In other news...

There will be no mention of those adorable grey faced marine mammals in this post!  This one is about my life outside of work!  A new development in my life is that I will be moving into a house with my current roommate Erica and another girl from work Jen sometime in the next couple of weeks!  Erica has a friend who owns a house and he is going to rent it out to us!!! Its a pretty old house, and the previous tenant was literally a hoarder and she left all her stuff there, so we have been busy cleaning it and getting things in order, but overall it is a really awesome house, surrounded by trees, and in a neighborhood of mansions!

 

(Erica and I are actually holding a sign we found in our yard with our actual street name on it, but I colored it in just in case any creepers see it...don't want a stalker showing up at our new house haha but seriously)

(Our sweet yellow living room!)

(My future room, with its big old fireplace!)

One cool thing about this house is that it backs up onto our landlord's horse farm, where Erica works training and riding his horses!  So a few weeks ago she took me and Jen on a trail ride with her!!!

A few days ago, the three of us went to the gun club after work and shot shotguns!!! I know, you're all thinking, Hayley with a shotgun!? That can't be safe! Well, I was a bit scared since I had never shot a gun before, but it was actually kind of fun!  We even all hit our targets right in the heart at least once, so future home invaders better beware!!!

Yesterday, they really wanted to go to the Bass Pro Shop, and I had never been, so I tagged along for the ride.  Clearly both Jen and Erica are a bit more country than this Southern California city/beach girl, so there weren't really too many things that caught my eye at the store (besides the sand dollar earrings and starfish ring at the jewelry counter haha), but I did have fun fooling around and trying on various things...

 

 Bet you can't even see me in that picture, huh?  I'm totally camouflaged.  hahahaha

 Anyways, I'm definitely looking forward to having more adventures in our new house!  On the related topic of adventures, Yoav is coming to visit me next weekend and we are taking a staycation to a lodge about an hour outside of Atlanta near a lovely place called Calloway Gardens!  I'm looking forward to a nice and relaxing weekend!  Also, I have my first wedding dress appointment on Monday!!! I am bringing a friend from work Kristen, who also has the day off, for moral support and advice cause she has great fashion sense!!! I have a pretty good idea of the type of dress that I want, I just hope that it actually looks good on me!!!

Wow, 2 posts in one day! That might be some sort of record for me!!! Well, that's it for now! Off to bed!!!  Farewell blog readers!!!!

Swimmin' with Dolphs!

So when people find out that I work with dolphins at the aquarium, inevitably, their first question is always, "Do you get to swim with them!?" And for the first almost year I worked here, I would always answer yes, even though I barely ever got to get in the water with them.  But lately, work has been awesome and I have been learning a lot and getting to do so much more water work!!!  I mentioned in an earlier post that when I got promoted, one of my new goals was to work on water work with one of our dolphins named Lily!  My supervisor told me to work on her water work like 3 times a week (to which I obviously replied, heck ya! don't have to tell me to get in the water twice! haha) so I have been getting in the water with her a lot more!  I started out just doing some mimics, which are basically when the dolphins do the same thing you do, but I have also gotten to do her dorsal tow, inverted tow (where they are upside down and you hold onto their pecs as they swim) and her pec push (which is when you put your feet on their pecs and they push you backwards)!  It has been so exciting for me to actually get in the water with her, work on my relationship with her and as some people would say "ride a dolphin!" hahaha :)

This is me practicing a behavior called a "Layback" with Lily!

In addition to Lily's waterwork, I've also just started learning my first show waterwork part!!! It's going to be quite a while before I actually get to do it in show, since I don't even have it as an official goal yet and since there are 2 girls ahead of me on learning this part, but it's still super exciting.  Most of the girls at work start out by learning this segment called the Ballad, which is mostly low-energy water work like pec pushes and mimics that only girls do, and this past week I got to get in the show pool and start working with one of our dolphins named Pukanala on her ballad! Nothing too fancy, but still very exciting for me!!! I shall keep you posted on updates! :)

In other work related news, I had my first time holding a dolphin for a fecal sample collection!  I know it sounds gross (eww dolphin poop!) but it was actually pretty cool for me!  Next I will get to hold a dolphin for a blood sample collection!  For those of you who are unfamiliar with dolphin husbandry, all our dolphins (and most marine mammals and other animals at facilities) are trained on voluntary husbandry behaviors.  What that means is that they are trained to allow us to collect most medical samples (blood, urine, fecal, stomach, blowhole, etc) we need.  Another new goal/area I have been assigned to be in charge of is Environmental Enrichment Devices (EEDs), otherwise known as toys!!! It is now my responsibility to make sure that all of our toys are accounted for, remain safe for the animals' use, and are in good condition.  It might not sound that important, but it is actually a big deal because anything that enters the dolphins' environment has to be safe for them to play with.  What might a dolphin like to play with, you might ask?  Well some of the toys in our collection include basketballs, footballs, hula hoops, buoys, rings and even a traffic cone (lol)!  Also, most of our dolphins seem to enjoy bubbles!!! :)  Here's a super cute video one of the other trainers took for the Aquarium website!



Well I know that was a lot of words and not a lot of pictures, so thanks for reading all my work updates!!!! :)

Urban dictionary

So yesterday at lunch two of the other girls at work were looking up everyone's names on Urban Dictionary, and when the looked up Hayley, they were like, "this is totally you!" haha  There are a couple different
"definitions" of Hayley, most of which somewhat apply to me, but I thought this one was funny and pretty accurate. hahaha :)

Hayley
Hayley is a beautiful girl that everyone can't help but love. She's blonde, has blue eyes, and is super loyal!  She can keep a secret and never backs down.  (That one might not be true haha)  She's funny, smart, and a freakin ninja.  (Obviously) She loves music and animals.  If you ever have a chance to be her friend, do it.  You'll never have such an amazing person in your life.  She'd take a bullet, knife, punch, you name it, for you in a second!  Don't ever let her go, as you will forever regret it.

Another "definition" I found to be quite accurate was:

hayley
1: pretty/beautiful
2: nice
3: sexy ass
4: not fat
5: wayy sexy
6: fun and crazy

hahahahah just kidding :)

If you want an ego boost, I recommend looking up your name on Urban Dictionary!!! It can be quite amusing!!!