5th Grader

Bode started at Longwood elementary a couple weeks ago--he is now officially a Longwood Leopard.  He showed no signs of worry about starting a new school.

He likes his new teacher, and seems to be getting along with his classmates.  He rides his bike to school every day and seems to like it.  We have an open house on Thursday night, so we'll get a better chance to see how he's doing.

The dogs are getting along just fine--here's a little movie of the two of them playing.

Bode and Ashley took another water-skiing/wake-boarding lesson.  Bode was very excited to go.

Here's a picture of Bode getting his skies ready.

Bode did amazing--he started off on the poll, and then moved to the back of the boat.  By the end of the lesson, he was able to get up without any problems on his own--he's quite the little skier!  Here are some action photos.

Ashley did awesome on the wakeboard.  Here's a movie of her showing off her skills.

Finally here's a movie of Bode going around the lake.

We hope to go back for a few more lessons, and then perhaps we'll get a set of skies for Bode and see how he does behind the waverunner.

UWF starts back to school on Monday; I guess the summer is really coming to an end :-(  Pleasant week to all.

Skiing Bode

When we lived in Colorado, a "Skiing Bode" post would have referred to a trip to the mountains.  Today, this last day of summer before Bode heads back to school, Ashley brought Bode out to this water-ski school in Walton county.  Apparently, the instructors are world-class--the guy that drove the boat holds several world-records in ski-tricks.  He also was a fantastic instructor and quickly got Bode up on some skis.  First, here's a picture of Bode in his vest.

Next, here he is getting on the boat.  The other kids were phenomenal skiers--they came down for a week of lessons from Pennsylvania.  One of them was doing flips and all sorts of things.

Bode used a tow-bar to get up.  He first used the bar, and then he used the rope attached to the bar.  Next time we bring him out for a lesson, he'll use a rope behind the boat.  Here are some good movies.

Next, here's one of Bode starting from in the water.

He then switched over to the tow rope.  On this first one, he had some problems.

Finally, here's a good one of Bode popping right up.

As I said before, today is the last day of summer vacation.  We met Bode's teacher on Friday--Mr Welch, and he seems like a very nice man.  I started back to work last Wednesday at the University of West Florida--I don't think my picture is up on the faculty profile page, but at some point, my info should be able to be seen here.

What an incredible summer--we are very grateful to have made the transition to Florida without any major mishaps.  We said before we moved that as long as the three of us, and the two dogs made it, we could adapt to anything else.  Bode also wanted his fish (Barry) to make, which he did.  For about three weeks, we thought Cisco (the snail) was no more, but just recently, he reappeared in the tank (we've no idea where he was hiding).  Here's hoping for a great start to the school year.

Lots of Fun

We had a wonderful day today.  It started early--Ashley wanted to get up and go paddle boarding.  I didn't join her, but I did sit on the beach.  Quite a calm morning.

After a little while, Ashley came into view, paddling away.

We did some odds and ends around the house this morning--I even made it to the gym.  After lunch, we met Jennie, Dave, and Charlie for some Goofy Golf.

I think a lot of us were able to get a hole in one, which was great.  However, no one was successful getting it into the snake's mouth on the last hole.

After the golf, we all headed back to our place for some water fun.

Bode and Charlie had a lot of fun on the boards...until one of them rocked the board just a bit too much.

JoAnne and Frank even came over and sat on the beach.

We whipped up an impromptu dinner and enjoyed some good quality family time.

Uncle Dave asked us why our new coach smells funny.  We've no idea why...(earlier today).

After the ice cream, we went out to the dock to let Dave and Jennie do some fishing.

Tomorrow is the first of August; I guess it's time to start thinking about going back to work (for me) and back to school (for Bode).  Pleasant week to all.

Waverunning

Uncle Dave, Aunt Jennie, and Cousin Charlie are in town.  We had the crew plus the parents (inlaws), Olivia, Jay, and Jasser over for some food and some water fun.  We boiled some shrimp and crap in a big pot--Papa caught the crab, so they were fresh from the sea.  We ate quite well, and then headed down to the beach.

Even the dogs were allowed on the beach.

We all took some turns on the waverunners.  Here are Ashley, Dave, and Jennie coming back from a cruise.

Even Nana and Papa went out--that's them in the distance, while Olivia and Jasser play with Jay.

