Home!

Yesterday I got in to the O'Hare airport around 9:00pm. Mom came and picked me up. It felt strange being in airports again, it makes me think too much of working at Epic. Today I started packing up some of my stuff in the basement so that it's ready to go once I get the moving truck. I took pictures of a bunch of the rooms so I can remember them when I go home next time and it is to a different house. I also got together with Melanie and we went to Caribou and the mall. It was soooooo good to see her again. Last time I saw her was at her awesome Halloween party. I love you Melanie! Yay for C!

Later in the evening Sean drove Babi and Joshua over (thank you!) so I could see them all. One of the worst parts of living in Florida is missing family and not being able to go to all of the birthday parties and other family gatherings. I gave Joshua some Gymboree instruments (wave drum, castanet, and mini maraca) for his birthday which I missed. He seemed to have fun playing with them. He is so smart! Sean showed me how he knows his different body parts, animal sounds, and the hulk. I took lots of pictures and video. Babi gave me some cards with beach scenes that her friend hand made.

Fishing, zoo, and beach

Another great Thursday. We got up early to go fishing. Devin caught a trout and I almost caught a gar. I got the gar to the surface where I could see the fish in his mouth and see that he was almost 3 feet long and then he snapped my line. Devin said that was a good thing, apparently gar are pretty vicious. On the way back home we saw a huge rainbow from end to end.

In the afternoon, Devin and I went to the Brevard Zoo. We stopped in the petting zoo, now that school is in session there are a lot less screaming kids around, and petted the armadillos, alpacas, goats, and deer. The armadillos were attacking my feet and licking my toes. Devin fed the loris and we both fed Rafiki the giraffe.

After the zoo we got shaved ice (I had Tiger Blood/Mango and Devin had Strawberry Daiquiri/Pina Colada) and went to the beach. There were a lot of moon jellies on the beach which is something I've never seen before and there was another rainbow. It still seems weird for it to rain when it's hot and sunny out.

Bestest Boyfriend

Devin came to visit me at work towards the end of my shift and he brought me Taco Bell and cookie dough ice cream. He's mine and you can't have him.

NKF PRO AM Surf Festival

I went to the National Kidney Foundation PRO AM Surf Festival today at Shepard Park (the beach by the Cocoa Beach Surf Company). The weather was gorgeous and the waves were pretty good. I spent a lot of time watching the surfers and also some time taking pictures. There were a lot of people on the beach for the competition. I got some Ocean Potion sun tan lotion for donating to the NKF. When the waves died down I spent some time checking out the tourist shops in Cocoa Beach. There are some really neat stores where you can get all kinds of shells, star fish, sea urchins, coral, etc but I'm not sure whether they were harvested after the animals had already died or taken out of the ocean so I didn't get any. Then I drove to a beach that was less crowded and spent some time swimming and looking for shells. I also got a Bahama Mama flavored shaved ice from Oasis Shaved Ice (best shaved ice ever). Then it was off to work.

Surfing and turtles

Today was awesome. Devin and I spent the day at the beach and the weather was gorgeous. Devin has been having a major snow cone craving so we stopped at a shaved ice place on the way and they have the best shaved ice ever! We brought our boogie board and surfboard and the waves were perfect, they were big enough to catch, but smooth enough that they rolled under you instead of pummeling you into the sand. One of the best parts was that there were sea turtles swimming in the water. Their shells were about a foot long and they seemed to be just chilling at the surface. I paddled up to one and petted it but then it swam away very, very quickly. Towards the end of our beach time I stood up all the way on my board for the very first time. Yay!

Night Space Shuttle Launch

I got to see a night launch! The Space Shuttle Discovery launched at 11:59 PM on Mission STS-128. The shuttle will use Leonardo, a multi-purpose logistics module to carry experiment racks to the International Space Station. I drove up to Cocoa Beach to see the launch at about 11:30. This time I remembered to bring my cameras and I had my telephoto lens. I wish I had thought to take a video with my smaller camera while I was taking photos with my SLR. All of the beaches on the way to Coco Beach were packed with cars. When the space shuttle launched it lit up the entire sky before I could see the actual shuttle and then there was a huge fireball heading up into the sky and you could feel the rumbling. Someone said that this was the last scheduled night launch before the shuttles are retired. Once it got up pretty high I could see the smoke trailing behind it. My pictures don't really do it justice (the first picture is not mine). I would love to go to the space center to watch a launch in the future.

Brevard Museum of History & Natural Science

Devin and I went to the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science. It was pretty much what we expected, not all that spectacular, but I like supporting local museums anyway. They did have a niffty shell collection and an interesting movie about digging up a grave site of early homo sapians. One of my favorite things was the pieces of sunken treasure and the treasure chest. There was also a butterfly garden and some walking trails which were nice.
After the museum we went to the Dinosaur Store which was actually way cooler than the museum. They had all sorts of impressive fossils like foot long trilobites, a saber tooth tiger skull, and fossil brittle stars. They had enough fossils (which you could purchase for thousands of dollars) for their own museum. There were also really pretty crystal formations like giant amethyst geodes and meteorites.
Then we headed to the beach for a little bit before meeting Devin's parents and Kim and Tim for dinner at Olive Garden. Yet another awesome day.