Two New Favorite Movies

2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: Odyssey Two are my two new favorite movies. 

You should watch them too! 

Kemp's Ridley

On a typical morning my day begins around 7:30 or 8:00, but today it began at exactly 4:47AM!

Why you ask?! Why wake up at 4:47 and not 4:45 or 5:00?

Well :47 gave me two minutes more than :45 and :50 is of course WAY too late. We needed to be out of the apartment and on our way to pick up C by no later than 5:10. We swung by C's house and made a quick pit stop at the coffee shop and we three were off to the shore by 5:33 (making much better time than any of us could have imagined). And the adventure began! After a couple of failed attempts we were finally on our way to see the sunrise baby sea turtle release at the National Seashore. 

On account of it being a Saturday morning it was very busy! I hear that release that happen on weekday mornings are a lot less congested, but I really enjoyed the experience, none the less. The hatch and release program for the Kemp's Ridley turtles began at our National Seashore in 1986. The park rangers to us that the Kemp's Ridley turtle is one of the most endangered sea turtle species in the world and at one time there were less than 500 K.R. turtles in the world. I will put a few links to the websites with more information about the K.R. turtles and the hatch and release programs at the bottom of this post, but for now I want to share some of the photos we got today! 

Here you can really see how many people were there to watch these tiny turtles embark into the wild.

The baby sea turtles are attracted towards the bright light of the sun and the white caps of the waves. The babies can even mistake a white shirt for the waves which is why the volunteers near the water are wearing white shirts. The park rangers even asked for people wearing white shirts to stand behind people so the turtles wouldn't be tempted to head the wrong direction. The K.R. turtle is apparently the smallest sea turtle topping out at about 100 pounds full grown; the baby turtles were so tiny and delicate that I can't even imagine them growing to be 10 pounds!

C's picture of the baby. 

My picture of the baby.

***Let's take a quick second here to compare the photos from an iphone 5 (C's photo on the left) and the 

Samsung Galaxy SIII (my photo on the right). What do you think?***

My love also took some really great photos, but because we were so far away and the turtles so tiny it was hard to get crisp photos. I know C even had trouble with her telephoto lens. 

Basically all of the little black lumps are amazing tiny turtles!

Here are some links for more information about the Kemp's Ridley Sea turtles and the National Seashore:

Kemp's Ridley info:    http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/kridley.htm

Sea Turtle Releases: http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/releases.htm

Sea Turtle Recovery Project: http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/strp.htm

Happy 4th!

Whew! It is only 4:03 pm and I already feel like I've had three of four days in one. It is such a beautiful day, perfect for the holiday. Pretty hot, but now sweltering. My day started slowly; woke up, checked the mail, got breakfast, read a couple chapters of my book, super quick ballet/4th of July themed photo shoot with my Love, drop off Love at work, stop to chat with Wes, attempt a photo editing session, AND now trying to write this up! Going to hang out with some really great people tonight and watch some fireworks! I hope everyone has an amazing Independence Day!

The Longest Day

The other day I was driving home from ballet class with the sun setting in the rear-view mirror and I began to think about the how amazing our world is. Every day the sun chases the across the sky, and every night the moon follows. The simple beauty of how our earth works; the mechanics behind every organism, behind the rotation and orbit of the earth, and the energy of the sun is so nice. I think we definitely need to appreciate the Earth and the Universe just a little bit more often. Happy Summer Solstice!

Blog Fever!

I have always liked the idea of a journal, but have never really given much thought to having a blog. Now, in the last two days I have created two separate blogs. This one, Blooming Lillie, is for everything. My other blog, Dreaming About Ballet, is for everything ballet in my life. I might be biting off more than I can chew with two new blogs, summer college classes, ballet classes, and a full-time job, but I think it is good to push myself. Trying new things is a great part of life. 

Well, that is all for now!
~Lillian