Has it been forever, or what?

I hope you survived well enough while I was gone. But I'm back, so let not your heart be troubled! We had a wonderful trip to Florida and a relaxing weekend to follow it.

We arrived in Florida late last Saturday night. The flight was great, we were randomly chosen for a seat upgrade so we got huge comfy seats and lots of leg room. We really enjoyed it. I actually had two windows. How about that? Sunday morning we had to get up early for church where Josh's cousin gave a talk about his mission to Taiwan. His parents also spoke. It was very nice. After church we had a big dinner at Josh's uncle's house. We also hung out later with his cousins (the one returning from the mission and his two siblings) to have smoothies and watch Arrested Development.

Monday morning we got up early to go on a canoeing trip. The fun of this canoeing trip was supposed to be the wildlife -- including aligators. I was a little nervous but it was a big group of us going and they had all done it before reassuring Josh and I that it was perfectly safe. We had a lot of fun and saw quite a few aligators. Unfortunately all of my pictures got deleted when I took my memory card out for Josh's grandmother to view them on her computer. Somewhere between removing the card and plugging it into her computer they got erased. It was unfortunate, but at least I didn't lose an arm, right?

Tuesday morning we got up early to go to the beach. Of course it was cloudy. We went anyway and Josh's cousins Sarah and David went with us. The beach was empty except for one other family. It was kind of comical. But we planted our umbrella (more for rain protection than sun), spread out our towels and took in the scenery. I tried to read but ended up falling asleep -- the beach is so relaxing! When I woke up it was hot and sunny. I asked what time it was and Josh said, "time for us to leave!" We were meeting the family for lunch. After lunch Josh, myself, and his three cousins Michael, Sarah and David piled in the car for Orlando. That evening we went to Universal Studios and checked out some of the fun to be had there. Then we ordered Little Caesar's Pizza around 10:00 which served us for dinner and breakfast the next morning!

on the cloudy, empty beach

Wednesday morning we got up, had our pizza breakfast and checked out of the hotel. This day had been reserved for Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure park. We had so much fun there and actually had the fast-passes so we didn't have to wait in lines. I don't know if I'll ever go to a big park without those again. We walked right on to every ride we wanted and were able to get through a ton in a short amount of time. By the time we were eating lunch (around 2:00) we had already been on all the rides we wanted to do. We had burgers in Captain America's Diner, shopped for a little bit and hit the road back to St. Petersburg.

Thursday morning our flight left at 11, so we once again got up early, packed all of our things and headed to the airport. Sadly we did not get upgraded on this flight. We were back home by early afternoon and had lunch with one of Josh's friends who was kind enough to transport us to and from the airport. By then I had just enough time to relax a little bit and head to class for the night.

Friday was cookouts galore.... again. Our moms were both having cookouts so I went to Josh's parents house with him for a few hours and then over to my mom's. It was a fun day except our fireworks got rained out. I think they still went off but it had rained a ton late in the afternoon / early evening so there was no point in trying to sit in the grass to watch them. Connor and Kelly came over instead and we watched Arrested Development.

For the past two days I've been writing papers. I have a final exam due tomorrow and a huge paper due Tuesday. I also have job interviews both of those mornings at 10am. One is at a middle school I've heard horror stories about, and the other is at a high school where one of my friends works. I'm pretty excited for the high school interview. I'd really love to get that job. The other position I recently interviewed for went to someone else... which just means I'm meant to be somewhere else.

I'll close with that and hopefully have more fun stuff to share very soon. If you want to see more pictures from Florida they're all posted on my picasa page - www.picasaweb.google.com/emilybeck07