Surf Expo in Orlando 2008

After all the hullabaloo and my detailed trip preparations, I am relieved and happy to say that Dahlia did darn well on the flight from Seattle to Orlando.

Dahlia, Ready for Take-Off!

She didn't cry during take-off and she only got fussy when she was board after being confined to our two seats for four hours. I wanted to cry too. Thanks to a small library of new books and our new, much-loved DVD player, we survived. I want to kiss Elmo and smother him at the same time.

I ended up checking the car seat all the way through to Orlando instead of having D sit in it on the flight because:

1. The baggage guys don't take car seats to the gate which means that
2. I would have had to carry the heavy-ass car seat across SeaTac- no thank you
3. Despite all my research, I discovered that even if you purchase a ticket, kids under two are not required to be strapped down in a car seat. Ok, whatever, so good-bye car seat.

We arrived in Orlando and were BLASTED with temperatures in the 90's and crazy humidity. As a native Seattleite, I can tell you now, that I would melt if I lived here.

Dahlia just Cruisin'

We're staying in a condo in a residential development. It's very nice to have a home with bedrooms, a full kitchen a washer and dryer, a network cable (!) and soft carpeting. It's also directly adjacent to the convention center. It's what we call a "Vegas block" so it's a mile from door to door, but the're neighboring.

Since the condo is so light, we ended up putting D's pack and play (crib) in the master bathroom. It's dark in there, we're on Seattle time, and she's close to her favorite thing ever, the bathtub. The crib is from the condo rental managers. It's a little small, so it didn't take D much time to throw her leg over the side. Damn! She hasn't figured out that she can get out, but she would if she wanted to go "bye-bye".

We went to the last day of Surf Expo this morning. There was a little snafu with the badges for entering the trade show and while I could borrow a badge, D also needed a badge and so we couldn't get her in!!! Can you believe that? As Auntie Em just said on the phone, "What's she going to do? Smuggle in her binky?" And a guy in the Ronix booth said that maybe she'd drop bombs... in her diaper... Sigh.

We came to Orlando, to sit outside Surf Expo when everything B has been doing for the last year is on display inside.

I went in with B's longtime friend Brett Higgins and we walked around a while looking at all the booths for wakeboards, water skis, surfboards, kite boards, surf apparel, skull candy... anything surf or watersport related. Once we hit the Ronix booth, I said hi to Ashley and she asked about D and I asked... okay I begged her to go out and wrangle our active toddler, so B could show me his stuff. Thank you Ashley!!

So B showed me around and I took some shots.

Indoor Skate Ramp. The Orange Blob is a skater.

Ronix Wakeboard Badge with "Preston" on it. Preston is where the Ronix office is. Preston is a tiny, old logging town 45 minutes east of Seattle, WA. I thought it was funny that they made a badge out of it, but it totally works.

Here is the J Star pro team. They are either mad at me for taking their picture, or this is a picture of a picture.

Brett Higgins is in the center. The other two guys are from Denbol in The Netherlands. They distribute J Star wakeboards to stores in Europe. Hans is on the left and Sven is striking a pose.

This is what they do to kids who don't have badges.

Here is B in front of his Ronix "Dahlia" wakeboard.

NO, the name is not a coincidence and YES, the kid came first. (I wouldn't name my kid after sports equipment!)

Here is a shot of me with Emily Copeland

Emily is one of the top two female riders in wakeboarding in my humble.... She is also gorgeous and super nice. My other favorite female pro is Dallas Friday because she kills it and she has a cool name.

It's nap time. Shhh! Don't wake D up! It's the only way I get to write.

Now I'm going to chart our course to the grocery store for lunch. It's almost 2pm at home and almost 5pm here on the east coast. Then I'm going to map out this condo complex in search of a swimming pool for my little, angelfish and then I'm going to chart my course to Sea World for tomorrow's adventure. I should also check out the best way to get to Disney World. We're heading to see Mickey on Tuesday.

I'll post photos when I can!

Woo-hoo! It's sooooo nice to be away from home!!!!!!!