Fashion Show

On Wednesday, I attended my first charity luncheon in South Carolina. It was a fashion show to raise money for hospice. It also included an auction of magnum wine bottles, paintings, and various trips or vacation rentals. There was even a silent auction portion.

It was pretty straight forward. Several of the local boutiques made their employees dress in their clothes and walk down the cat walk. It was actually nice for me, since I had no idea most of these stores existed. Most of the clothes were just for everyday wear with a few nicer dresses thrown in. Hands down the best part of the afternoon happened when we left the fashion show. When asked about her thoughts of the fashion show, Milledge's GrandMaMa Punkin had only one thing to say about it.

Punkin: A few of those girls on the stage were bouncing around in those outfits. They needed to put on a panty girdle.

Me: What's a panty girdle?

Punkin: You know what a panty girdle is. It holds everything in place.

(We're in the car and pass two girls walking on the sidewalk in athletic clothes and sneakers. One is a bit heavier than her friend.)

Punkin: One of those girls needs a panty girdle.

Milledge's sister: I think maybe she just needs to run a little more.

Punkin: She needs both those things. I don't know if just one them will help her.


When I got home, I looked on Google to see what exactly panty girdles are. They're just old fashioned Spanx. They look like they were trying to make them attractive, and that's probably why they didn't work as well as Spanx. Everyone looks great in an outfit with a pair of Spanx underneath. NO ONE looks sexy only in Spanx, or putting a pair of them on or trying to take them off.

Restarting the blog!!

I obviously haven't posted on the blog in over a year. I've been really busy though, honestly. Here's some things that I've done since I last posted...

1. Moved back to Palm City.
2. Started working at Victoria's Secret.
3. Spent all my free time in St. Augustine.
4. Got engaged.
5. Got a job teaching. Left Victoria's Secret.
6. Planned a wedding.
7. Left my teaching job.
8. Got married.
9. Moved to South Carolina.

It's been hectic. Now that I'm in SC, not so hectic. I haven't found a job yet so I have plenty of time to update my blog now! Plus, Milledge and I are happily spending time only in Beaufort for awhile. We are over driving somewhere every weekend, and now that we're married we don't have to.

I need a new name for my blog. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Visitors!

About two weeks ago now I got a text message from my mom…

Pamcakes: Or would Friday be better?

Me: What do you mean?

Pamcakes: How could I make it any clearer?

Hmm… Maybe you could explain what was going on?! So I called my mother and it turned out that she had sent me a previous text that I had not received about her coming down to see me that night. I was beyond excited. Sometimes living in the Keys can feel very cutoff from the rest of the world, and I really miss my family, so it’s nice to see people from the real world/mainland.

Hayley and Pamcakes came down last Sunday night and spent the whole day with me on Sunday in Marathon. First we ate at IHOP. Delicious! I hadn’t eaten there since Tan came down for Easter. After that we went to the Turtle Hospital.

We learned about sea turtles, some things I knew before, and some things I didn’t. For example I knew that all seven species of sea turtles in the world are endangered. I did not know that green sea turtles are actually named for their body fat which has a distinct green hue because of all the sea grass they eat.  The best part was that we got to see lots of cute little turtles there, including Scooter.

Scooter is three years old and adorable. He’s a loggerhead sea turtle. I watched him swim around for awhile, but we weren’t allowed to touch any of the sea turtles which is no fun at all.

This guy, Izzy, got hit by a boat propeller. He’s a green sea turtle.

This was Mom’s favorite sea turtle, Corona. I know you think it’s her favorite because of how much she loves to drink beer, but actually she just loved his beautiful shell.

If you ever come down to Marathon, you should definitely check out the Turtle Hospital. The tour is about an hour and a half and it doesn’t seem that long. It’s definitely worth the fee.

We also went to Sombrero Beach for awhile. It’s one of the few sandy beaches in the Florida Keys. It’s gorgeous there. We laid around and read books. Hayley tried to get the tan that she lost when she left summer camp (It didn’t work).

Then we went to Sunset Grille with Milledge. The food was delicious, and we made it in time for sunset which was nice. It was sad to see Mom and Hayley leave, but we had a great time. Now I’m even more excited to see most of the family at Thanksgiving, which is coming up soon.  Happy November!

Best Day Ever?

