Texas - Day 3

Today at the EC/CTP meeting, we had a morning field trip!! It was nice to know that we wouldn't be sitting in meetings all day and it was great that the Texas Education Coordinator fought to have those trips for us. Today's trip was to a part of the reserve where the Whooping Cranes are. To start our trip, we got on our transportation for the week...it's really fancy...are you ready for this...a big yellow school bus! :) We took the bus, across a ferry, to the city of Rockport and got on our boat.

We crossed the Bay, into the intercoastal waterway (where we spotted our second group of bottlenose dolphins for the day), and then followed it all the way down to some islands. On the way through the intercoastal, we saw LOTS of birds. All the birders on the trips were super excited. Ruddy Turnstones, Oyster Catchers, Skimmers, Herons, Cara Caras, Spoonbills, and the Whooping Cranes just to name a few. I tried to keep up with them but they are so fast at spotting birds as we were boating by. The Whooping Cranes (which we discussed whether it's HOOPING cranes or WOOPING cranes pronunciation) were pretty awesome. They are giant birds. They have their highest number of them this year at 271, but because of the drought have lost about 20-30 of them. These cranes rely on blue crabs for the majority of their food source, and b/c of the drought there aren't as many crabs, and therefore the cranes don't have enough to eat. All in all it was great to get out of the meeting room and to be on a boat this morning!

We came back to the meeting space, and after going on a recon mission to find some caffience with Jennifer (DE), had meetings all afternoon. Tonight, we were supposed to have a shrimp boil on the beach with a bonfire, but b/c of the drought - no bonfires allowed. And then the weather got kinda nasty and so we had to cancel the beach altogether. But the shrimp was soooo good and caught locally with both a Turtle Exclusion Device and a Bycatch Reduction Device (just for you to know Amber!). Good day but I'm tired. So I'm off to bed. More tomorrow when we go to a ranch!!!

To be Continued...

Texas - Days 1 and 2

One of the perks of working for the NERRS system is that each year, I get to travel to two different locations along the coast of the United States where other reserves are located, for meetings. So far I've been to Delaware, Ohio (yes they have a coast on the Great Lakes), Alaska, San Francisco, and now Texas. Texas is actually the newest reserve to be dedicated to the NERRS system and we were all excited to get down here to see it.

After a LONGGGGGG day of traveling on Monday which included four airports, a car ride, a van ride, a tram ride, and lots of layover time in those airports, I finally arrived to my final destination, Port Aransas Monday night around 8pm. We had a great dinner (or maybe it was so great b/c I was starving) at a local seafood place and then checked into the hotel. And after saying hi to some friends and catching up a tad with my roomie, Anne Marie from the Tijuana reserve (yes it's in the US), I hit the hay and passed out!

Tuesday was a full day of meetings. We met at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute - UTMSI. They had some cool exhibits like the sea bean one below! We had an environmental economist talk to us, then we met about lots of national education programs and priorities. I had to present on the teacher training session for which I am the chair of that workgroup and I had to do a project for Willy, so it was kind of a stressful day. But the end of the day we got to do some outside water quality activities and tour the education wet lab.

You can see some of my friends from the NERRS - Brooke (GA) and Jennifer (DE) on the floating dock. And on the right there's Anne Marie (CA) and Bart (MD) deep in discussion with Jill (NC) behind with the notebook.

And then that night we had a reception there where we got to tour the facilities even more and also see the rehab facility which was awesome. There were green, loggerhead, diamondback terrapins, tortoises, and even kemps ridley sea turtles! Again, after all that, I came back to the hotel and passed out.

To be continued....

Puzzlepiece Weekend Part 2

So Saturday night, Andrea and I had sooooooo much fun putting up some new shelves for my bathroom redesign project. Check it out! There was even a laser show (from the laser line level that my bestest gave to me to assist in these types of projects)! :) What do you think about the bathroom? Cute, huh?

While the Puzzlepiece is sleeping...

Andrea's visiting the Burg this weekend and we're having a great time! So much fun that she's passed out on the couch right now b/c of all the places we've already been to today. Last night, she got here but it was pretty terrible weather so we just hung out at the house, caught up, and then discussed some potential travel options for later this year (Ireland, maybe?!?).

