Redo: Action Packed

My friend Matt taught me some cool tricks last night. I learned how to take my "continuous shot" pictures and turn them into a .gif - a continuous loop of the photos. Check these out - now you can really see us in action! Let's start with me and my cannon ball.

Here's Doc's front flip:

Mary Elizabeth's dive:

Antonio's cannon ball:

Matt's "Michael Jordan":

Aren't these fun?! I'm kinda obsessed with it now. I have a feeling I'll be using the continuous-shot setting on my camera a lot more, even if it does drain the battery of my computer.

Now, here are the ones I need you to vote on. Boys vs Girls in the toe-touch competition.

Boys:

Girls:

Who's better? Let me know.

Action Packed

We've been having a great time at the beach. There is no sign of oil (yet) and the water has been crystal clear. We had a big storm last night so quite a bit of seaweed moved in but it was pretty easy to swim out past it. Today I've been playing around with the "continuous shot" setting on my camera. I think I captured some pretty good action shots. If these pictures don't make you laugh, I don't know what will.

We'll start with this sequence of four innocent girls just laying on the beach...

And have you met my Baywatch husband?

We also had some fun in  the pool this afternoon. Doc showed off his front flip.

I just did a regular ol' cannon ball.

But then Antonio did a cannon ball too and he got a lot more height on his than I did.

Mary Elizabeth did a perfect dive.

And Matt gave us "The Michael Jordan." (Watch for the arm cross...it provides an extra boost.)

There was also a little bit of air-guitar...

...and jack-knife 180s.

And now, I really need you to pay attention to these last two sequences so you can decide who is better.

Boys doing toe-touches?

Or girls doing toe-touches?

Please leave your vote in the comments so we can know who gets the bragging rights. Be sure to consider things like height of toe-touch, pointed toes, and overall synchronization of the group.

Ice, Ice Baby

For those of you who don't know, there's a new "game" sweeping across the South. It started, I think, by a group of college guys that created the blog "Bros Icing Bros." (The website has now been shut down.)  The main idea of the game is that you want to "ice" any of your unexpecting friends. What does it mean to "ice" someone? You present them with a Smirnoff Ice and they have to take a knee and down the drink right there. There's a Washington Post article that quoted the rules:

  • You cannot refuse an Ice. If you refuse to drink the Ice, you are instantly excommunicated and shunned, and thus can never Ice another bro or be Iced. If you are Iced by another bro, you can Ice block. When presented with an Ice, you can pull out an Ice of your own and reverse the Ice on your bro. The ultimate Ice insult.

There's also a New York Times article here that talks about the game. Two things to note: Smirnoff did not create the game and does not support it, and Smirnoff Ice is a very sweet, very carbonated drink.

Doc and I started hearing all about this Icing game a couple of weeks ago. Some of my friends on facebook have been busy icing their friends and it was a hot topic on the radio one morning on my drive to work. Doc heard about it because one of his coworkers iced a bond salesman in the middle of the trade floor at 9:30 (!) in the morning. The iced coworker was a good sport - he took a knee and finished his drink.

So what does this have to do with us being on vacation in Florida?

You guessed it. Doc and I decided it was finally time to ice some of our friends. We bought our ammo at the Publix grocery store as soon as we got here. I chose the strawberry flavor over the green apple.

And then, five minutes after everyone had made it to our beach house and unloaded the cars, we brought out the six-pack of Smirnoff Ice. Of course, only a couple of friends had heard of the game so we had to do some explaining, but they were all good sports and took a knee!

I think Stephanie may still hate us for making her drink the super sugary drink.

This proves that our friends are rockstars. They all finished their Ice!

It's safe to say the trip has gotten off to a fun start. Can't wait to see what the rest of the trip has in store for us! I have a feeling I may need to go buy another Smirnoff Ice to carry around with me in case any of my friends decide to get revenge.

Road Trip

Today marked the beginning of beach trip number 2 for us. But before we could get on the road, we had a very important stop to make. First, we made a quick pit stop to get a bag of fresh donuts.

And then we headed to the kids' house to see how their week at camp was.  Anna came out and greeted us in her pajamas.

We sat on the curb and chatted.

After a few minutes, we learned that sleepy Wyatt didn't want to walk outside so we went inside and brought the donuts to him. The kids both had a great time at camp. They told us about sleeping in the cabins, swimming, what they made in arts and crafts, the dance they went to, and something about snakes but I had to tune that part out. I think they're excited and ready to go to their second camp this summer!

A few minutes before 9, Doc and I were finally on the road and headed to the beach!

Unfortunately, we had to drive through a lot of rain.

The ride was long so we did a lot to try to entertain ourselves.  We put the iPod on shuffle and it did not disappoint us. We heard everything from Taylor Swift to Jay-Z, Counting Crows to Flobots, Britney Spears to Eminem.

As the driver, Doc got to be the lead singer.

There was a brief period were I got a little bored and decided to play "Watch Doc Eat the Cars."

It starts like this:

Wait for it...

And there it goes! Yummy!

When that got old, I decided to start smocking. I have lots of friends having babies this year and a baby shower is coming up soon. I need to make good progress this week.

The small problem with getting started was that I forgot to bring scissors. It's hard to cut thread without scissors. But Doc came through for me and handed over some nail clippers. Saved!

Oh, I forgot that we ran into these girls at our lunch break. It was good to see them.

And finally, after we crossed into Florida, we got our second wind and car dancing ensued.

We have awesome moves.

So now we're here! The first thing I checked was whether or not we had internet, and since we do, I'll be able to update you on all the fun we're having!

Doc and I had a surprise to pass out once everyone arrived and go unpacked. Stay tuned to see what it was...