Florida Sun, Royal Palms & Reptiles

At the beginning of September, before I even knew I was going to school, I decided to join the 'rents on their trip to Florida which was really a celebration of mom's 60th. You do not look 60 mom! I didn't have a job yet, so I thought, heck why not because I was desperately missing the warm air and palm trees. I would have appreciated more time at the beach but somehow sightseeing was more important to a certain someone.
Going to Florida also gave me a chance to check out the IADT school in Tampa. It looked good, but not quite the standards of their Toronto campus I had visited 2 years back while I was in the city for a tradeshow. It was at that moment I decided to pursue the Toronto school, being that the one in California was still out of reach financially. Good decision or not? I guess my thoughts are still ambiguous on that one and only time will tell. But I'm glad I went to Florida, otherwise I'd still be in Edmonton in some boring job.
As for our trip in Florida, we pretty much did it all. But a word of advice is never to book one of those cheap fax trips - so not worth it and I'll leave it at that. But to sum it up we went to Coco Beach (last year when I went it was much warmer but you gotta love RonJons - world's largest surfshop!), Sea World, (saw Shamu), Arabian Nights dinner theatre, Busch Gardens (which I wouldn't recommend although dad did have fun getting soaking wet on that water roller coaster dealio), Disney World (Magic Kingdom and Epcot), Las Olas (got my hair done at Yellow Strawberry again, and by fluke world-famous stylist Jesse Briggs did the honors), Ft Lauderdale Beach, West Palm Beach mall, and one of those crazy gator land/tour places (kind of creepy). Oh, and dad tested his need for speed at Nascar. And that's Tom Perry, not Tom Petty (free fallin') -gee, get it right. I would have liked to experience that as well because I crave speed but my VW Jetta can only push certain limits. But I had to sit that one out because dad wanted to have the only bragging rights. And brag he did. In fact, go ask him about it, he'll give you an earful. Anyway, here are some pics that highlight the trip. And oh my goodness I totally forgot about our 'el cheapo' cruise to the Bahamas for a day...I'll do a separate posting on that.