Christmas in Florida Part 1

These past couple of weeks/months have been a bit of a whirlwind. First of all, I graduated from BYU-I alongside my brother in law Joe. Then Charly and I headed straight to Florida the following Sunday for eight days in the warmest state of America. Seriously- it was in the high seventies and low eighties the whole time. The water was warm enough to go surfing in and our week was packed with adventures. I actually used my big fancy camera this time and so I'll be splitting this trip into two blog posts because there are just way too many photos for one.

The trip from Idaho to Florida was pretty exciting because we took a direct flight from SLC to Orlando on a brand new 737. The new plane looked fancy, came with charging outlets, usb inputs, and your own personal screen with dozens of free movies and shows, and good ones at that. The first couple of days we spent in Florida we went surfing and had our traditional bonfire on the beach, then celebrated Christmas Eve and Christmas day with family the next two days. The day after Christmas we woke up before sunrise to go meet our friends and drive five hours down to Marathon Key for a two day deep sea fishing trip. Fishing aint really my thang, so the first day my dad and I stayed on land and we went jet skiing. It was my first time and I don't know if I was all that impressed, but at least I can say I did it, and I'd be willing to do it again. I'm just surprised we got to do it at all. I didn't bring any photo i.d. and the first place we stopped at said that people under 26 needed a photo i.d. and had to take a boating test. The lady behind the desk said this was state law and that everyone around here would require the same. So we drove down the road a bit and found a place that didn't care. Hoorah!

On Christmas Eve afternoon, our neighbors came running over to tell us they had found a dead mama manatee and its baby was following it around as it floated down the canals. We quickly jumped into our kayaks/canoe and paddled over there. Charly and Kyle roped up the dead mama manatee while Jared circled the waters to make sure we didn't scare off the baby. We hoped that we could could drag the mama-tee to our dock and tie it there and that the baby would follow it. That way we wouldn't lose it while we waited for marine biologists to come rescue it. So that was our plan, and it mostly worked until the marine biologists came and said that the cute baby manatee that would swim and push itself up on top of the mama-tee was actually a small male wanting to get some action. Ha!

Ok, so that's not the most informative collection of pictures from the Keys, but there will be much more tomorrow since the first day was only a half day and I didn't dare bring my camera on the jet ski. Look at that sunset though. Pink and purple clouds billowing around the lighthouse. How can you look at it without pondering deep life thoughts and feel all sentimental nature loving ish?

Also, here are some photos of the bonfire we had: