If you want a more complete, shall I say, description of my past weekend, Joy wrote a short story on it. you can view that at alittlepieceofjoy.blogspot.com

This weekend Joylynn and her family were here for a visit. It was SO GREAT to see her! We took the train downtown on Saturday and went to the field museum. We were there for a couple hours and barely saw anything. Then the boys went to the taste of Chicago and the girls went shopping! Sunday they went to the zoo and saw me in action. They got to see me feeding Sterling, the seal I'm working with. I'm learning more behaviors as I go. I see training all the time, but when you actually do it, it is hard to think of everything you need to do. They also went to a dolphin show and saw me in action. Thanks for coming, Joy!

The angel's are currently having a party in heaven. Today I went to Bible study with my mentor, Alicia, and the head zookeeper in our department, Jen. After the study finished, Alicia was talking to the leader outside. Then they came in and he said that Alicia decided to accept Christ tonight! I started to cry. So she said "the prayer" and is now a Christian. I was so excited that I was able to be there when that happened. So, everyone please pray for her because she will probably go through some tough times in the near future. Yipee. It's 10:30, way past my bed time.

It's 5:30 in the morning. What is happening to me...getting up WAY too early, sorting through 100's of lbs. of fish, shoving vitamins down fishs' gills. When my fingers are all full of blood and I have fish scales down my arm, I always say, I wish my mom could see me like this. She wouldn't believe it. Anyway, sorry for the grossness. I got to feed my first seal yesterday, Sterling. I will be working with her the rest of the time. I only fed her and had her target on her little square. Today hopefully I will do some behaviors: wave, roll over, in the water, etc. I loved it! This whole experience is confirming this is what I want to do 100%. Gotta go to work now. It's the 6:15 shift, so I get to do what I mentioned above during FISH PREP!

I got to pet a dolphin's tongue yesterday! As strange as that sounds, I always wanted to do that. Yesterday Mark, on of the trainers, said, "do you want to tickle his tongue." I was all on that! I'm just glad the dolphin didn't chose to chomp down at the point. (it's known to happen)

I got to hang out with some old CMU alumni yesterday. Pat lives about 10 minutes from the zoo. And Becky Swabb flew in the previous day from China. I got a call from them and headed to Pat's house after work. We went out to eat and a create your own stir-fry place. Oh so good! And Pat got his meal for free since they lost his first bowl. We had our chopsticks crossed for that one! Then I found out that Becky will be at Weaton College in 2 weeks, and that is only 5 minutes away. I will have someone to hang out with!

I slept for 11 hours last night and it was wonderful. It's about time to get ready for the day. Or I can just stay in my p.j.'s and be lazy...

One more thing. Last week I got to get in a wet suit for the first time. they wanted me and the other intern to help clean the pool. We snorkled and swam around the top while scrubbing algae. We had a lot of fun. And of course we had to goof off a bit too. Then the next day we helped clean the main pool, so I got to wave to the kids in underwater viewing. the other intern and I are such nerds...before we got in the water we were pretending we were doing a show, so we waved to the imaginary audience, then dove in the pool. Just a side note: we aren't allowed to be cleaning a pool when dolphins are in it...they were in other pools when we were cleaning. Some people say "duh" to that comment, but lots of people ask me if I get to swim with them. NO. That's one way to quickly get the boot.

God answers prayers. Last week I talked to someone from Willow Creek Church because I wanted to get plugged into a bible study for the summer since I can't make it to church since I work on Sundays. I was pretty peeved because he said he didn't know if he could place me anywhere because I'll only be here for the summer. My thought was "who cares? Don't you want to help someone out?" Needless to say I wasn't happy. so that night I was praying about this. The next day at work, Alicia (my mentor) and I were sorting through 100 pounds of capelin and she said something about her Bible study. I mentioned I was trying to find one, and she invited me to hers. Yeah God! The lead keeper in our department also goes. I was so excited. Woot Woot!

This past weekend I was in Minnesota visiting Ryan and his family. Friday we went up to thier seasonal trailer. We went golfing, ate lunch, played games. Then we went back to the cities and ryan took me to my first drive-in movie. (drive-thru as I like to call them). We saw Harry Potter 3 and Mean Girls. Saturday we went to a wedding and then a friend of ours, Chad, was celebrating his 25th birthday until 2:30 am. Sunday I had to say goodbye to Ryan which SUCKED. I won't see him for 8 weeks so needless to say I cried. I had to straighten my self up because I didn't want to be bawling as I got gas.

Bad news...the calf died this morning. I just got a call from the lead keeper and she said that at 6 this morning she was staying at the surface and tail slapping. Then at 6:15 she died. It really sucks but this is common for dolphins (in wild and captivity) who haven't had many calfs. Kaylee's first one was successful although the grandma raised it and not her, and this calf was her second. This was also a good experience for Kaylee...she was being an excellent mother. They don't know what happened but they brought her to the neecropsy (sp?) lab to see if the doctors can figure it out. I'm just glad it didn't happen when there were zoo visitors present.

I had a baby girl! Well, not me, but a dolphin, Kaylee, at the zoo. She gave birth sometime between midnight and 2:30 am. So of course nobody was there to see it. Boo hoo! But I did get to see her A LOT today. We have to do observations 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. I was doing them for a couple hours today. Basically you have to keep track of the calf's nursing...how long, which side, etc...and also you have to watch something called slip streaming, which is when the calf swims next to the mother so the calf doesn't have to do much work. She's learning that slowly but surely. I was just so excited that I get to be a part of it!

For those of you who are reading this at school...I miss you guys. I have no friends here to hang out with. Yes yes...this is your cue to shed a tear for me. Actually I am enjoying going downstairs in my cave and just reading, watching tv, etc. But, I do miss you guys. And of course those not as school, I miss you to. So, plan a trip to Chicago and come and VISIT ME!!! :)