I was almost eaten by a shark!

So I wasn't actually almost eaten by a shark, the shark didn't really seem to care about my existence one way or the other, but I was in the water with a shark. Devin and I went to Sea Gull Park which is the beach we saw a shark before. The water was really calm and clear and as I was wading out in thigh deep water I was thinking, "wow, the water is so clear that if there was a shark I could totally see it" and then in front of me to my left was a shark. It looked about 4 feet long and was probably 20 - 30 feet away. I ran out of the water squealing like a girl and then grabbed my camera. I trotted along the shore as it swam north and also warned some other swimmers about the shark heading there way. Sadly, I forgot to put my XD card back in my camera the last time I downloaded pictures and I only had the memory on the camera so I only have one picture where you can vaguely see a shadow in the water. I promise it's a shark and it scared the crap out of me.

Florida Wildlife Hospital

I started volunteering at the Florida Wildlife Hospital again and I'm really glad to be back. I missed taking care of animals and seeing them get better and released back into the wild. Today I got to take a box turtle and gopher tortoise for a walk and feed lots of baby birds. There are mostly grackles, mocking birds, house swallows, blue jays, crows, and a wood pecker who tried to bite me whenever I fed it. As always, the people here are really nice. There are lots of wood storks, herons, egrets, and squirrels around the property trying to get free food. I'm hoping to get some good pictures of them one of the times I am there.

My 5th anniversary of my 21st birthday

Luckily most of the day I was distracted from turning 26 since I was at work. My classes were all very well behaved which was a nice birthday present. After work Julie, Cate, and Andy came over to watch the finale of Glee (yep, I'm a Gleek) and to eat cake. Devin made me an Oreo dirt cake. He had two chocolate layers with vanilla frosting and oreo cream between the layers and it had crushed oreos and gummi worms on top and inside. Very yummy. After Devin got home from work we went to Main Street for a couple of drinks. All in all a pretty laid back birthday but I enjoyed my yummy cake and seeing friends.

Waynesville, North Carolina

Thursday: Devin and I took a long weekend to go up to Waynseville, North Carolina to visit a friend of his (old scout master). Jim, his friend, had been in a bad accident involving a tractor and trailer full of rocks so we went up to see how he was doing and also to bring him his boat so he could do some fishing while recovering. We left around 8:30am and spent pretty much the entire day driving. We made a nice stop at a nature preserve to do a letterbox around lunch time where we saw a weird bird which eventually I will try to identify with a bird book, corn snake, skink, lizards, and lots of song birds.

Friday: Devin and I started the day with a yummy breakfast of Fruit Loops (left over from the grandkids visiting). Then we headed off to go gem mining at Mason Mountain Mine. On the way we stopped at a gem museum which features the gems you can find in North Carolina , a bunch of stone/gem spheres, and an authentic shrunken head (random much). The place we went mining let you shovel your own buckets of dirt and bring them over to the flumes. Between the two of us we found 10 carats of sapphires, really low quality sapphires, but sapphire none the less. After we got back we went with Jim and his wife, Sandy, to a park where we saw elk and wild turkeys. This was the first time I've ever seen an elk. There were some volunteers there that told us about the park and elk who let us pose with some giant elk antlers. When we got back Sandy and I were exhausted so we went to bed and Devin and Jim stayed up late talking.

Saturday: We went with Jim and Sandy driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smokey Mountains. There were a lot of really pretty scenic views and beautiful wild flowers along the sides of the road. I took Dramamine before we left but still had to make sure I was looking out of the windows so I didn't get ill on the curvy mountain roads. We stopped to see an awesome waterfall. If I wasn't carrying all of my camera equipment I would have gone wading but I didn't want to chance getting things wet. We also stopped at a lot of overlooks at different elevations. On our way back we also stopped at a trout hatchery.

Sunday: Devin and I both have work on Monday so Sunday we did the long drive back. We spent the early morning talking and then left so we wouldn't get home too late. We drove pretty much straight home and were only slowed up by some rain. The mountains were very scenic but it was nice to be back in Florida.