The Sunshine State

If I said the last few days of our trip have surpassed our highest expectations, I would be understating matters. You know, when God works little details and timings out so perfectly, you feel like He's giving you a gift tied with a silver bow and all you can do is just say, "Thank you, we don't deserve this."

On Wednesday the 26th, we drove to Panama City, Florida, with the idea of giving our kids a taste of the tropical, warm-water & white beach experience. One of Elizabeth's dreams was to swim with dolphins in the wild and we'd heard from friends that this was the area to attempt that. We found a great state park at the end of Panama City Beach called St. Andrews and set up camp. The next day we rented a pontoon boat and took it out into the lagoon to a place called Shell Island. It's kind of a peninsula between the Gulf and the lagoon so we got to play and snorkel on both sides. All of our kids got into snorkelling! The water is so warm and this amazing turquoise blue. I don't think the pictures do it justice.

On the way back from Shell Island, we encountered some dolphins. When we got close, they'd come up to our boat (I think looking for a handout which we didn't have) and some of us would jump in the water to try to get close to them. The last time, Mike and Elizabeth succeeded in getting one to interact! It was fun to watch and such a highlight experience for them. Mike got to touch it and Elizabeth was right there. They said it's a lot bigger than you'd think when you're right next to it. We all got a bit sunburnned, but it was worth it.

The next day, heading to the east side of Florida, we detoured to a large plantation just across the border in Georgia called Pebble Hill. It's open to the public as a museum and it was incredible to walk the grounds and marvel at the opulence of that era.

We got to the Kennedy Space Center about 8pm. I'll attach here some of Elizabeth's journaling of the event...

"How can I even find words for this?!! It's simply amazing! We actually got to see the space shuttle Discovery lanuch from Cape Canaveral last night at 11:59. Wow! God is so incredible! After being delayed twice, Discovery took off with no problems on a perfectly cloudless night. From the beginning of our trip and all the way up until Alabama, we hadn't even thought there would be any chance we would be able to see a launch. Well, it happened."

We all were amazed how bright and powerful and loud the experience was. Definitely something to try to see in person. Next stop...Georgia and South Carolina.