Crabs, Paragliding, Sun Rays, Bourne

  September 9, 2013-This morning started out with some crabs.  No, I don't mean the kind that are the result of a bad night's sleep.

   This picture makes me picture the crab as a baseball catcher intentionally walking a left handed batter.  Might have been watching a little too much baseball.  (Cardinals have now secured a berth in postseason.)

   This afternoon we heard a sound of an engineering and looked up to find this little guy buzing around.

   He is paragliding.  He has a large gas-powered pan strapped to his back and is able to "take off" from the ground.  He exhibited the good amount of control he had over the chute by his very close passes near high rises, and dips that brought him within twenty feet of the water.

   I have more footage of this guy that I can't wait to share, so watch for a video in the following posts.

   So far, everyone who commented on a previous post would go parasailing, but how about paragliding?  You may want to wait for the video to answer that question.

All three could be good photos in and of themselves

Tropical flare

  The ocean is so still it almost looks like a large lake

Instead of another sunset, why not mix it up with a shot of the moon?

Benjamin and Noah have gone swimming at night with the GoPro and waterproof flashlights. These videos of the ocean at night from underwater remind me of this song: (Plays with Spotify)

Bourne opening and closing scenes in Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy

Breakfast, Dunes, & Geeks

September 5, 2013-Today we continued to get settled in…some of us more than others:

 

Our first “real” breakfast

     Kate and I setup our computers today in the living room – facing the window.  As the resident geek I got all of our electronics into place.  We brought down our dual band wireless router, so it was pretty simple to setup our wireless network and I also hooked up our ClearPlay.  We also got a new wireless printer which will be great to use when we get back home and also allows us to print from our smartphones.

   Now, please indulge me in a gushing paragraph of geek-dom:

   We just got a Roku 2 XD and I’ve been so happy with it over the past couple of weeks that I would highly recommend it.  It streams popular movie services like Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, Redbox Instant and Blockbuster Instant and also features a lot of news channels (Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, etc.) and sports channels.  The best part of the Roku is it’s functionality and simplicity.  The remote that is included is one of the most straightforward AND practical remotes that I’ve ever seen and the setup guide is very simple, approachable, and NOT in broken English!  There’s plenty to love on the functionality side as well.  Roku offers a free app that allows your smartphone to become a remote for the player (allowing you to utilize your touch keyboard and open a channel on the Roku via voice command), and also allows photos and music from your phone to be played on your tv/sound system.

[At this point I stopped writing the post and added the above paragraph to a product review]

Parasailing…would YOU do it?  Leave a comment below.

Sand dunes

Yes, two pictures of Lydia in one post

During this morning and afternoon I continued editing the video from the CHEF 2013 Graduation back in June.  I’ll post the graduate’s charge by Mr. Bob Wells sometime soon.
   We wrapped up the evening by playing some catch with our balls and gloves on the beach.  It takes much more endurance to run around on the sand and trying to get your footing is a little tricky when trying to make a throw.
  Lastly, a video of today’s sunset is below:

First Day & First Sunset

September 4, 2013-We slept in this morning after arriving after midnight last night.

These are the two palm trees providing some shade on our deck.

The ocean beyond the dunes.

We worked hard today to unpack our stuff and get settled in for our stay.

We brought a lot of the organic/specialty foods that aren’t available down here or that would cost much more.  We loaded our freezer with all our meats too.

Kate got these “Banker’s Boxes” and they were an absolute lifesaver when we were packing!

Our first day in Florida ended with a beautiful ocean sunset


Noah tried out a friend's RC car on the beach: 

We’re back home…

…from the “Mystery” vacation in Michigan!

 

Well, most of us made it home, but maybe not all of us. (See Video) 

Looking forward to posting day-by-day videos and photos showing our adventurous week.

Nov 5-Fun in the Sun

November 5

We had a lot of fun today though it started with a bit of a surprise.  We felt two small earthquakes and reported it in.

It was another pretty chilly day with the high in the 60s + the wind chill, but it didn’t really stop us from swimming. However, after we came out of the water we were nearly frozen as we tried to walk through the wind back to the house.