Dolphin Smooches!

Malabar is the youngest, smallest, and sassiest, but also the most precious. <3



And these are my wonderful fellow interns with Calvin and Malabar!



And for you manatee lovers out there, here's the fatty Lou going for his Christmas veggiesicle! :)

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear

The title of this post is dedicated to Buddy the Elf- "I'm in a store and I'm singing!" Haha. And as everyone knows, I find this to be my own personal motto as well! Everything is always better when there's singing involved! :)

Well anyways, on to Christmas. Today was my first Christmas away from my family. It's really weird that Christmas is already over but that I haven't spent any time with my family- its like Christmas never even happened! :( I was pretty sad last night before I went to bed because I had spoken to my mom and sister on the phone and I was the only person in my apartment and felt kind of lonely. This morning, though, I was in high Christmas spirits! I woke up early before work so that I could open presents and watch A Christmas Story on TBS before work! Gotta keep up family traditions even when you aren't with your family!

Work today was actually one of the funnest days we've had all year, and I definitely think I had a better time at work than I would have had sitting alone in my apartment for Christmas! It really felt like we didn't even do any work. haha There was constant Christmas music, a lunch time potluck full of endless turkey, side dishes, and desserts, and window spiels! We also got spend an hour scuba diving in the main tank and making silly scuba videos! Overall, Christmas day turned out quite nice.

After I got home from work, I skyped my sister and all of the family members at my house for Christmas! Nicole put her laptop on the dinner table so that I could talk to everyone and feel like I was there, which was really great! Now I'm just watching Elf and am going to go to bed soon!

Merry Christmas everyone!
Love, Hayley and Khyber

Wake up, wake up, its Christmas Eve!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone!!!! I hope today and tomorrow are filled with family and friends, presents, cookies and Christmas movies! (I've literally watched every xmas movie in existence this week!)I'm off today so I'll be hanging around my apartment, watching movies, making christmas gifts and feeling sniffly. (Of course I get sick right at Christmas.) Lauren's family invited me to eat Christmas eve dinner with them, so I'll be doing that this evening. And then I will be going to bed so that Santa can visit us! haha. But in the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye on him with the military Santa tracker! At this moment, Santa is in the Philippines! :)

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

Christmas with Shamu!

Last night one of my roommates Kristin and I went to Seaworld to see their Christmas decorations and shows! She works for a theme park at home that is part of the same chain of theme parks, so she can get in free, and she had an extra guest ticket, so I got in free too! It was pretty sweet! The park decorations were quite lovely, and it wasn't too crowded.

We watched an ice skating show!



We saw Clyde and Seamore the sea lions get ready for Christmas! (With a guest appearance by Wally the Walrus) :)



We went on the newest roller coaster called Manta, and in the line I came across a chamber of chambered nautiluses! I think Kristin thought I was kind of nuts because I got so excited about these guys! haha



Lastly, we watched the holiday Shamu show, Miracles! The show wasn't quite as exciting as they used to be, since the trainers no longer get in the water with the killer whales, but they are still amazing to see!

Dolphin Window Presentation!

Hey friends! I promised a video of me doing my dolphin presentation at work, and here it is! Today's presentation was with Malabar, who was doing a great job, until he decided the big boys in the back were more interesting! But then the crowd got to meet Calvin instead, so it all worked out!

So here it is, for your viewing pleasure!!!! (Pardon my chipmunk voice and my darkness. But the dolphins look good and that's all that really matters!)



That's right, be jealous of my sweet job. :D

Christmastime is Here!

The month of December is flying by! It's so hard to believe that Christmas is in just 6 days, and that my time is Florida is almost over! In less than 3 weeks I will be back in California! The month hasn't been too exciting, mostly just working and doing Christmas-y stuff! Back at the end of November I bought a Christmas tree at Target for $20 and Amy and I decorated the apartment. We've slowly been adding more Christmas decorations to our tree and our apartment!

Our tree and lights! (My camera can't really handle pictures without flash haha)



And here's our window from outside! :)



Non blurry Christmas tree!



All of our stockings hung up on the mantle/countertop! (This was my idea!)



Since this is Disney, there are plenty of Christmas time activities to partake in, so my roommates and I have been hitting up all the holiday celebrations!

We started with the life size gingerbread house at the Grand Floridian! (Where I also took a picture sitting in Santa's throne haha)





Our next stop on the Christmas checklist was The Osborne Family's Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Hollywood Studios! Basically this family in Arkansas had millions of Christmas lights and ended up donating them to Walt Disney World for a Christmas light spectacular! There are over 5 million lights and 15 miles of extension cords for the display! The lights "dance" every other song, and it really is quite the spectacle!!!







