Mote Interns Pictures!!

From the left, Karsen in blue, Demi in the back in white, Veronica in black, Chelsey is behind me, Becky is in front of me in white and Kiley is in green.




Here are a few pictures we took yesterday of us education interns.

We've all been one big, happy family this summer. I'm going to miss them, especially since tomorrow is my very last day... :(

Here's a few pictures from my week in the keys. I don't have very many. I was just having so much fun and it was so awesome that I usually completley forgot to take pictures. I need to get in touch with a few of the girls because they were always taking pictures! haha.
The top one is a low-key private resort island that is super exclusive and someday, I will vacay there.
The one below that is on the Mini Bus, or MB as we called it all week. (All the kids spoke in acronyms and everything had an acronym all week! it was hilarious)
Below that is a mangrove tunnel we kayaked through. It was beautiful!!!
The last one is at the dolphin research center.
It was a great week and I probably won't have the time or energy to tell all the tales but hopefully I can snag a few more pictures, especially the underwater ones from the campers.

Manatee Feeding

Wednesday we got to feed the manatees. It was super cool. They are so HUGE! I mean, you can see in the tank but when you get up close, you can really, really see. They also have no front teeth because they are vegetarians so they can just eat right out of your hand. These are 2 of the 6 trained manatees in the world. We fed them cut up apples and carrots and they get romaine lettuce heads tossed in the water.

PS: The trainer told me I had to put a disclaimer: This is at Mote Marine Laboratory and it is illegal to approach/feed/mess with a wild manatee! They are an endangered species and their populations are in danger.

Myakka

Sunday, I finished my last 2 dives for my open-water certification and I'm now a certified diver. I was amazed at how easy it all was. Then, Patrick and I went to Myakka State Park which is about a 20 min. drive east of Sarasota. It's so close but it feels like a whole different world. Definitely something worth seeing.

Everglades

This weekend was super fun! I'm so tired from it all. We did so many things. Here's a summary/the short version since I don't want everyone to have to read a super long, long post.

Saturday morning: 9am went to dive shop for my first open water dive. My instructor's name was Sven...he's absolutely hilarious! From Germany, pro-triathlete. The picture on the right is us diving at Venice Beach. We're that super tiny little blob far out in the water. It was a long swim out there. We did 2, 20 minute dives to 20 feet. I made it through all the skills really quickly and didn't have any problems. It was really fun. After my dives, it was close to 1pm so Patrick and I jumped in the car and made our way southeast to Marie's. It took 3 hours to get there but we made a 30 min. stop in Naples for food/free slurpees from 7-11. This is a picture of a swamp buggy on the left and on the right is Jimmy and Marie's cabin:


This is a picture of riding in the buggy.It's so much fun!! You get all muddy and it's a really rough ride but it's pretty country.

These are pictures from the ride. These are the buggy trails they drive on. This one below is a lake that was made when the gov. decided to make an emergency landing runway for a super sonic jet that's 3 mi. long and so they dug out to pile up the land for the runway.



This is right in front of their cabin. We barbequed burgers and ate inside in the a/c since the bugs are at their worst right about now. Patrick really enjoyed the trip and had a lot of fun he said. We left rather late at like 11:30 so we didn't get home til 2 but it was alright, I slept most of the trip back once we got back on 75 so I wouldn't be too tired for my dive the next morning.

Sarasota area beach day

I worked a half day and Patrick and I toured the area. First, we went to Siesta Key Beach. (above). It has the whitest sand of all the beaches here locally.
These 2 pictures are from Anna Maria Island Beach. We went there to watch the sunset. It was beautiful!

Here's another from Siesta.

visiting hatchlings/feeding sharks

Today was an awesome day at work. It was boat day which is always nice because we basically get to relax and the boat people do all the talking and stuff.
Also, after the little rascals left, we got to go feed the baby bonnet-head sharks! It was pretty fun. We fed them small anchovies and shrimp pieces.
Then...we got to go visit the baby loggerhead sea turtles!!!! It was awesome! They just hatched yesterday and they are soooooo cute! I almost died, I swear. I thought I was going to cry, they were so adorable and the tiniest little things. Tomorrow, they will be released at Venice Beach.

july 4 weekend

This weekend was pretty sweet. Friday we got off work early at 12:30! That was pretty rad. Becky and I walked around St. Armands Circle which is right on Longboat Key. It's the ritzy shopping. We couldn't afford any of it, surprise. Then we went to dinner later at Buffalo Wildwings because we had a free wing coupon. So we got some different sauces. It was delicious. We came back to my house and made a run to the Winn Dixie and had girlie drink night. It was super fun, we were dancing around to Nelly, total blast from the past.

Saturday, we went thrift store shopping and to the wal mart for a few things. Then, Becky decided she was tired and went home to St. Pete. One of our staffers, Kat had invited me to her house in Venice for the 4th so I headed out for that. She is living in her bf's parent's vacation house. Man, is it swanky! It's in a gated community and it has 4 bedrooms and at least 4 bathrooms. It's insane. Plus there's a pool. They had a floatable 10 cup pong table so we played that. Then they had a bunch of power hour videos so we played that for a while. Then we went to the beach, but there were way too many people and we sort of missed the fireworks but it was still cool. I stayed there, and then this morning, I went to my scuba lesson. It was really fun. At first it was a little weird being in a pool underwater breathing air but I got really used to it really quick.

We spent about 4 hours in the pool working on different skills from buddy breathing, to swimming to diver tows. When I got home from that at like 4, I was pretty tired and fell asleep at about 4:30 and just woke up at 7:00. Now, I'm about to shower and relax for a bit then go to sleep early so I can be ready to deal with all the kiddies tomorrow.

PS: Happy Birthday to Aunt Debbie!

Sea turle and stingray spotting

Today was boat day. It was really cool! We saw dolphins, a green sea turtle and an Atlantic spotted stingray! I spotted the turtle, it was amazing! It was a small little guy, a tiny bit smaller than my torso. If you go to seesarasotalive.com you can see where we boat in the bay. Right now, it's rather gloomy looking out as it has been stormy all day.
Not much else to report, we mostly had to do lame cleaning tasks after the kids left. I'm just watching Simpsons and eating mac and cheese right now. Ah, the glamorous life of an intern...