The Start of the Summer, 2013

Hello Everyone!
The summer has been good to me thus far:

-I got 2 A's and 2 B's in my courses.
-I went home and got to see my brother graduate.

In which, Marc sees the light of no more high school - woohoo!

Marc's long speech in which he becomes sentimental and cute. 

Dad's speech to Marc in which they are also sentimental and cute.

-I then got to go to the Beverly Hilton with my Dad, Stepmom, Brother, and Grandparents to see a fancy-pants awards ceremony.

So fancy!

Even Grandma and Grandpa got all dressed up for the occasion!

Here I have no complaints with life.

-We went to King's River - it really is a whole different world. It rejuvenated my spirit, I was talking on the phone to Mikayla, my friend from high school (not girlfriend, someone asked me if she was and no... I haven't had a boyfriend for all of college not because I'm gay, but because I haven't found a guy worthy haha), and she was saying the return to normal life is so painful that the memories of King's River are like a happy dream.

Me, Kennedy (Blake's Daughter), and Mikayla on the Obrien!

Sunset in Lindy's

Fitzgerald gets the real experience! Such a good car!

Grandma's favorites

Everyone at King's River 2013

-I came back to Santa Cruz and started my internship. It's a lot of menial office work and Species ID memorization, but come August I'll get to be out on the boat tagging fish and actually doing science. This internship means a lot to me, it's sortof like a 1st (2nd/3rd?) notch on the totem pole of where I'm trying to go.

The Moss Landing Marine Lab entryway.

The beginning of what is probably the longest hallway
I have ever seen - in MLML. It's pretty cool because there are
around 10 labs along either side of the hallway so there is
lots of collaboration and sharing of ideas. 

The view behind MLML. Not too shabby. 

-I went home to attend my mother's wedding. It was beautiful out on the beach, but still something emotional and difficult.

-And now I'm back in Santa Cruz continuing my internship whilst packing to move/go to Europe for 2 weeks.

Life is very crazy right now, but because of how crazy and time-stressed my life normally feels during the school year - I actually feel bored. It's such a precious thing - to be bored. I feel like starting up 80 new hobbies: going on adventures to SF, cooking fancy things, joining archery, getting a kitten, sewing a box, cleaning everything in the house, going to the movies, and actually going to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk - an amusement park I literally walk by on a daily basis, but have only actually spent an evening at twice. Life feels so open when you don't have finals breathing down your neck!

Feeling like Katniss or Legolas with my friend Anne.

Going to the Boardwalk, a place we can walk to through a park.

New things in my freshwater tank - one I still manage
to keep working without a filter through the use of science -
A Marimo Ball, ghost shrimp, and a freshwater snail. 

A box I decided to decorate because I was getting stir crazy.

I will have to post about Europe in the next post. I thought I had posted this one way back in July, but I guess it was only posted to my drafts, sorry about that.