More dolphin Christmas fun!

Lily and her candy cane even made it on the homepage of the Good Morning America website!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

And by town, I mean the Georgia Aquarium! Scuba Claus stopped by for a visit with the dolphins yesterday!!!! :)

Looks like I'll be here a while!

So today I got bumped from a seasonal to full-time apprentice trainer! Guess that means I'll be in Atlanta past January! I'm pretty excited to be living somewhere for longer than 6 months for the first time since graduation! I still won't really be making much (any lol) money, but at least I'll be a real adult with vacation days and benefits and whatnot! :)

Olympic Swimmers

Today we did a PR with some Olympic swimmers and then took a team picture with them!


I'm on the far left, and pay no attention to the fact I look like a bald man. hahaha The dark haired girl in red is Amanda Beard...she's kind of a big deal in swimming and has like 7 Olympic gold medals!

I PASSED THE SWIM TEST!

Basically, the title says it all. I finally took the Georgia Aquarium swim test today and I passed it!

5 minutes treading water? Check!
240 ft freestyle swim? Check!
120 ft underwater swim? Check!
30 ft surface dive to the bottom of the pool? Check!
Platform dive? Check!
And my sworn enemy- the haul out (aka climbing out of the pool to your feet w/o looking like a whale haha)? Check!

Not sure what this means for my future employment, but I least I have it completed!!!!! Such a relief and a weight off my shoulders!

Christmas Parties!

Last week the Aquarium held an employee appreciation/holiday party! It was held in the aquarium after hours until like 10 pm, and there was lots of food, dancing and a raffle (but I didn't win anything...bummer!) It was really fun to hang out with everyone from work!

A couple girls from the team!

A group picture of most of the team in front of the show pool!

This weekend one of the girls from the team also held a Christmas/Ugly Sweater party at her house! I picked up an ugly sweater from Wal-mart, along with some light up reindeer antlers!

We had the same sweater! :)

Atlanta has a lot of Christmas activities that I plan to partake in over the next month, so expect a lot more Christmas posts! :)

Piedmont Park

One good thing I can say about Atlanta is that there are a lot of parks, and they are very lovely! Yesterday was a beautiful fall day, and we had some time to kill before I had to take Yoav to the airport, so we decided to wander around Piedmont Park! This is a very large park in the Midtown area and it was quite a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

My Future Baby

:)

Also....

Everyone should go see Dolphin Tale! It will make you cry your eyes out and its a bit cheesy, but seriously so good! I'm totally going to buy it on DVD! :)

Mumsie

Last weekend my mom, my aunt Daria and cousin Kristen came to visit me in Atlanta! On Friday we went to the aquarium and they got to meet a dolphin! :)


That night, we went to go see Wicked at the Fox Theatre! I saw it a few years ago, but it is sooo good that I'd go see it a third time in the future! I couldn't really think of anything for us to do on Saturday so the moms voted for the Atlanta History Center....which actually turned out to be more interesting than it sounds. hahaha

After the history center, we went to the mall, the Cheesecake Factory, and to see The Help at the movie theater! Sadly, I had to work on Sunday and they had to leave, so I only got to spend 2 short days with them! :( But nothings better than a few fun filled days with family!!! <3

Look who stopped by to meet the dolphins this week!

Sir Elton John!

And Dennis Quaid!

Apparently tons of celebrities like to meet the dolphins and belugas whenever they visit the Georgia Aquarium! Since I've been here, Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester from Glee), J. Lo, Justin Bieber, and Betty White have visited, but Elton John is the first one I actually got to see (Dennis Quaid came right after I had left work that day, so rude! haha)!

Fun Things to do in the ATL

The World of Coca-Cola!

Floating down the Chattahoochee River!
(aka Shootin' the Hooch haha)



Zoo Atlanta!



8 week old baby Sumatran Tiger! :)


Stone Mountain!


Atlanta Braves Baseball Game!
(with Styx concert following!)




And of course, the Georgia Aquarium!

Come visit me in Atlanta and we will do all sorts of fun activities!!!! :)

Whale sharks are awesome!

