Pensacola - YW High Adventure (sort of)

So, for our Young Women High Adventure trip this year, we headed off to Pensacola, Florida. Actually, we were turned down by the stake for the trip b/c Sharyl didn't get all the forms in on time, but Bishop Rodgers said there was nothing against us going on "vacation!" So we took that and ran with it. So...our YW "Vacation" was an absolute blast! A great way to chill with the gals, swim, talk, drool over Tom Welling, watch movies, chow down on junk food, snorkel, para-sail, tube, and really just party all day long. And , of course, strengthen our testimonies. Since we were on the water, our theme was "anchored" to Christ. (Aren't we creative?) Anyway, I took so many pics and I want to post them all, but blogger takes too long to upload them and I have little patience. So...here's a few of our best moments. :0) Enjoy!

As soon as we got to the house, which was beautiful, a few of the girls jumped into the ocean and swam to the other side of the canal. (Bit, Monica, Chelsea)

Tubing down the Blackwater River. There were about 30 mini-beaches along the way and we just stuck our cooler on a tube and stopped at one of the beaches when we were hungry. It was so relaxing.

Me and the girls.

On the second day of our trip, we headed out snorkeling. The water was a bit murky, but we were still able to find some neat critters. I kept trying to see how long I could follow one fish. I ended up tailing a yellow snapper for about 10 minutes.

While we were out on the boat, a pod of about 8 dolphins started following us. It was probably the coolest thing that happened the entire trip. They stuck with us for about 20 minutes. After begging the boat captain dude, he let us jump in with them. Really, really cool.

Para-sailing was friggin' AWESOME! Sharyl was freaking out, as you can tell by her expression! :0)

That's us, about 1200 feet in the air.

Ok, one of the mornings, we went geocaching. If you've never heard of it, it's basically people who hide things and then put the latitude and longitude up on the web. If you've ever hiked up to the top of a mountain, there's usually a box with little trinkets and a slip of paper where everyone signs their name. Well, geocaching sprung from that. So...we used Brother Johanson's trusty little GPS thingy and went hunting after four different boxes. It actually was really cool; especially since we compared the GPS to the Liahona and making our way through life. This was one of the boxes we found and we were the 52nd group to locate it. :0) If you're interested, go to geocaching.com. You can just plug in your zip code and it will give you a list of all the caches in your area. I thought it would be funny to hide one near the stake center and put pass-along cards in it. :0)

On the last day, we went to the Florida caverns. Who knew there were caverns in Florida?! They are about 6 stories underground and absolutely stunning!

This is Phillip, a little fruit bat we found. He was so cute, so we had to name him. :0)

Me, in awe of the stalactites, which hang "tight" from the ceiling. The ones that rise from the ground are stalagmites, cause they "might" trip you. And when they come together, they form a...column. That always disappoints me. I feel like the combining of two super cool words should produce something better than column. Anyway... :0)