I had the other day off from work, and I figured it was about time for the family tradition of Christmas cookies and Christmas movies! I woke up early to go buy ingredients (as well as some cookie cutters and a rolling pin!) and baked cookies for 5 straight hours! Per family tradition, I also watched The Santa Clause while baking! I made sugar cookies with glaze frosting, peanut butter cookies with Hershey hugs and Pecan Snowballs! Normally I hate cooking, so all my roommates were so surprised that I went all Betty Crocker for the day. haha.







After making cookies on Thursday, I met up with my roommates at Epcot to see the Christmas Candlelight Processional. One of our roommates Kristin is in the cast choir, so we went to go see her! The Candlelight Processional consists of cast and guest choirs singing Christmas carols while a semi-celebrity reads the Christmas story. That night's reader was Thomas Gibson, the actor from Dharma & Greg and Criminal Minds. It was so lovely we stayed to see the second show!



Kristin is the one with the shoulder length brown hair in the second row! And there's Thomas Gibson!



Well, that's all the Christmas fun I've been having! I hope all of you have been having an equally magical holiday season!!! :)

MANATEES!!!!!!!!!!!

TODAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER! Lauren and I headed back to Blue Springs since its now colder weather and the manatees typically head there in the middle of November. We were a bit worried that we might make the hour drive and not see any manatees, but our worries were alleviated when we got to the ranger station and the sign outside said the manatee count for the day was at 309!!!!! We walked down to the river lookout, and sure enough there were tons of manatees!!! Even though I see our manatees Lou and Jasper everyday, it was still super exciting to see some manatees in their natural habitat! What was really exciting was that there were tons of baby manatees! So freaking cute! I'm really happy that I was able to cross "seeing wild manatees" off my Florida to-do list!

Woo-hoo!!!!




So many manatees!!!



And lots of adorable babies!!!!




I stole these next pictures from Lauren since she has a much fancier and more legit SLR camera.

Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!

Last week all my roommates Blaire, Jami, Amy, Lauren and Kristin, my friend from work Annie and I went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom! We all wore crazy Christmas clothes, and got some looks from other people, but we didn't care! Clearly all the other people there did not get the memo that it was a CHRISTMAS PARTY! If you can't wear reindeer antlers and wacky sweaters to a Christmas party, when can you?!




The night was quite fun (though not quite as fun as the Halloween party). We saw some characters dressed up in their holiday best!




We went to the dance party with Woody, Jesse and Bullseye, where I did the Xbox Kinect "Evacuate the dancefloor" dance with Jesse. hahaha



We watched the Christmas parade, the Christmas show in front of the castle, and the Holiday Wishes fireworks. And we got unlimited sugar cookies and hot chocolate! So even though it was like 80 degrees that night, we were all able to kick off the holiday season with friends and Mickey Mouse!

Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing!

I'm currently watching my favorite Christmas movies, The Santa Clause!!! My first, of what will probably be many, viewings this Christmas season! This has been my favorite Christmas movie ever since I saw it in the theater when I was like 7. :) Ever year I watch it a million times on ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas (like I am doing now), and my sister and I always watch it on DVD while we bake Christmas sugar cookies. Not to mention that this movie has so many quotable quotes! "You could dye it, and you should diet!" "At least we know they have hot apple pieeee. We diiiiid." "Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing!" "We're your worst nightmare. Elves, with attitude."

My favorite part of the movie (with my favorite song) is when they first get to the North Pole! That clip is at minute 7:30! :)

Thanksgiving part 2

Lauren and i were successful in our thanksgiving dinner preperatetion! we made a delicous dinner and it was wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

turkey? check
mashed potatoes? check
stuffing? check
green beans? check
gravey? check

thanksgiving dinner was a sucessus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I'm working 7-4 today since animals don't know that its Thanksgiving and they still need to eat. (gosh, they are so needy haha.) But that's ok, the day shouldn't be too bad. We are getting Thanksgiving lunch at work, and then when I get home, Lauren and I are going to attempt to cook Thanksgiving! So I'll get Thanksgiving food twice today! I'm sad that I won't be with my family today, but I guess that's growing up.

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :)

Art by Calvin!

Ever wish you had a picture painted by a dolphin? Well, I've got one!!! :D One of the trainers Leslie trained Calvin how to paint as an enrichment activity, and we got to do this the other day at work! When Calvin paints, he holds a paintbrush that is stuck into a pool noodle in his mouth and basically just moves his head around like a crazy dolphin! It was quite amusing to watch. I picked out the three colors I wanted in my painting, and then I let Calvin go to town on the canvas! :) It was pretty fun cause he got paint everywhere, and somehow I even got some blue paint in my hair! (But luckily it was water soluble paint, so it came out easily haha.)

Check out Calvin's gorgeous artwork! Kind of looks like an ocean scape or something. haha I'm definitely getting this framed!