A Dream Come True

Yesterday one of my dreams came true. Ready to hear the story?...well then, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride (also please keep your hands and feet in the vehicle at all time, and don't forget to pick up a gift at the gift shop at the end :D)...

So yesterday, I did an outreach event with a club on campus called MARC Education. It stands for Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center Education. It is a club that is here to educate the public on the Rehab Center on campus, and the club and the Center were doing an outreach event at a local mall which was putting on a Stores for Shores program (different places relating to the environment and such were there).

At the mall, we had a few table set up with some very fun things. There was Harp Seal fur, x-ray pictures of turtles and seals, a spinal cord of a seal that came in with part of it fused, baleen from a Minke whale, part of a vertebrae of a Minke whale and another one from a juvenile Humpback, a Common Dolphin skull, a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle shell, and other fun things like that. For the first part of my shift I was explaining to people what the skeletons were and answering any questions that they had about them or the rehab center.

There was also a little kids area with coloring pictures and something called a blubber mitt. We had Crisco wrapped in the a couple baggies to create a "blubber mitt". Then we had kids place one hand the mitt and then place both hands in a bucket of ice cold water. They were suppose to see which hand stays warmer. Obviously, it is suppose to be the hand in the blubber mitt. I would then explain to them that, that is the reason blubber is so important to whales and dolphins. :D It was fun, however, another really fun part was about to happen...

Are you sitting at the edge of your seats? This is where my dreams come true, but before I tell you it I want to share this information: If y'all don't already know, I'm a little (or maybe a lot) obsessed with the Navy Seals. I think that they are totally awesome and I've always wanted to be one! Now with that information in mind, brace yourselves....I GOT TO BE A SEAL for a little while!!!!!! Yep, for an hour and a half, I was a seal!!! Want to know how? Well, MARC had a dolphin and a seal costumes and I took one for the team and wore the seal costume. GOTCHA! Did you think I was a Navy Seal?...anyways, it was fun being a seal, even though the costume was really, really, hot sometimes.

Besides that, I waved at everyone walking by, high-fives little kids (and some older one), gave some of them hugs, handshakes, and even took pictures with some of them. One really funny part of the gig was seeing people's faces when they first spotted me, most would smile, but some gave me weird looks or tried avoiding me. I even made one little kid cry. :( Apparently I was scary....oh, which reminds me of another funny story. One little girl asked if I was a squirrel. Then when I shook my head no, she called me a chipmunk!!!!! lol...So funny!!!...and that is how my dream came true for a day.

"That's All Folks!"