Haircut, Bioluminescence Kayak Tour, Comb Jellies, Florida, New Job, Christmas Program

Things haven’t slowed down for us.  Here’s what we have been up to since Thanksgiving.  Noah has been trying to grow out his hair.  He didn’t know what he would want the end product to look like so he wouldn’t let me trim it at all.  He finally mentioned that he would like it trimmed so I scheduled an appointment for him.  He found a picture of what he wanted his hair to look like and showed the stylist.  This was the end product--and NOT what Noah wanted.  The stylist cut off way more hair than what Noah wanted, however, I think it looks great:

Noah kept sending me side eye while she was cutting his hair to let me know he did not approve of how much hair she was cutting off.  At that point there was nothing either of us could do, but just let her finish the haircut.  He has decided to try to grow out his hair again, though.

Aaron had a 6 day business trip to Orlando, Florida two weeks ago.  I found some super cheap airfare and decided to join him part way through the week.  Although the Convention he was attending was in Orlando, he got a hotel on the beach and just commuted the 90 minutes each way every day.  He left on a Sunday and I joined him the following Tuesday night.  It was dark by the time my plane got in.  When we got to the hotel here’s the view of the nighttime beach from the hotel parking lot:

The next morning I got up and had breakfast with Aaron before he left for the convention.  After that I headed out to walk around on the beach.  It ended up being quite cold that day which I did not expect.  The high that day only got up to 51 degrees.  However, that made for a pretty empty beach.  For the most part I was the only one crazy enough to be out there when it was so cold.  I didn’t have access to a car so I just walked around on the beach.  This was a quite different vacation than I am used to.  My vacation motto is to see all the things and keep every second planned out so I can make the most of whatever location I am at.  I had to rethink that strategy here since I didn’t have a car.  I actually HAD to relax this time--haha! 

Again there were very few people out walking on the beach.

I spent a lot of day just walking around.  When it started getting cooler in the afternoon I read my book on the balcony of our hotel room until Aaron got back to the hotel later that night.  The convention was for training, simulation and modeling technologies.  It was held at the Orlando Convention Center which is HUGE.  Aaron was there all week long and still didn’t get to see all of the booths that were there.  It was crazy!  He did get to try out a bunch of simulation set ups, though.  Here is just one he got a picture of:

The next morning I was awake early and was able to watch the sunrise from the balcony.  It was beautiful!

I woke Aaron up so he could see it, too.  He wasn’t as thrilled being woken up, though.

I had breakfast with Aaron before he left for the convention.  I then hung out walking around the area just looking around for the first part of the day.  Then I spent the second half reading my book by the pool right next to the beach.  Thankfully it was a lot warmer that day.  I did remember to put on sunscreen everywhere, but the tops of my feet.  DOH!  They are still peeling.  Anyway, when Aaron got back from the convention late that afternoon we headed over to check out The Casements.  It was once the winter home of John D. Rockefeller and has been fully restored.  It unfortunately was closed by the time we got there so we just walked around the gardens and along the river to look around. It was really pretty.

We then stopped by a fish market with a restaurant attached to it for some fresh seafood.  We got some clam chowder.  YUM!! We both tried out the catch of the day and it was really good.  You can’t get good fresh seafood in Utah so this was nice.

I did get to a huge crane up close while I was walking around that day.  It was pretty cool!

After dinner Aaron and I wandered up and down the beach then we hung out in the outdoor hot tub on the right off the beach at the hotel.

We did drive around to check out the Daytona International Speedway because we were so close.  That place was HUGE!  It was lit up with Christmas lights.

The next day I went with Aaron to the convention in Orlando.  I hung out in the area while he finished everything up there.  Afterward we drove over to look at the Orlando temple.  It was pretty.  It was over 80 degrees that day, but they still had the nativity out.  It was crazy to see the nativity surrounded by palm trees and citrus trees!

Just for fun I checked the weather app and here’s what we were at versus what the kids back in Utah were at--haha!

We texted them a screen shot of the weather and Josh texted us a picture of him walking around on campus while it was snowing.  He was not amused.

We did see that they actually had a Portillo’s restaurant, a Chicago chain, there so that’s where we had lunch.  It was just as good as it was in Chicago.  It was pretty humid so I had to pull my hair back the whole time we were there since it was so frizzy.  Even being pulled back it still was a bit frizzy.

Aaron got a cake shake and we split a Chicago dog and ate outside on the patio because how often can you do that in December?!

Afterward we headed down to Cape Canaveral to look around. I made Aaron stop by the Manatee Sanctuary, but there weren’t any manatees to be seen while we were there.  It had a nice walking trail, though.

We then headed over to Cocoa Beach and walked around there for a bit.

Next thing we did was my absolute favorite--I signed us up to do a sunset bioluminescence kayak tour on Merritt Island.  The tour was split in to two parts--the sunset tour where you got to see wild dolphins and manatees around the brackish water of the river.  Then you took a break.  After the break when it was dark you headed back out in the kayak to see and catch the Comb Jellies. The cool thing about them is they lit up (bioluminescence) when they were disturbed such as with the paddle from the kayak or by being caught in a small fishing net.  Anyway, Aaron and I got to ride/paddle together (tandem) on the same kayak.  There were some disagreements on how we should paddle together, but we managed to work together for the most part and stay married--haha!