Even though I've been focusing on marine mammals lately, that doesn't mean that I don't still love all other marine animals!!!! Here's a cool video I took of one of the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium! (Which is the only aquarium in the country with whale sharks!)

Learning my first show part!

So Dolphin Tales is one of those fancy SeaWorld type shows where the trainers act on stage to establish the story. I found out last week that I get to learn some of the show parts! Yesterday I started learning the Audience Participation/Good Trainer role! This role interacts with the audience during a singing part and then fights off evil sea creatures! Here's the PR photo of the Good Trainers with the Star Spinner!


By next month, that will be me in that yellow coat and hat! After I master the Good Trainer, I also get to learn the role of some of the Evil Sea Creatures! Hopefully once I start in the show, I'll get a picture of myself in my wetsuit/costume!

I've already been in Georgia a month!?

Oh wow, how time flies. So I've been here a month already and I haven't really posted, so I apologize to my loyal readers (aka my mom who has been asking me to update this thing even though I talk to her on the phone at least 3 times a week. Hi Mom! haha). Anyways, I've just been really busy and a bit too lazy to write anything. The past four weeks have mostly been spent doing a lot of scubbing and a lot of fish prep, which is what I expected. I have been learning the ropes, so I do a lot of the gates during the shows, I've been learning all my animal IDs, setting up the shows and basically just doing whatever I can to keep busy. I've gotten to work with one of the dolphins, Lily, a couple of times, which was fun! I got to feed her, give her some rubs and throw toys for her! :)

Here's a picture of her!

And here are a few pictures of some of the other dolphins, and one picture from the show with the "Star Spinner" who is the main character of the show!


And lastly, this is a picture of my supervisor doing the show-stopping "Rocket Ride!" One day (in the far, far future haha) , that will be ME!!!! (If I'm going to live my dream, then might as well dream BIG!!!) :)


Well, that's pretty much what's been going on in my life at work. Outside of work, I have been trying to go to the gym at least a few times a week to swim, and I started going to yoga class again, which I really like. I've hung out with some girls from work a few times, and everyone is really cool. Yoav came for one night last week on a work trip layover, and he'll be coming back the end of this week for a few days, so we are going to explore Atlanta a little bit more. I always thought of Atlanta as ghetto-y, (and it does have its ghetto parts, but what big city doesn't?) but Atlanta is actually really nice! There are lots of trees and foliage, and some areas are super cute! Even downtown is pretty nice! Some more exploring of Atlanta is definitely on my to-do list!

Anyways, I'm reading all the True Blood books right now cause they were like 1 cent on Amazon marketplace and Sookie Stackhouse is calling my name right now, so I must go read my book! Haha

Bye and I love you all!

Wish I was in Mammoth

For our family reunion this weekend!!! The only downside to this job is being thousands of miles away from family. :(

(Kind of an old picture of almost all the cousins from our last reunion!)

As for what's been happening at work, sorry I haven't really updated, but it hasn't really been anything too exciting the past two weeks. Just learning the ropes, doing fish prep every day, and learning how to set up for the shows. I'll post again when it gets a bit more exciting. haha Anyways, it's still pretty cool to see how these kinds of dolphin shows are run from behind the scenes!

All settled in Georgia!

Last week, my dad and I made the cross country journey to Atlanta! The drive wasn't too interesting, but we made some fun stops along the way...

Cheyenne, Wyoming!

St. Louis, Missouri!


Nashville, Tennessee!

After a short stop in Alabama to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins, and 11 different states, we finally made it to our destination!!!!


My apartment complex is super cute and I am living with another girl who works on the dolphin show! I spent the weekend shopping and decorating my new room with some of my favorite things from home (and spent 3 hours building a dresser from Target with my dad haha)! The only bad thing is that this is the first time in my life that I don't have cable!!! Time to start watching more movies and TV on DVD!


Today was my first day at the Georgia Aquarium! It was pretty much just orientation and stuff, but I did get to see up above the main tank and see whale sharks and giant manta rays! I also got shown around the dolphin exhibit and met a bunch of the trainers! I will post more about that later this week after I have actually finally started working!!!