Happy Halloween!

Legit

Just bought my very own whistle for bridging!!! So excited!

In the spirit of Halloween...

I saw this on the Today show this morning! Underwater pumpkin carving in the Florida Keys!!!

Fun Fall Festivities!

Last night most of my roommates and I went to a local pumpkin patch! It was so fun! We picked out pumpkins, took pictures by Halloween decorations and all the money went to a good cause! We are planning on carving them in the next few days once its pretty much Halloween since they will shrivel up quickly in the heat. Less than a week until Halloween! :)



Lots of pumpkins!!!



I finally found the perfect pumpkin!



A slightly off center self-timed roomie pic!



Today Lauren and I were in the mood for some outdoor adventures, so we headed an hour outside of Orlando to Blue Spring! It's a beautiful river slash freshwater spring area! We went kayaking, picnicking, snorkeling, and nature watching!!! It was really an awesome day! We saw tons of fish like gars and catfish, some turtles, and lots of birds like herons! However, we didn't see any manatees! So we plan to go back sometime in December since that's when the manatees always head to Blue Springs for the warm water!








I hope all of you are having awesome autumn adventures and fun fall festivities!!! (I'm pretty good at alliterations, huh!?)

Guess who's going to be working at the Navy?!

Yes folks, that's right! I just found out today that I was selected for the marine mammal training internship at the Naval base in San Diego! Looks like I'll be heading back to California in January! And I feel so relieved to have something planned in my life for after Disney, albeit its only until May. But once I finish this internship, I will have basically a year of marine mammal experience under my belt, and will hopefully be able to get a real job somewhere! (Ideally in California). I am very excited for my next step in life!

Here's a picture I stole off the internship website of interns training a young dolphin to boat follow:



That's going to be me in a few months!!!!! Woo-hoo!!!!

Coolest Day Ever!

So at work we are finally getting to start learning hands on training with the dolphins! Just some background info about training, when you train a dolphin, they are conditioned to know that when they hear the whistle (otherwise known as a bridge) they have done the behavior correctly and will receive a reward/reinforcement. So, know that you all know that, I can regale you with my tales of yesterday!!!

Last week we were given our intern whistle, and yesterday was the first day I got to use it! During one of the afternoon training sessions, I went upstairs with Dave, who is our intern mentor (basically the equivalent of a pledge mom for us interns haha). I got to work with our 16 year old dolphin Calvin, who is the smarty pants of the group. I gave him different signals for various behaviors like bows, front tail walks, pec shake (like a fin handshake haha), speed swims and a swim and wave! After Calvin did the behavior correctly, I got to bridge him (blow the whistle) to let him know he was right, and then gave him some fish as a reward! It was soooo awesome! Then I practiced having him rest his rostrum in my hand, turning him on his back, and having him give me his pec fin so that I could turn him on his side and give him a rubdown!!! I was seriously like giddy with excitement! It was one of the coolest things ever! Now that we are learning the techniques of bridging, we are one step closer to starting the window presentations with the dolphins, which is when they are down at the window for a guest presentation and we have them do various behaviors! I only have 2 1/2 months left in this internship and so far, it seems like they are going to be pretty exciting!!!

Here's a pic of the four Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins at The Seas!
Ranier, Khyber, Calvin and Malabar!




On another note, yesterday I had an interview for an animal care and training internship with the U.S. Navy dolphin and sea lion program in San Diego! If I get it, I'll be back in southern CA in January! Don't want to jump the gun, but keep your fingers crossed for me! :)

Epcot Food and Wine Festival!

