Good times with Mom!

This spaceship-looking thing was my plane that I took on Thursday from Miami to Tampa. There were just ten of us on this flight and it was a little scary looking, but the flight actually turned out to be really smooth and easy. Mom and I were happy to find out that my flight was actually leaving two hours earlier than scheduled, making for a very short layover in Miami and a two hour longer visit for Mom and me. She picked me up around 10 am on Thursday and we had quite the full day. We went out for breakfast and then went to Color Me Mine, to do some pottery painting. We walked around a cute area called Hyde Park, which has lots of nice little shops - did some shopping and found a great wine bar to eat. (Unfortunately, I'm still on antibiotics, so no wine for me...) It was scrumptious nonetheless. That night, Mom and I enjoyed some game time. We're both big fans of playing all kinds of games, so we had a little marathon o games.

On Friday, I enjoyed sleeping in, so we got a bit of a late start... but we headed out around noon to get some cherry limeade from Sonic (yeahhh!!!!) and then to Lettuce Lake Park - a very interesting park that had a lot of wetlands, cypress trees, some alligators, turtles, fish, birds, etc. I was wishing I could take my students there on a field trip...I could have almost had another Earthwatch expedition right there. After we walked around the park for awhile, we headed out to Madeira Beach for lunch. There was a crazy thunder and lightening storm along the way, so it took while, but finally we got to John's Pass, a boardwalk area there with shops and restaurants, and it was really nice. After our yummy lunch there, we walked around a bit and then Mom challenged me to a game of Putt-Putt. : ) Of course, I was game, so off we went. It was actually a really nice little course, with real live alligators and everything. : )

Now, it's Saturday and I am taking off back to LA in a few hours...it has been a great two weeks, but I think it is time to get back to reality. Until my next adventure...