its money.

Land mines are truly disgusting and I think its a wonderful coincidence that the most effective and efficient land mine detection device is a rat – which on its own really has received a bad wrap for centuries as being a gross critter. The specially trained rats are able to sniff out land mines and are light enough not to detonate the subterranean death puck. It takes a pair of trained humans a full day to clear a 2000 square foot minefield. But if they work with a pair of rats, they can do it in just two hours. That. Is. Crazy! Check out a few more photos of these fuzzy little heros, or don’t if you’re already grossed out.

Rats are quicker to train and less prone to African diseases than bomb sniffing canines. And all these little champs ask for in return is a piece of banana. I’d say we’re getting quite a deal.

PLUS! These little guys can also be trained to be one of the most effective screens for finding Tuberculosis. Hospital tests are on about 60% accurate and these rats are 200% faster at identifying samples that are infected with TB than lab techs.

photos and facts from Telegraph, Time, Slate, and CNN