Florida Natural Springs

This past weekend Garin and I decided to try to do something a little different than the normal trip to the beach. Garin had heard that there were a few natural springs in NW Florida, so we looked it up and found one that was only an hour away and planned to head there for the day. So Saturday morning we packed our towels and a lunch and headed out for the unknown.

The natural springs here are a cool 68 degrees year round and VERY clear. 68 degrees is actually pretty cold and thankfully Garin threw my wetsuit in the truck before we left! Our plan was to go to the spring, hang out, and snorkel. Well the first spring we went to wasn't exactly what we were expecting. While it was quite refreshing on a HOT Florida day, there wasn't too much to see by the way of snorkeling. We stayed for an hour and then decided to head out to the beach.

Ponce De Leon Springs

On our way out we say a sign for "Vortex Springs" which was a couple of miles down the road and boasted of Scuba diving adventures. My husband, being the diving connoisseur that he is, HAD to go check it out. We hit jackpot ;)

This was a privatized spring (vs the first one which was a state park) and was basically a redneck water park. They had a swing (like the flying trapeze), a zip line, a diving board, a high dive, a slide, and more! They also had a very large hole that divers could go cave diving in (unfortunately Garin didn't have any of his dive cards with him...but he plans to go back!). We spent the afternoon chilling out here and enjoying the clear cold water. We brought our snorkel gear so Garin fluttered around with the divers below (free diving) while I enjoyed watching him from the surface. All in all it was a very fun, different, thing to do for the day.

And yes, we are under an umbrella...it is nearly impossible to be out in the sun down here without having some sort of shade-that sun is brutal!

After a fun filled day together we topped our date day off with dinner out on the town at Chili's. Yum!

More Visitors :)

We had more visitors at the Florida Kirkpatrick residence this past week! Garin's brother Shane came down and brought his girlfriend Rebecca. We had a great time hanging out with them and kicking back at the beach. Unfortunately the first day we took them to the beach the ocean was filled with this seaweed sludge stuff. It was gross! And we had been talking up how beautiful the beach was and all...go figure :) We went back a couple more times and it progressively got better!

On Tuesday we took a little trip out to NAS Pensacola to see the Blue Angels do a practice show. I've seen them flying around in the air before but I've never actually seen a show, so it was really neat! They had a grandstand set up out at the airfield and everything! The little old man commentating for us told us that in flight the Blue Angels sometimes get within 18 inches of one another. That is just CRAZY! I think this was one of those "close" maneuvers. They were so stinkin' fast I could never get a good picture of them, so these are the best I have!

At the end the planes "parade" by and the kids get to go out and wave flags for them as they pass by. I've never wanted to be a pilot, but after seeing that it would be pretty cool to be able to fly and do the maneuvers that they do!!

After the air show we went to the air museum to check out the billions of planes in there. This is Shane and Rebecca posing in front of one of the antique planes.

Thanks for coming to visit Shane and Rebecca! We thoroughly enjoyed your visit!!

And finally, today was the first day that Garin got to wear his flight suit in to work. He was pretty excited (even though his face does not show it) and I thought he looked pretty cute in it :)

Just a Little Update

Just wanted to update everyone. There's not really anything to update...but I hate not making a post for over a week.

Umm, let's see. Garin started the 2nd phase of his training - API, aka ground school - he has now completed 2 weeks of the 6 week course. In this phase he is in the classroom where he is learning things like aerodynamics, weather, navigation, etc. He has already had two tests and has done very well on both of them. They also do a pool workout each day and at the end of the course they will do some cool survival training in the pool and out in the bay. Here are some links to some API videos...I'm not feeling too sorry for him...looks like a lot of fun to me!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVSDCYbpjEY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz5T4eMWdEg&feature=related

As for me. Well I'm just here. Just trying to keep myself busy and not go crazy!