About a week and a half ago, I had a high school group come in. It was one of the best teaching groups of my time here. There were only seven students and one chaperone, and they were all really smart kids. The school also requested four boat trips for their three day trip. The weather was absolutely perfect while they were here so we got to go out to Looe Key for two of the boat trips. I have never seen the water that clear at Looe. It was gorgeous. The students were from Indiana and immediately fell in love with the reef. One of the girls actually said, "I used to look forward to my wedding day and having kids, but now I don't. I know today was the best day of my life."

The first thing I saw when I got in the water was this midnight blue parrotfish. He was just chillin' there while the little yellow fish in the picture were cleaning him.

Here's a damselfish feeding on some Halimeda algae.

I love these things. They're called Christmas tree worms. You can see how the brown worms look like little trees. They come in different colors, but when you touch them or create a current next to them, they suck back into their little worm homes.

As always, there were lots of yellow tail snappers hanging out by the boat. This picture was from the second day we were out. Right after I got back on the boat, a small Goliath grouper moved under the boat and hung out there for awhile. He looked to be about 100 pounds when I saw him swimming away from the students when they were getting out of the water.

We also saw a four and a half foot reef shark the second day, but I couldn't get a picture of him.

The second morning, before we went to Looe, we went to the coral heads that are much closer to shore. It wasn't as clear there, but hopefully you can tell what you're seeing in this next picture.

It's the lionfish that I can't catch. You can see his light, striped fins sticking out, and he's closer to the bottom than the center. This is the second time I've tried to get him from the same exact spot. He hids in a cave made from the coral next to a long spined sea urchin (bottom right corner of picture). He's always too far back for my short arms though. He loves to hang out and taunt me. Next time, I will catch him.

Tagging

The schools have finally started coming back to camp. This is amazing for me, because I've been getting really bored at work since I'm not teaching. I've only had one school group so far. They were fifty seventh graders, split up into five groups. It's a nice change-up also, because we teach differently than we do in the summer since they're only here for 3 days.

This group got an extra special treat. We had just caught 2 nurse sharks the day before, so we tagged the sharks while the students were watching. I've tagged sharks before, but this time someone took pictures for your viewing pleasure.

After Stephan (who is pictured helping me in all of these pictures) scoops the lovely pretty shark out of the holding tank, we have to measure it and check to make sure it looks healthy. We look for obvious signs like scarring or parasites and for more subtle signs about the sharks health.

After looking on the dorsal side, we flip her over to check for these signs on her ventral side. Also, I open her mouth (with a tool, not my hands!) and check to be sure her mouth looks good. She seems very healthy and has plenty of rows of teeth.

When all of this has been recorded, I begin to actually tag the shark. I start by making a very small incision next to her primary dorsal fin. Sharks heal so quickly that there will be no visible sign of the cut after only one week.

Next, I insert the tag.

In this picture, you can see the actual tag a bit better. It's small and yellow. Not large enough to interfere with the sharks swimming or hunting, but obvious enough that if the shark is captured, the fisherman will notice the tag and be able to contact the number/address on the tag with the information requested as well as the shark's whereabouts.

When all of this is finished, the shark is weighed and released. I know what you've all been thinking, isn't this a long time for the shark to be out of the water? No, she would be fine out of the water this whole time, but still we pour plenty of salt water on her. Also, you may have noticed that she's covered up quite a bit in some photos. Covering their eyes helps to calm them down and proves to be much less stressful on the animal.

Dry Tortugas! Again!

Now that the summer season has ended for work, we're in the middle of another Work Week. This means lots of maintenance. It's not very exciting at all. I've been scrubbing the dining hall and taking inventory of the health center. Not too fun. Also, the end of another season means that more people are leaving. There aren't as many people that I'm upset about this time though. Summer is too busy of a season to really get close to anyone new.

One of the people that is abandoning me is Ana. She's been here since January and we worked quite a bit of the summer together. Luckily we got to spend her last day off together. Brynn, Ana and I went to the Dry Tortugas on Sunday. Haven't I been there already, you might be wondering. Yes, I have. It's so gorgeous though, that I needed to go back!

Even waking up at 5:00 am is worth it. Here's Brynn on our way out.

One of the crew members called her Brandy all day. Then I had that song stuck in my head the rest of the time. You know, Brandy, you're a fine girl. Such a good wife you would be. But my life, my love, and my lady is the sea!

Ana had never been to the Dry Tortugas, so she and I went to explore the fort.

 

It was just as cool as it was last time. It's really creepy to think about all the people who have died in there from yellow fever though. I'm sure it's haunted. Plus there's an island right next to it where they used to bury all the dead bodies.

After that, we snorkeled around for a little bit, but it wasn't very clear on the side of the island we went to first. We did see this awesome juvenile Cushion Star though. AKA the Bahama Sea Star. Don't take it out of the water, it's protected! 

After that we went and had some lunch and decided to check out the other side of the island. Right when we were about to go though, a rain storm hit. Brynn thought we should still snorkel, but I thought the wind would demolish us in the waves. Ana agreed, so we all waited it out in the water right in front of the beach.

Obviously, there was no lightning or I wouldn't have been anywhere near the water. Once the storm passed, we went snorkeling and the water was much clearer. I'm still working on figuring out this new camera though, so the pictures aren't amazing. These are just a couple of the fish we saw:

That guy was the biggest hogfish I've ever seen. He was about 2 feet long. I followed him around and almost ran into this other huge fish:

The biggest permit of my life. It was almost 3 feet to the fork. Beautiful!! He seriously, just swam around right by us and let me get really close to him for awhile.

We saw lots of other fish, including a scorpion fish, blue runners and some small mackerals. It was one of the best days of the summer by far. When we got back, we tried to blow conch shells near the dock. I am absolutely terrible at it, but Brynn did great and Ana at least figured it out. All in all, it was an incredible trip.

Epic Life Moments

Harry Potter has finally come to a close. What will I do with my life now?! Oh, that's right. I'll just read all the books again. Repeatedly.

The movie was amazing. I obviously cried through at least half the movie. Everyone dying is just so depressing, but that's also what makes it such a good series. I mean, if it was all happy all the time like Twilight everyone would have forgotten about Harry by now. I also liked that it was shorter than the rest and they didn't drag it out just to make it a long movie. The "19 Years Later" part was stupid, but I expected that. It was just unnecessary. Plus, they did nothing to make Ginny and Hermoine look different besides change their hair. Even including this part, I feel the movie was a success.

I've moved from residential camp to the day camp that is Monday to Friday 9-5. This makes my schedule much more predictable which I already love. My biffle, Nicole Morgan, came to see me yesterday. One of the first things she said was "You weren't kidding about the no a/c." (In case anyone else was skeptical about my claims, there is definitely no a/c in the dorms. It's hot, and not in a good way.) Nicole and I went to the movies, watched the sunset and had dinner with Jennette! Jennette was down for a bachelorette party, but she snuck away to see us for a couple hours. We had a lot of fun, and if you're friends with Nicole, I'm sure you'll see pictures soon on facebook.

Thanks to Tanya and my mother, I'm now addicted to a new website: Pinterest. I don't have as much time to browse it as I would like, but you should definitely check it out. It's a great concept for a website and apparently it's the new thing. In fact, I'm sure all of you already use it, and I'm just unaware because I'm on Island Time.

Almost two weeks ago now, the coolest/scariest thing happened to me. I was supposed to be collecting algae with my class for the algae lab we were going to do the next day, but it was taking too long. We moved to a spot where I was sure I would find algae, and I got in by myself to collect while the students were on the boat with the assistant. The visibility was awful so I couldn't see much, but I kept hearing this weird, high pitched noise. I hadn't heard it before in the water, so I wasn't sure what it was and continued snorkeling around. All of a sudden I hear the students screaming my name. Of course I immediately come to the surface to see what's wrong. They all started yelling at once and pointing about 10 feet away from me. This whole time I'm moving toward the ladder because I don't know what is out there. Right when I got to the ladder, I saw a dolphin surface 5 feet away from me, swimming right toward me. It swam directly under me! Then another surfaced about 7 feet in front of me and kept swimming forward. It was totally creepy and awesome all at once. In case you don't know, dolphins are wild animals. You can't just jump in and swim with them in the ocean. Actually it's illegal, but these dolphins were swimming with me; not the other way around. I even wrote a speech in college titled Dolphins: Friend or Foe, so I know all about how sketchy these much loved mammals can be. Dolphins swimming with me in the wild though was completely epic. I will never forget it.