Fort Walton Beach

We spent close to a week in Fort Walton Beach the last week of June.  We had a wonderful time at Ashley's parent's house.  The worst thing about the trip was I forgot my camera--can you believe that?  Of all things to forgot.  Thus, I had to rely on Ashley taking pictures with her phone, which is simply hand-wringing awful for a photog such as myself :-)  Therefore, there's no real rhyme or reason of what pictures we have and don't have--sometimes we remembered to take a picture and sometimes we didn't.  Thus, you'll have to allow my silky words to paint the images for you.  We were lucky enough to time our trip to partially coincide with an FWB visit by Dave, Teddy, and Charlie.  We decided to spend the day together and go out to lunch...to Waffle House (yes, really).  Here's a cute shot of Teddy and Bode at the Fort Walton WH.

After lunch, we headed out to the Gulfarium, which had dolphin shows and a sea-lion show, and all sorts of marine animals.  It also has a good place to take pictures, and we managed to corral the three Rankin-side cousins for a nice picture.

I'm not sure what Charlie is doing--looks like he's getting ready for a trip to Muscle Beach.  Bode and I also took a nice picture at the same spot.

Sadly, we went to the Gulfarium on Sunday...and the next phone pictures are sometime on Thursday, which makes me wonder what Ashley was doing those three days (I was sitting in the sun and paddle-boarding in the Bay--it was soooo warm and humid. I was a pig in slop :-)  Well I guess that answers that.  On Thursday, we went out to The Track and met up with Brantley and Dave Cook and their two boys, Mac and Hudson.  There were go-karts and bumper boats and other pseudo-carnival rides.  Here's a shot of Bode and me getting ready to race Daytona.

We also took the obligatory photos with Brantley...

and Dave...

and the boys (the fourth boy is a friend of Mac's who was spending the day with the Cook's).

It was great to see the Cook's again, and if anyone is heading to the Fort Walton Beach-Destin area and needs a place to stay, Brantley and Dave manage a large number of short-term rental properties :-)

JoAnne and Frank's neighbors let us swim in their pool and ride their wave-runners, which was simply awesome.  They let us do this the last time we were down there, but I think they upgraded the wave-runners.  These were much more powerful--and even had a speedometer.  I got up to 53 miles an hour, which doesn't sound fast, but when you are bouncing over waves and lack any type of suspension it's quite scary...and a literal pain in the rump.  Again, no pictures, other than this cute one of Bode and me in the pool.

We had an incredibly relaxing time in Florida.  Ashley and I worked out, I ran over the Brooks Bridge, which is probably my favorite run in the world, and we paddle-boarded in the bay.  As Ashley put it, "I sure could get used to this."  We even did some house hunting (yes, really).  We did find the PERFECT home...but it's a little pricey.  Google 225 Beachview Drive in Fort Walton Beach if you want to see where we will be two seconds after we win the Powerball :-)  When we got back to Florida, we didn't spend much time in Colorado Springs, as it was the 4th of July weekend, so we headed up to Breck--stay tuned!

Pleasant week to all.