Pilgrims Journey: Emily's Spring Break and 21st birthday in Florida!

Hi, this is Emily. :) I know this typically is my brother's blog, but I thought I would post on it and share at David's request about my Spring Break '11 and my 21st birthday! So here it goes:

Above is a picture of the back of my shirt (Dad has one too) that we got after ziplining. :) It was kind of the line for this trip!

On the 14th of April, I flew down to Pensacola, Florida to spend some quality time with my Dad who is currently stationed down there. I was so excited, this was my first time down there and had heard from my mother and brother about how beautiful it was! Also, I was really looking forward to spending time with Dad, I've really missed him being home... so the adventure begins.

We spent most of our free time on the beach, which was almost every day. The beach is right across the street from Dad's house. So you simply walk across the street and some nice, warm, white Florida sand can be between your toes... yes, I miss it already!!

The coloring is a little off in this picture, but this is my feet and the view from my spot. It's gorgeous! The water was warm too, but rather wavy....but that's another story!

Wave lines... Dad and I thought they were beautiful. Also, we collected some shells while we were together. Our goal was to find shells that had one tiny hole in them. It's so easy to find a perfect shell, but it's more challenging to find one when you put a requirement on it. I came home with about sixty something shells and some sand dollars too!

Walking the beach...

Dad and I one of my first evenings there.... got to love self timed cameras.

Dad's photography. :)

Emily's photography :D

The beautiful sunset!

One of the other events we did while I was in Florida - other than the beach - was attend the Pensacola Symphony. It was amazing and they had a special violin piece that gave me chills - absolutely lovely! Although a couple times I nodded off (sleepy eyes in the picture :P), but perhaps because it was so peaceful...or perhaps because I had limited sleep in the last 3 days. But all and all it was really special. :)

Dad and I went to a Greek restaurant and the camel was on the wall... our family kind of has a thing with camels! :)

Another one of our adventures was searching for pelicans. In the city of Pensacola, there are so many man-made pelicans. Each city has something that represents them - Norfolk, VA has mermaids, Chicago has bulls, Erie, PA has frogs and so on. Dad and I wanted to find as many pelicans as we could in the week I was there. One day we found maaaaaannnnnnnnyy pelicans all in different colors, designs, and places! We took many pictures (to see them all, check them out on facebook), but some of our favorites are below:

Paradise found.... haha, no kidding!

Workouts in the mornings were fun.... one of the times we exercised we came to the top of a bridge that overlooked a part of Pensacola...of course we took a picture!

Another of our days we went to the Pensacola Naval Base and looked at one of their beautiful lighthouses. And yes, we climbed all the stairs to the top!

The few from the top was breathtaking! Below is a picture of some of the blue angels and Fat Albert :)

So my second to last day in Florida, Dad and I awoke at 5am and drove to a place to experience ziplining. Ziplining is when a pully is suspended on a cable mounted on a high (~60 feet in the air) mount at an incline. It is designed to enable a user to be propelled by gravity to traveel from the top of one mount to the other (usually the size of a football field). In essence, it's a blast and you have to try it if you haven't already!

Driving up from Pensacola.... I had some funny comments on facebook about the braids, yes, yes, it's been a while. :P

All suited up and ready to zip!

We climbed to the top of the mount...It was actually rather interesting when we first climbed to the top of the first mount - it was about 70 feet in the air and consisted of a wooden plank that was about 4ft by 4ft and somehow, we managed to fit eight people on there... they told us they had fit up to 12... crazy!

The feeling you got of feeling weightless as you fly through the trees was amazing! There's nothing like it! I absolutely loved every minute of it!

Dad zipping like an expert! :)

After 3 hours we were feeling sooooo good! I can't wait until the whole family experiences ziplining. The saying is really true, "if your life is not an adventure, you're wasting oxygen." Trust me, we didn't waste any that day! :P It was a perfect way to celebrate my 21st birthday Emily style and spend time with Dad over Spring Break!