Today, we decided to hit up the Farmer's Market. Always a good time (even though Betsy's Baked Goods weren't there). And I may be volunteering with the Farmer's Market some to help them green up their practices and give them ideas for what they can do better. Didn't buy too much since I'll be out of town the next week, but I did get this super cute crocus that's not supposed to bloom for about 2 weeks so hopefully it won't happen while I'm gone.

And no trip to the Farmer's Market is complete without getting some deliciousness at the Cheese Shop. Andrea was really excited about that! :)

Then, the shopping began - fabric store, Marshall's, Stein Mart, Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, and Hallmark. Wow. Alot! Found this funny shirt at one of the places...I think Marshalls.

And that brings us to now. Andrea's snoring just woke her up so we're going to figure out what we're doing next! Maybe there will be more pictures to come this weekend....

CBNERRVA Blog

As I told my boss the other day "open up your mind to the 21st century". hahahahah

Aquariums, nature centers, museums, and non-profits are all getting into the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. I thought it might be time for CBNERRs to join in the fun! We don't have a newsletter for our reserve, so I thought this would be a much easier way for us to get information to people that are interested in our events and research projects. People can automatically subscribe and get an email everytime I post a new entry (as you all know since you're in the blogging world) therefore streamlining the process.

So this is the pilot that I'm pitching to my boss. Let me know what you think and if there are things that you would like to see on a blog such as this! I'm open to suggestions and I'll let you know if I get the green light!

http://cbnerrva.blogspot.com

Podcasting

Podcasting is kind of a new thing for me. I mean I've heard of it mentioned b/c my friend Michael listens to them all the time and he's referred me to some, but I haven't actually gotten into them until lately. And now I really like them. For those of you that don't know, a podcast is an audio broadcast that you can subscribe to over the internet - and a lot of people download them to their ipods to listen to them wherever and whenever. It's fun to subscribe and get new ones on my ipod and then listen to them on the way to work. I can catch up on all kinds of stuff during my commute!

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Virginia Society of Technology in Education (VSTE) conference in VA Beach to learn a little bit more about podcasting, education blogs, making videos, etc. It was pretty interesting and I definitely learned a lot of cool tech things.

And it definitely was good timing b/c I got asked to do a podcast episode for the National Ocean Service's podcast, Diving Deeper. Diving Deeper is a twice a month podcast where they interview NOS scientists (and educators, apparently) on what they do. The EC from Maryland and myself went up to Silver Spring to record it on Tuesday. Had to sit in a tiny room to make sure no extra sound was in the recording, and then we did our little script, listened to it, re-recorded a few spots and that was it! The host is in the process of editing it and then it'll be put online in April. I'll keep you guys posted on when it's available. But you can check out the other podcasts here - http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/podcast.html

Mom in the Burg

My mom came to visit me this weekend and it was a great time! Friday night we spent some time at Jes and Rob's house so that my mom could finally meet Ms. Ellie! She's so darn cute and I'm going to miss her terribly when she's in WV (probably not as much as I'll miss her mom but still I'll miss her). It's been so fun seeing her grow up over the past 8 months. Here's one of my favorite new pics of her that Jes took! :) I can't wait to visit and see how much she's grow over the next two months.

So Saturday, my mom and I tried out a new breakfast place that I'd been wanting to try and it was quite tasty. More of a local place than the 100's of breakfast places in the touristy part of town. Then we decided it would be fun to take a drive to Smithfield, so we took the free ferry over to Surry and then drove down to Smithfield. We went to some shops and just walked around Main Street. It was so nice outside and such a cute town. Very fun. We headed back on the ferry to the Burg and got some great seafood at Berrett's! I love that place. And since I've given up meat for Lent (but not seafood) it was the best meal that I've had since Lent started. Then we went to the movies and saw Slumdog Millionaire which was awesome!! I highly recommend it.

Sunday, we ate some breakfast and headed over to Target and Trader Joe's to run some errands. My mom had never been to TJ's so had to show her around. Then we went to the Williamsburg Winery for a tour/tasting and some tasty lunch at the Cheese Shop. All in all a really fun weekend and I even got some fun surprises along the way which was fun! :) I wish my mom could have stayed longer or lived closer but it was a fun weekend still, and I'm looking forward to Easter weekend when I'll have some more time with the fam at home.

This afternoon has been highly productive and I've gotten a lot of cleaning done. I feel like it's time for a fresh start, so I guess cleaning the apartment from top to bottom is part of that. Getting organized and keeping busy...that's the plan!