At some point, Dave and Jennie headed over to crab island.  Ashley and I relaxed in the chairs while Bode and Charlie played inside (this generation has no idea what it means to play outdoors).

The dogs had to have their obligatory wrestle/fight...

but sometimes the camera sidetracked them.

Here's Jennie and Dave zooming back from Destin.

It turned out to be a beautiful day.

It's a rough life--I start work in nine days, so I need to get as much of "doing nothing" in as a I can :-)  Pleasant week to all.

Swim Meet

Bode had a swim meet yesterday.  He swam the 100 IM (swam in 1:40, beating his best time by six seconds), the 50-freestyle (tying his personal best of 39 seconds), the 100-back (I think he got a PB by six seconds, but I don't recall), and he also swam the opening leg of a 200-free relay.  It was quite warm--a very different swim-meet experience than what we experienced in Colorado.  The Destin pool is outside, so we were outside in the sun for four+ hours.  Here's a shot of the pool

Ashley and I brought some umbrellas to fight the shade.  We should have brought our big half-tent; the nice people next to us were kind enough to let us borrow some of their shade.

Here are a couple of shots of Bode starting the IM--Bode is in the far-left lane.

Here he is coming in for the first turn.

Bode's coach gave him a swim-cap to wear.  He looks very different without the mohawk.

We got Bode a smart phone.  We realize he's probably too young, but with school starting, and with walking to and from school, we thought he might need to contact us in case it's raining or something like that.  An added bonus is our house in Florida is just so big that instead of going from our room to Bode's room, we can just send him a text :-)  Here's Bode with his phone.

A little rainy here right now; hopefully it clears up, as we'd like to go wave-running.  Pleasant day to all.

Summer

It has been over a month since I last posted any updates, so hopefully you didn't think we were eaten by alligators.  We are having a nice summer...well, Bode and I are, since neither one of us has any obligations during the week from the hours of 7 - 4:30.  Ashley is enjoying her job (enjoying is a bit of a stretch, but we'll go with that for now), but I'm sure she would prefer hanging with Bode and me.  However, it's not like we are doing anything super exciting.  We have worked in the yard, swum in the bay, and gone to Sonic for an afternoon shake/slushi on a couple occasions.  Ashley and I have been paddle boarding, and I even took some pictures.  Being the "smart" guy that I am, I took my old camera in the event something happened (e.g. I fell in).  I took what were some great shots.  However, since it is my old camera, I no longer seem to have the cable that will allow me to export the pictures to the hard-drive.  Apparently in our down-sizing, past-Jeff must have (incorrectly) reasoned that we wouldn't be needing this old cable any more...

I returned to taking pictures with the new camera--nothing worthy of shark week, but I did get some of the wild-life in the area.  Here is one of many turtles that we have roaming around the yard, driving Joey and Barkley nuts.

I guess I should say Joey and Barkley torment the poor little turtles.  Fortunately, I haven't (recently) found them gnawing on their shells, and the turtles haven't really been in the backyard.  They do go in our neighbors' yards, and when they are close to the fence, Joey will just sit there and bark and bark and bark.

I took Bode to get his haircut today.  He's still rocking the pseudo-mohawk. 

This past Christmas, Santa brought Bode a drone.  We tried flying in Colorado, but it was either too windy, and if there wasn't any wind, it didn't seem like there was enough lift due to the thinner air.  No such problems down here at an altitude of twenty feet.  Bode is a surprisingly good drone pilot...but I guess it really shouldn't surprise me because he's quite adept at video games.  Here's Bode getting ready to launch.  Joey is quite interested.

Here's a movie of Bode flying and landing the bird on his hand.

While we were flying the drone, we noticed some ducks hanging out by our dock.

Bode tried to sneak up on them.  I told him he was super silent but that he probably stinks because he doesn't bathe enough.  He was not amused.

As you can see, anytime Joey gets access to the water, he feels the need to go for a swim.

Barkley prefers to simply roll around in the sand.

Finally, here's Bode flying the drone and a close-up of the black menace.

Bode has a swim meet this weekend, and Uncle Dave and Aunt Jennie are coming to town for a visit.  It should be a fun few days--probably do some jet-skiing and maybe try to do some towing on a wakeboard.  Pleasant day to all.