Getting Back to Normal

We got back from Florida yesterday afternoon. I had a really good time and knowing that I was off work for a few extra days just made everything so much better!

I left on Tuesday afternoon and flew to Orlando to see Dad. Before leaving I knew one of my bags was over the weight limit or at least really close to it, but I thought maybe they would let it slide. Boy was I wrong! I got there and checked in and my bag was 52.5 pounds. They told me I had to take out 2.5 pounds. Thankfully I had brought an extra bag just in case this did happen and it all worked out after I sat on the floor and tried to figure out what weighed the least and what would be easiest to pack in the other bag.

Once I got to Dad's we just hung out and talked Tuesday night since I didn't get there till later in the evening. On wednesday we had breakfast and then headed out for the day. Our first stop was to feed the buffalo, yes BUFFALO. And holy crap are these things HUGE! I'll be honest, I was scared. Barbara (Dad's girlfriend) was just feeding the buffalo like it was nothing at all. Well, I tried and got scared. I did feed the buffalo about 2 carrots out of maybe 20 but hey if you were eye to eye with a wild buffalo and the only thing that separated you was a tiny fence that they could push over just by sneezing, you'd be scared too. Can you see the tongue on that thing?!?! It was really gross, I'm sure I would have vomited had it touched me!


After that we went to one of the Town Centers in The Villages. It was really cute. It had a Key West/Cape Cod kind of theme going on. I didn't buy anything but they did have some nice little boutiques and nice furniture that I would have liked to have. I figured getting them home would be a problem.



Dad and I just drove around The Villages in his golf cart for the remainder of the day. We were just trying to kill time before we could head to Happy Hour with all the old folks. Once Happy Hour began the old people were filing in like you wouldn't believe. They were coming in golf carts and cars, some brought their own chairs and others sat around in the chairs that were already there in the Town Square. The music started and the woman got up and line danced. It was EXTREMELY entertaining! I guess once you hit 50 all you do is line dance, even when we went to lunch there was a dance floor and a band that was playing music, all these woman would just get on the dance floor and line dance. It does seem really hard. All the line dances simulate the electric slide, you just have to do different things with your feet and arms to change it up and each song had a different style. You could tap your foot or hop and that was a different dance. I swear! Old people are so entertaining. Oh, the picture of the old man standing is a guy who is 80+ and has on Shaqueal O'Neal shoes. The best part was that Happy Hour is half price drinks or buy one get one free. So I got a double margarita and Dad got 2 Coors lights in a can and it was only 5.50 for everything. Can you believe that!!! After Happy Hour we headed back to the house since I was heading to the airport to rent a car and drive to Fort Lauderdale. On the way home there are real streets and then golf cart paths that you are supposed to drive on...Well, I guess I had a little too much fire water cause I was driving the golf cart in on the main road. OOPS! I had to jump the curb to get back on the right path. And I was kidding about having drank too much, but it sure does make the story sound more fun rather than me telling everyone I didn't know where I was going.

I left for Fort Lauderdale around 11pm and got there around 2am. I didn't care what time I got there because I knew I could sleep in and Dylan would be gone all day in meetings. One wednesday I got up around 10 and headed to the pool. I layed out there for a bit and then wondered why the heck I was laying at the pool when the beach was 5 feet away from me. I'm usually not a big fan of sand, but I figured I could handle it. I grabbed a bite to eat at the Tiki Bar by the beach at the hotel and then headed for the sand. I rented a lounge chair on the beach and just laid there for 6 hours. I listened to my iPod, read my book, worked on some Soduko puzzles and just relaxed. Dylan and a few of his coworkers came out around 3 and ruined my relaxing afternoon but oh well. They were throwing the frisbee and playing in the ocean. The water sure was pretty but it was still way too cold for me. The weather was great! In the low 80's, light breeze, and not a cloud in the sky.



We ended up going to dinner in Fort Lauderdale at this place called, The Boulevarde. A friend of

ours owns it so we thought we would try it out. They had great food and a couple friends from Miami met up with us so it was a good time. Of course, the night couldn't be complete unless someone did something stupid so Chris (Dylan's roommate) took one for the team and spilled his glass of wine all over himself!

Friday we just went to the beach all day and hung out. The picture of the guy with sun block on his back is one of Dylan's friends/co-workers. Dylan put RBG on his back, it stands for Retirement Benefits Group which is the department they work for and the conference they went to. Boys will be boys! It didn't really turn out since Dylan didn't do it evenly. You could see it but I would have done a better job ;o). If you haven't noticed by now, Dylan managed to ruin every picture by making some ridiculous face.

We headed to Miami around 6 to hang out with more friends and go out in South Beach. Clearly we didn't rent a big enough car. I only rented it to drive from Fort Lauderdale and then decided to keep it since it would make the drive from Fort Lauderdale to Miami and then back to Fort Lauderdale to catch our flight much easier. Needless to say we could barely fit all of our luggage in the car. We didn't have the top down by choice either. I had a huge duffel bag on my lap that you really can't see and Dylan's knees were crammed against the dash board. We just couldn't stop laughing at how incredibly ridiculous we looked and EVERYONE on 95 looked and laughed as we drove to South Beach.

We went out friday night to a few clubs. We started at Sky Bar, then to Sobe Live, which is P.Diddy's club, then headed the The Mansion which is huge and pretty cool. By that time I was tired of babysitting all the drunk little boys I had to deal with and it was time to head home around 5am. Two of the guys stayed out till 7am but the other 4 of us caught a cab home. From the picture I'm sure you can tell that it was definitely time to go!

We were going to head to the beach on saturday but when we got up it was cold and the wind was blowing about 40 mph gusts so we just walked around. Dylan and I ended up going our own way and did some major shopping on Lincoln Road. Once we spent all our money and realized we were broke, we headed back to the apartment and watched the rest of the football games. We didn't even discuss going out on saturday night since we all clearly had had enough the night before. We had to get up at 5am to get ready and head to Fort Lauderdale to catch out 8:30am flight. I was hurtin in the morning but so glad to get home early so we had the day to get organized and rest. They weren't kidding when they said you need a vacation from your vacation!

Oh, I have a MySpace account now too. Haven't put much of anything on it since I'm not sure how it all works but I will add as I go. ;o) http://www.myspace.com/bubbaback