Over Too Soon

We are now home from our vacation in Florida, and I can honestly say that it went too fast (as always). For the better part of the week we: took our time, got up when we wanted, were beach bums, hung out with the fam, etc. Most of the time we basically stayed on the beach (besides Tuesday at Sea World for Narasimha and me). This week was super windy it seemed like, so that made it feel a little chillier, but still, I can't complain when my standard for comparison is Iowa winter (and a relatively bad one at that). Dad has a surfboard, and he and my brother tried that out a few times. A few years ago we bought a skim board, which has been a lot of fun (this year we had to buy a new one because we broke the other one). Basically to use a skim board, you wait for the very shallow water that results when the tide comes in on the beach and goes back out to sea, and then you throw the board on that ¼ inch or so deep water, and then chase the board and jump on. It's a lot tougher than it sounds - you have to get your feet on perfectly, throw it down onto the water consistently, then keep your center of gravity just right, and adjust your balance for differences in water movement and depth. Even then sometimes you wipe out, which is pretty funny to watch but it can hurt a bit (or a lot) to fall hard on wet sand (think sand paper or rough concrete). The first year we had the board we all went home with scrapes and bruises - now we are much more tentative and careful, and some of us are maybe even a little better at using it :) On the beach we also like to boogie board, play volleyball, throw the football, kick the soccer ball, play frisbee, go for (sometimes long) walks, and lay out in the sun to tan and sleep or read. You get the point - a whole lot of nothing much :)

The beach from the balcony of our condo, and one b-e-a-utiful day :)

Our beach camp from the balcony on our condo - my mom and sisters are on the lawn chairs on the left side, and my dad and brother are the ones in the shallow water (skim boarding).


My mom, 2 sisters and me, laying out.

My dad, getting his surf on :)

My dad showing off his groovy board

Narasimha and my brother playing soccer on the beach.

Narasimha on the skim board - I don't even think he fell once (he must not have been trying hard enough :)

Me, getting ready...

Me - pretty sure I "biffed it" on that one.

My sister, being the graceful lady she is :) My dad says you get extra points if your knees go down, and even more if there's blood for your effort :) I don't think she got either of those on this one.

Narasimha and me, our last 5 minutes on the beach in '08

Sea World

We decided to go to Sea World on Tuesday, and we had a lot of fun. We "did" Disney a few years ago when we were here, and of course that was a good time, but we felt that Sea World had more for the adult audience. Basically I felt like the drawing force of Sea World was the shows, and then there were 2 roller coasters (and a few others that were kid-friendly) and some animal observation things to do. We ended up going to 5 of the shows - 2 in the whale (Shamu) pool, one in the dolphin pool, one on a stage with human acrobats, and then one in the open air where 3 guys played pots and pans like a drumline. They were all pretty cool - I would watch any of them again happily. We also didn't get to see a few others that sounded cool on the program we had because we ran out of time. I felt like the whole park was also do-able in one day - quite unlike Disney with all the lines and everything. So, I would definitely go back - especially if we didn't have kids, or had very small kids that couldn't really do rides very well. There was lots to do besides the rides. All things considered it was a nice and relaxing vacation day.

The dolphin show - look carefully to see the dolphin in the air. I was surprised to see how high they could jump!

One of the trainers doing "Superman" with the dolphin - look under the water through the glass in the middle of the picture.


I don't know how big I thought dolphins were (next to humans) but this one looked pretty big to me.

Shamu doing his opening lap with jumps during the "Believe" show.

I bet the trainers get pretty close to these animals - that would be amazing to be up close and personal like that.

Wow...

Showing off :)

Surfing on the whale - quite a ride I'm sure.

The trainer goes under the water with the whale, and you can't really see them, and then all of the sudden they shoot out of the water together like it's no big deal.

The same idea as the picture above, but the whale goes faster and the trainer is actually thrown up farther than the whale, and in this picture you can see the black circle above the whale's nose is the trainer beginning his dive back into the water, after being thrown up - very cool.

The first part of the acrobat show - these girls stayed in that shell and did several acrobatic tricks together.

Sunny Florida :)

Narasimha and I came with my family this week to Florida - it has become an annual tradition. This year it's just us and my immediate family. We're staying in a condo in Daytona Beach, and we have only been here for 1 day, but it's NICE! Today was sunny and about 75 - much much improved to what we had in Iowa when we took off on Friday (although even there we're on the up-swing I think). The same people who stayed at our house with our pets when we were India for 3 weeks are there again for this week, which is nice not to have to think about what's going on there. We have plans basically to do a whole lot of nothing. The weather is supposed to be nice all week my dad said. Narasimha and I are considering going to Sea World sometime - we're not sure yet. Probably won't do much for posting 'til we get back to Iowa and back in the swing of things. Might post some pics later in the week when we have something fun to show.