captain me.

My parents and I went to the St. Patrick's Day festivities in downtown Dunedin. They enjoyed Guinness and greasy food but all I got was this picture:





















On Saturday we got our first real summer-ish day and the traffic and tourists on Honeymoon Island and Dunedin Causeway proved it. The interest was sparked in me to learn how to sail when my mom, dad, Ty and I visited my Aunt Carla and Uncle Steve and their gorgeous sailboat last summer. On that trip, we didn't actually go sailing because of a mechanical issue and it was stormy but I did enjoy watching a whole fleet of children on their one-man sailboats.

So this weekend, my daddy (and truly amazing teacher) taught me the basics of how to sail. As you can see, my mom thankfully supplied me with a over-sized wetsuit (it wasn't all that warm outside and I got wet!) that my belly squeezed into. Here are some nice pics and some out of focus pics taken by Tyler since him and my mom were beach bums.

























































































The real amazing story here isn't that I actually DID sail and did really good but that we spotted a small pod of dolphins and chased them for about an hour! I had just got into the captains seat and was pretty nervous. My dad was telling me what to do and I follow orders well. We started chasing the dolphins and it was a great way to learn because I was so in awe of being so close (sometimes less than 5 feet!) to the dolphins that I didn't over-think sailing.

At one point, my dad said, "Ok, now I am going to let you do it on your own." Woah, I was nervous about that because there was an island really close as well as a few kayak's. I told him I was didn't want to run into anything. He said, "I won't let you hit anything." Aw. My dad has always been a wonderful teacher. Since I am going to have a daughter it made me realize how important it is to make sure your kid knows that they can trust you and you are looking out for them no matter what.

There was a baby dolphin and it looked like mom was teaching it how to hunt. Neither of us had EVER been that close to dolphins (yes one of the perks of living here is we get to see dolphins quite a bit). When it was time to head back we realized that maybe we weren't following them, maybe they were following us because they kept popping up right next to the boat to say hi and get a closer look at us.

I guess we share the same curiosity in boats that don't make noise.

To make the day even more magical, after we got back and were unloading everything the baby started dancing up a storm. I didn't even get out of the car because I didn't want to miss it! She was kicking so much that I was watching my stomach push out for the first time. My mom ran over and put her hand on my belly and sure enough- she kicked her hard! This little one is definitely not shy! She has kicked her daddies hand several times and now her Gram's. Gramps is next!