Puzzlepiece Time

Last minute decision to head up to Charlottesville and hang out with Andrea this past weekend (look how excited she is!). We were going to go to the Montpelier wine festival, but those plans didn't work out so we found some fun on our own. First stop was the Blue Ridge Eco Shop which I've been on the email list for a while but haven't been able to make it into the store before. Very cool - got myself some aluminum lunch containers...and....a little suprise for little Ellie! :)

Then we drove out to Blenheim Vineyards which is the winery owned by Dave Mathews! :) He wasn't there - but there was a picture of him in the photo album. Tasted some really tasty wine and the view was spectacular.

Saturday night we went out to eat at a restaurant that we'd tried to go to before, Bang, and it was great. The food was really tasty and the martinis were good too! :)

All in all, a fun weekend of hanging out and I get to see her again on Friday!!!! :)

Podcast is online!

A little while back, I went to Silver Spring to record a podcast for NOAA's Diving Deeper series. If you're interested in learning about estuaries, to listen to it, go here -

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/podcast/supp_apr09.html#estuaries

The Last 99

I've been keeping up with what I read for the past few years and I thought I'd share my past reads with you guys...top suggestions in bold

1. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
2. For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn
3. Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Mean by Jill Conner Browne
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightmare by Mark Haddon
5. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryon
6. 50 Boyfriends Worse than Yours by Justin Racz
7. Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade by Guy Browning
8. The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love by Jill Connor Browne
9. Three Weeks with my Brother by Nicholas Sparks
10. Why Men Marry by Russell Wild
11. Quarterlife Crisis by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner
12. The Organic Suburbanite by Warren Schultz
13. Davinci Code (for the second time) by Dan Brown
14. Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert
15. Beautiful Swimmer by William W. Warner
16. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
17. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
18. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
19. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
20. Bill Bryson's African Diary by Bill Bryson
21. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
22. God Save the Potato Queens by Jill Connor Browne
23. The Color of Light by Karen White
24. Danger in the Shadowns by Dee Henderson
25. The Origin by Irving Stone
26. The Secret Sex Lives of Animals by David Lambert
27. Lessons Learned by Deborah Ajango
28. Why do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg
29. The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth by E.O. Wison
30. Gender and Competition by Kathleen J. Deboer
31. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
32. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
33. Lummox by Mike Magnuson
34. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
35. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
36. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
37. Why You are Still Single by Evan Marc Katz and Linda Holmes
38. The Christ of Christmas: Readings for Advent by Calvin Miller
39. The Excellent 11 by Ron Clark
40. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
41. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
42. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
43. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
44. Dry by Augusten Burroughs
45. Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs
46. Dress Your Family in Corduoy and Denim by David Sedaris
47. The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfold
48. Washed Up: Curious Journeys of Flotsam and Jetsam by Skye Moody
49. The Sweet Potato Queens 1st Big Ass Novel by Jill Conner Browne
50. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
51. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling
52. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
53. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
54. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
55. Sea Soup: Phytoplankton by Mary M. Cerullo
56. Sea Soup: Zooplankton by Mary M. Cerullo
57. Saltwater Cowboys by Bill Morris
58. No Horizon Is So Far by Liv Arneson and Ann Bancroft
59. The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost
60. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
61. Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaason
62. My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult
63. Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult
64. The Kite Runner
65. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
66. Love is a Mixed Tape by Rob Sheffield
67. The Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis
68. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
69. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
70. Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach
71. The Essential 55 by Ron Clark
72. The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
73. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
74. Freedom Writer's Diary by The Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell
75. Climate Change at Home by Dave Reay
76. The Secret Lives of Lobsters by Trevor Corson
77. Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist by Eugene Kaplan
78. The Nanny Diaries
79. Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank
80. The Land of Mango Sunsets by Dorothea Benton Frank
81. Citizen Girl by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
82. What a Girl Wants by Kristin Billerbeck
83. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
84. Sea Legs: Tales of a Woman Oceanographer by Kathleen Crane
85. The Environment Equation
86. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner
87. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
88. Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell
89. Trading Up by Candace Bushnell
90. Twilight
91. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling
92. New Moon
93. The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
94. The Year of Fog
95. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin
96. Flush by Carl Hiaason
97. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
98. Nature Girl by Carl Hiaason
99. Love, Rosie by Cecilia Ahern

Easter Break

So VIMS doesn't get any days off for Easter, but I decided that it was my last chance to take some days off and go home to visit. I hadn't been home since Christmas so it was a good visit.

Thursday I drove home and visited with my parents for a little bit. Saw the grandparents and did some cleaning out of the closets in my bedroom at home. Friday, my mom and I did some shopping and lunch in Knightdale and then went to my grandparents for dinner. Saturday, I visited some friends, pictures below of my visit with Angel and her two little ones! They are so cute. And then we went to dinner with the McNeely's at San Jose (YUM).

Sunday was church and Bojangles with the Thomas's where I could finally have some meat again since Lent was over. And it was delicious. Then lunch with my grandparents and parents for Easter and then the drive home. The Easter Bunny even found me in Wilson! :) All in all a good relaxing time at home before the craziness of field trip season begins....

I'm now recuperating from the 45 3rd graders that we had here today and preparing myself to do it all over again tomorrow!

Texas - Day 4 and 5

The fourth day of the conference (whew last full day!) was a trip to the Fennessy Ranch, one of the lands that the reserve manages and uses for education purposes. We had a hayride around the ranch which was pretty fun. Can't remember the last time I was on a hayride. Our first stop was one of the oil drilling operations on the ranch. Fennessy gets some of its income from natural gas and oil drilling.

Another stop along the way was near the end of the trip when we saw an armadillo! My first one in the wild! The picture didn't turn out that great but at least we saw one (there's one in the below picture near the tree in the middle of the photo). And a snake. Some of the "non-birders" of the group needed to see some other wildlife other than just birds. So we were all happy.

After a field trip to Fennessy, we went back to the hotel for our afternoon meetings which included a field trip to the beach to learn some new activities. The discussion got pretty heated in our last session, but the meeting ended well I guess. I think everyone was glad to be done.

We ended the day with a sunset cruise around the Bay to see the lighthouse and eat some dinner. Saw lots of dolphins swimming in front of a big ship and hung out on the boat.

Our last day we had to have morning wrap up meetings, meet with the CTP coordinators, and then we packed up and left for the airport. Leaving the reserve at 11:30am, and traveled ALLLLL day, four airports later, arrived in Newport News at 11:30pm. Long day of traveling but so excited to be home.

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....