Home at Last

Luke and I arrived home from vacation earlier this afternoon. It was a great week, but it feels good to be home, too!

Yesterday was another fun day at the beach. The waves were HUGE because of Hurricane Bill. They were fun to ride, but a little scary, too! In late afternoon, I built a sandcastle on the beach while Luke made his script Ohio in the sand (I think it's going to become a tradition every time we're at the beach). In the evening, Julie and I cooked dinner, and then Luke, Julie, and I went on one last souvenir run in town.

Oh yeah...Julie and I tried skim boarding one more time yesteday. We still didn't catch on!
Script Ohio
My sandcastle - moat and all!
Mom and I took a walk on the beach, and saw lots of birds and beautiful scenery

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Okay, so now that I'm home, I'm going to re-check my vacation to-do list, and see how many I accomplished:

1. Try skim boarding for the first time: CHECK. (Although I certainly have not mastered the skill!)
2. Take a walk on the beach at midnight: 1/2 check. we crammed so much activity into our days I just couldn't make myself stay up that late. Although I took a walk on the beach at 10:00, so I'm giving myself half a check for that :-)
3. Build a sandcastle: CHECK. And we also made a sand turtle earlier in the week :-)
4. Fly a kite: CHECK. It was a pretty cool kite, too.
5. Ride a bike on the boardwalk: Big, fat no for this one. I guess we just ran out of time.

6. Ride all the roller coasters and other fun rides at Busch Gardens: CHECK
7. Watch at least one show at Busch Gardens: CHECK, at Das Festhaus
8. Explore the nature preserve by our condo: 1/2 check. We went on a nature walk at the aquarium, and walked to the beach part of the preserve, but didn't actually explore the entire preserve.9. Prepare two meals for the family during the week: Check. A chicken casserole one night, and a spaghetti dinner another night.
10. Visit Jamestown: No check. We ran out of time for this, but would definitely like to check out Jamestown or Yorktown next time we're there.

11. Get up early one morning and watch the sunrise: No check again. I decided that sleep was too important to get up at 6 to watch the sunrise! I get grumpy if I don't get enough sleep, and like I said, we kept pretty busy. I did catch the sunrise in PA on the way there last Saturday, though. Does that count?? :-P

12. Work on my photography, and take hundreds of pictures: Check. My camera was attached to me all week. I took around 600 pictures in all.13. Try at least one new thing that I've never tried before (skim boarding doesn't count): Check. This is a little lame, but I tried boogie boarding. I'd never done that before! We usually use biggger blow-up rafts to ride the waves. Boogie boards were pretty fun, because you could stay lower in the water, and actually steer a little bit.14. Swim in the condo pool: Check. Sure, I was only in for about 2 minutes, but I did try it out! We decided that they kept the water too warm, and it just wasn't refreshing in the 90 + degree weather.15. Visit the nearby aquarium: Check. Although my pictures are all on my parents' computer, because we were having memory card problems that day.

So I finished 11/15. Not too bad! I think it was a good idea to make a list of goals for our trip. It became a challenge to see how many I could check off by the end of the week. I know I probably never would have tried skim boarding if I hadn't written it down as one of my goals. But don't worry, I took a lot of time to just relax, too!

Now I'm probably going to spend the rest of the evening recuperating, and catching up on all of your blogs! I know I've been pretty absent for the past week, but I'll be commenting like crazy tonight :-) I missed hearing about what's going on in your lives! :-)