The first part we saw a bunch of dolphins that were close by which was pretty cool:

We didn’t see much of any manatees, though.  We had a really small kayak group--5 people--and we were all pretty decent kayakers.  That meant we had enough time to kayak out to a bird refuge island to see the migratory birds.  They even had wild flamingos there which never happens.  The island is a refuge and so we just paddled around the island and didn’t stop.  Aaron was probably glad because there were tons of birds there which he really does not like.  Here’s the flamingos and a dolphin that we got to see:

This isn’t a very good picture, but you can see there were birds everywhere on the island.  There were a bunch of white pelicans on the beach, Cormorants and Turkey vultures flying around.

We then paddled back to shore and took a 20 minute break.  We then headed back out to see the comb jellies.  It was pretty dark by then so my camera didn’t get a good picture of what they looked like.  This is  a picture I found on the online of what they looked like when you caught them.  They aren’t true jelly fish so they don’t sting you when you touch them.  They were just clear, slimy blobs.

We got two bucketfuls of them.  Here’s what one bucket looked like:

It was neat because when you gently stirred the bucket around it lit up bright blue.  The light only lasts not even a second, but you can definitely see it.  Again my camera didn’t catch the light well so I found this picture online of what it looked like when it did light up:

We didn’t get to see as many manatees as the guides usually do so after catching and releasing the bioluminescence comb jellies we went on a very dark trip through a narrow waterway to different place to hopefully see some manatees.  There was no moon out so it was extremely dark.  They only way we could figure where we were going was to follow the flashing red light on our guide’s life jacket.  We did get to see the back of a manatee, but not much else, unfortunately.  However, the dark kayak trip was really cool, though.  There was NO ONE else around at all.  I was a bit nervous since I like to listen to true crime podcasts and this was reminding me of some of the stories I have heard.  Don’t worry we made it back in one piece, though!  Here’s what we had to follow through the dark water:

I really enjoyed it!

I was nervous about going on a kayak tour since my last one I went on in Sand Diego did not turn out well.  For me it ended up being a ka-YACK-ing tour since I got so motion sick and lost my lunch multiple times over. YUCK!  Thankfully, this kayak tour was great.  It was on a river so there were not huge waves to get me sick. Have I mentioned that I LOVED it?!

The next morning it was time to fly back home.  We did walk along the beach that morning before we left.  We found a Florida snowman made of sand--haha!

It was a relaxing 4 days for me--not so much for Aaron since he was still working, but what can you do?!  We still had fun together sans kids.  Alas, it was back to reality later that day.  When we got out of the Salt Lake Airport it was snowing quite a bit.  Too bad we were both still wearing sandals, DOH--haha!

Sarah and Daniel had a youth council activity they got to help with last week.  Our city puts on a Blitzen Bash party for all the residents.  You can come and see live reindeer, get hot chocolate and do a bunch of different activities.  Sarah and Daniel helped man some different booths.  Interestingly enough, Matthew’s group home came to visit and ended up running into Sarah and Daniel.  Matthew was so excited.  That was an unexpected surprise.  Matthew had a great time there.  Here’s a few pictures his house manager sent us of that event:

Matthew LOVES cooking and trying new recipes.  He sends us pictures of the different things he makes.  They look pretty good, too!

Josh got a new job as a phlebotomist.  He is still in the training part of his job so he hasn’t had the chance to stick anybody, yet.  The company does provide scrubs for their employees, however, they had to special order Josh’s scrubs since he is so tall--haha!  Here he is in his new scrubs:

Josh has finals this week so hopefully things will go okay.  Sarah, Daniel and Noah’s semester ends before Christmas break as well so hopefully they can do well, too.

We had our Ward Christmas party this past Friday.  After dinner there was a program put on by the Youth and the primary children.  Daniel, who played the part of a Wise Man even though the ’wise part' didn’t apply (haha), introduced the program:

They read the nativity and in between each character introduction we sang a coordinating song.  Sarah got to lead the music for everyone:

Noah got to play the part of Joseph.  He also got to play the piano prelude Christmas music before the dinner started.  He was supposed to play the postlude as well, but ran off to hang out with friends instead.  What can you do?!

The whole program was great.  I am glad we were able to go. 

Josh couldn’t make it that night because he had to work and then had a date.  Matthew had other activities as well so it was just five of of our family that night.

We did get some exciting news--Matthew has finally started the actual application process for a job!!  He has been so excited!  He will be working at a local high school in the cafeteria.  Seriously he is beyond excited and has called me so much this week to talk about it.  I am happy for him.  So, hopefully, by January he will be a working man.

Yesterday was my niece, Annika’s, mission homecoming.  She served in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana mission.  Her talk was amazing and afterward we had a get together at my sister Johanna’s house.  She had a soup bar and one of the soups was Gumbo.  Aaron knew he had to try some of that.  It was a good day.