Now breaking radio silence

The last time I blogged was the day before we left for the Florida Keys. It seems like forever ago, but it was just a little over a week ago. Since my last blog entry, we picked Lance up at the airport and had a joyous reunion and then left the next day for the first half of our drive down to the Keys. We spent the night in Surise, which is near Ft. Lauderdale, and then drove the other half the next day, after some excitement. I'll leave the story of The Trip for another time. Suffice to say that we were happy to finally get there and start enjoying our fun in the sun! We were down there with my parents and my brother and his family. The kids all had fun playing together and the adults all got a chance to do something they really enjoyed doing; whether that be fishing, swimming, snorkeling, eating, sight seeing or shopping!

We leave tomorrow to fly back home and at some point, I'll have pictures to share and more tales to tell. For now, I'll leave you with the highlight of my trip.

On Saturday, my brother loaded up the cooler with sodas, beer and water and my sister-in-law and I headed out on his boat with him to Looe Key. That's where there is this wonderful coral reef with so many different species to see. We were out there snorkeling for probably around three hours and during that time, I saw so many different things. This was by far, the best snorkeling I've done.

I was greeted in the blue-green, crystal clear water by a school of yellowtail snapper who didn't seem to mind in the least that I had invaded their space. I immediately knew it was going to be a good trip because not long after I got into the water, a loggerhead sea turtle swam right by me. It even looked back at me as it swam by. It was close enough, that I could have reached out and touched it with little effort. I saw lots of HUGE tarpon - we're talking about HUNDREDS of pounds here, saw a Giant Grouper (and they don't call it Giant for no reason), and swam over a smallish Blacktip shark. We swam with a school of large parrot fish, were stalked by a barracuda until we managed to somehow swim right into a school of them (scary!). I found two VERY LARGE lobster hanging out under the shallow part of the reef in addition to hundreds of smaller tropical fish and clear jellyfish. By far, my favorite site was the eagle ray that swam under me as I was going back to the boat to change out my mask. What a gorgeous site! It was awesome! The only thing I wish was that I hadn't forgotten my underwater camera!

Pictures to come.

Wish us well on our trip home to California tomorrow!