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.

Poseidon Hates Me

Let me just say that I have been soooo excited all day. I saw THREE squid swimming in the ocean today. I have only ever seen two before, and I saw those while I was snorkeling at Looe last week. This morning I saw a 12 inch squid swimming, but it swam away very quickly when I started calling for the campers to come look at it. Then about 5 minutes later I saw two hovering above a gorgonian (a soft coral for those of you who are non-scientists). They just stayed there while I got all 8 of the kids in my class to swim over and look at them. It was amazing.

Clearly, I was having a fantastic day. I decided to google the squid so I could put a picture of one on here for you. When I typed in "squid in South Florida," this is what came up: Giant squid found in Stuart

SERIOUSLY?!?! I leave Stuart, and they find a giant squid there?! I am livid. I can't even believe that this has happened. Why was I not there to see it? This is nonsense, Stuart. You should love me enough to wait until I'm home to find sea monsters so I can see them for myself!

I'm reminded of the time I left the beach early and a seal came up on Stuart Beach an hour later. I mean, what's next? The Megaladon will probably swim up the river and prove it's alive while I'm all excited to be snorkeling with a nurse shark in the Keys. It's like Poseidon is trying to play some cruel trick on me.

Needless to say, I'm buying a camera right now so that I don't have to google anymore pictures for you guys.




15 days til Harry Potter 7 Part 2!!!
31 days til Nicole's wedding!!!

More Pictures!

I'm finally catching up on everything, so here's some pictures from my birthday. I know the cupcakes are the only thing you are really concerned about...

Here's Jack eating a cupcake. Clearly, he loved them.

Aren't they so pretty?! You can kind of tell near the bottom of this picture how they sparkled. This just doesn't do them justice though. They shimmered all over, but in a pretty, non-obnoxious way.

Here's a picture of me on the phone with Grandma. I miss you, Grandma!  

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Tanya came down to see me, which was awesome. I wish I could go home and see everyone more often, so it's great to have visitors. We spent Saturday hanging out in Key West and Tan found some tea shop that she really liked. We also went to the Toy Factory which was amazing!! It's not that they necessarily have the widest selection of toys or anything, but it's decorated in a really cool underwater theme with ginormous fish and a pirate ship. If you come down to Key West ever, you should check it out. We also ate at this delicious Mexican restaurant called Salsa Loco. It was a relaxing weekend filled with some sisterly bonding, which was exactly what I needed.

Oh, and just in case you live in a cave, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I just came out on DVD last week. Go buy it if you haven't already!

Changes

I've only been here for 4 weeks, but I've already dramatically changed some important details of my life.

Things I no longer do:

• Blowdry my hair
• Wear makeup
• Shave my legs when I know I'll be in a bathing suit
• Eat fast food
• Stalk people on Facebook. Yes, I mean you.

New things I worry about:

• Key Deer that hide in between banana tress waiting to scare me
• Having intense tan lines from my sunglasses
• Trying to catch a shark
• The new random bruises all over my legs
• My Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume for Fantasy Fest
• Getting fat because I don't do hot yoga anymore

Things I still do:

• Eat Special K Vanilla Almond like it's my job
• Obsess about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows coming out next month

I hope everyone else is enjoying the weather cooling down. I'm not! It looks like I'm going to need to buy a wetsuit pretty soon.