During the whole month of October and half of November, Epcot is holding its annual Food and Wine Festival, and it's pretty much the best thing ever invented! The World Showcase is the half of the park that has replicas of various countries, and its pretty cool cause they have various landmarks and food and whatnot. Normally, there are only 11 countries, but during the Food and Wine Festival (from now on abbreviated as FWF, an abbreviation I totally just invented haha), there are 28 extra booths for various countries! Each country's booth looks super cute and they serve a couple of appetizers and drinks from that nation! Another awesome part about the FWF is that every night they have an Eat to the Beat concert! The bands are all relatively old, or one hit wonders, but its still really fun to go see them! So far we have seen Kool and the Gang (they sing "Celebrate good times"), Sugar Ray (they don't need a song example cause I'm pretty sure everyone knows who they are), Air Supply ("Lost in Love") and Sister Hazel ("All for you")! Some of the highlights were are looking forward to in the next month include Starship (singers of "We built this city on rock and roll" haha), Hansen (my 7 year old self will be in heaven hahaha) and Rick Springfield!

Last Thursday, Lauren and I figured we would take advantage of our day off and go eat, drink and be merry at the FWF. However, since we were planning on drinking, we didn't want to have to drive, so we had our roommate Jami drop us of at Epcot on her way to work! We pretty much had the longest and most expensive day every (since those country food samplers and drinks are NOT cheap), but it was soooooo much fun! We got these little passports and got stamps at each country! We managed to get 13 of 28! We also discovered the world's most delicious drink ever at the Puerto Rico booth- the Bacardi Torched Cherry Colada is literally the yummiest thing I have ever tasted! And since we were a bit tipsy, we decided it would be a good idea to do the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure, where you get clues on a cellphone and find criminals in each country! We ended the afternoon standing in line for Sugar Ray and were met by Annie (one of the other marine mammal interns), Jami and Amy! We managed to get the front row for the first show which was pretty legit. Except for the fact Mark McGrath kept getting off stage and wandering around the back of the rows!!! So for the second show we sat further back, and he barely walked around back there that time! Figures! But either way, seeing Sugar Ray was so awesome!!! Who would have guessed Mark McGrath is 42 years old? haha

Now I just plan on slowly hitting up all the rest of the countries/booths so that I can get all the stamps in my passport! And the weather is getting really nice these days, so its quite lovely to spend the evening at Epcot drinking and listening to music! :)

First night at FWF to see Kool and the Gang!



Being Asian at the China booth!



Beer sampler at the 15 Beers for 15 years booth!



Contacting Kim Possible in Norway on our cell phone! "Vikings are all the rage!"



Delicious waffle from Belgium!



Front row at Sugar Ray!!! Check out how close I was to Mark McGrath! (photo cred to Annie!)


Another night at Epcot with the roomies to see Air Supply!

And one more thing...

Happy October Everyone!!!!



Love,
Minnie, Hayley and Mickey

P.S. Thanks to my mommy for sending me an awesome package with Halloween decorations, cookies, scary(ish) movies, and of course, Claritin. hahaha. Love you mom and dad! :)

Halloween in September!

Last Thursday, my roommates and I all went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom! This is an after hours event that costs extra money, and since we could get a cast member discount during the month of September, we figured we might as well go while its still cheap, even though its not even October! haha. Not-So-Scary was seriously one of the funnest nights ever! (And yes, I am aware that "funnest" is not a real word. haha) We decided to go with a group costume, so 4 of us were flappers and the last girl was a gangster! The costumes were a big hit, and we got tons of compliments from strangers- one lady even took a picture of us! The night consisted of trick or treating around the park, hunting out characters that are only out during Halloween (7 Dwarfs, Mad Hatter, etc), watching the Villains show and getting pictures with the Villains (who are also only out during Halloween), watching the Mickey's Boo-to-You Parade, and the Hallowishes Fireworks! It was soooo much fun, and I wish that it didn't cost so much money, because I would go every night!!! (And I can't believe that people actually pay like $50 dollars on top of their $80 park admission to go to this Halloween Party! Disney is so freaking expensive!) And now that I have an awesome (and expensive) flapper outfit complete with fake cigarettes, I'm definitely going to have to do something fun come real Halloween!!! :)

Flappers and a Gangster!



Villains!







Roomies and the 7 Dwarfs!