April 2009 LDS Single Adult Conference in Destin Florida

This beautiful sunrise is the view from my hotel in Destin, FL, The Emerald Grande. Also it was the location for the LDS Gulf Coast Single Adult Conference I attended this past weekend.

Last weekend I was in beautiful Destin, FL for an LDS single Adult Conference, It was amazing! It was beautiful, spiritual and tons of fun. I made so many new friends and enjoyed re-connecting with the friends there that I already knew. I took almost 300 pictures of the things my friends and I did, so there will be a bunch on here. But not all of them. :) It's going to be hard for me to decide which ones I want to upload. WARNING VERY LONG POST!!! GORGEOUS PHOTOS AT THE BOTTOM, PLEASE READ ENTIRE POST. :)

This is the back of the hotel where you can see the two towers, east on the left and west on the right. My condo was on the 10th floor in the West Tower.

If you count down 2 balconies ours is 1 more below that on the left side of the photo. I think there were 12 floors in the hotel. The view was just amazing, I could see so far.

This view of the pool and Captains deck is from my friend David's condo. The Captains deck, in the back by the lighthouse is where we had the dance on Friday night.

This was the fabulous view out a window of the ballroom where the classes were Saturday morning. It was so hard to sit and concentrate on what was being said when the beach was right out the windows. The classes were wonderful, uplifting & spiritual. I took many things from them and will incorporate them into to my life. :)

The park where we ate our lunch.

My wonderful friend David took this picture of me. He dared me to jump into the water from the wall we were sitting on. So I did! Then he said, "Now swim." So I dove right into the water. It was refreshing. I said not to dare me because if he did I would do it! It was gorgeous outside and the water felt great. I jumped in the bay in my clothes, it was so much fun! Too bad I was by myself. Everyone else should have joined me.

This is the group that went on our parasailing trip. Left to right there is Lynn, Connie, Maxon, Rhonda, Doug, Amy-me, Vladimir, David & Nicole. We were the Fearless 9. This is the before shot we wanted. If we didn't return they would know who to notify. HAHA :) We all made it back safe and alive!

This is Doug posing on the bow of the boat. Our hotel is in the background, and the bridge over to Okaloosa Island. The open water was so pretty.

This is my friends Rhonda and Maxon on the boat ready to go parasailing.

This is David in his GQ pose on the bow. We all took turns being silly with a beautiful background. I was telling him to work the camera, so I snapped some great shots. It was fun, I almost felt like a professional photographer. I actually had that thought. It would be cool to be hired to take the photos for trips like this, or videos. I could make some good money doing that during the summer months.

OK, here I am in my model pose. We had a blast sitting up on the bow of that boat, the wind was blowing as we watched our friends sail 800 feet up in the air.

They were telling me to work it, and I kept laughing while I was trying to pose, so this is one of my laughing really hard.

This is Vladimir doing GQ his posing. He looked deep in thought.

Here I am in all my get-up ready to go parasailing. David is sitting next to me and Nicole is behind me. They put us in these harnesses and life jackets, so they can attach us to the bar that holds the parachute. And we were given specific instructions on how to sit with the harness on, so that we don't get hurt.

Doug and I are all hooked to the bar, and the parachute. We were getting some last instructions and then we were ready to fly!

Oh my heck, here we go! Oh Wow, what a rush!!! I felt my stomach go right to my feet. The boat kept getting farther and farther away. And we were going higher and higher. Oh wow, is all I can say. It was absolutely breathtaking up there. We could see for miles. It was so quiet up there, just us and the air. As we were up there we noticed something in the water, and it was the tide going out, it was cool to be able to tell when that was happening.

I took something special up to throw off into the water, as part of a release for the rest of my life. I give myself to Him, and to whatever He wants me to do with my life, and who He wants me to be with. When the time is right He will send him to me, I promise to be patient and allow the Lord to work in my life more than He already is.

Here we go higher and higher...

And even higher still... 800 feet up in the sky over the bay in Destin.

Here we come ready for our dip into the ocean. Oh is it going to be cold? I don't know if we should do it...Oh why not DO IT! DIP US! :)

In we go! It wasn't so cold, it was nice. I was still a little wet from my jump into the bay earlier.

It was so fun, I was kicking the water as we were lifted again into the air. Now when we were out of the water it was a little cool, since we were wet and the wind was blowing.

We are now out of the dip, and back in to the air. I wanted to go back into the water, it was so nice, and refreshing.

We made it back, almost there and we are still alive. YEAH! What an awesome experience. I can't wait to do this again. SOON!!!

I am not sure what I was laughing about. But we had so much fun up there, it was great. Doug is from Las Vegas. He is moving to this area next year to work, and so he came to the conference to check it out here.

This is David and Rhonda, and it was funny a jet took off, and passed above them while they were floating in the air. After they came back we were joking that the air plane was going to hit them. But of course it wasn't going to, it was so much higher that they were. It was just a fun joke.

This is Nicole and Maxon. Nicole looks like she is freaking out. I am not sure if she wants to go through with this.

They went up too, and this was a neat picture with the sailboat under them.

This is Vladimir and Connie. Off they go too! Up, up and away!

Vlad and Connie are really high. I zoomed all the way out so I could get this cool perspective of the distance.

I really liked this sailboat. It looked almost like it was going to tip over, but I know that is just how they turn. That would be fun to ride on one of them sometime.

They played some really great music while we were on the boat, so Rhonda and I got up and danced for everyone!

Here I am again, more dancing. Vladimir is also enjoying the music.

While we were on our way back to the dock, I decided to get up on the bow of the boat and pretend like I was on the Titanic. I put my arms out and yelled, "I am the King of the world!" The wind was blowing really hard since we were driving pretty fast, and it felt great!

You can see the wind is blowing my swim suit strap in the air. I was laughing as Rhonda was taking my picture. I was having an absolute blast!

As we were walking back to the hotel, we saw these pelicans hunting around for stray fish from the fishing boats. We walked right past all the places where the deep sea fishing trips were back with all their catch. We saw some really big fish, but also some really gross leftovers after they cut them up.

This is the private beach for our hotel. The hotel is in the background, and on the other side of the rise behind the umbrellas is a little inlet that separates the hotel from the beach. We laid in the sun for about 20 minutes and just enjoyed the quiet and the warmth.

I love to take pictures of the water. It wasn't very nice looking today, but I like the waves. I like to take the ones right as the wave is breaking.

I drew this heart in the sand at the beach. I was going to put a name in it, but as I was getting ready to do it, the water started to take it away, so I had to click the picture. This has a significance to me. As I was leaving on Sunday I felt like I left my heart in Destin. I felt as if I was leaving my home. I have never experienced anything like this before! I didn't want to leave. It is such a beautiful place, and I had such a wonderful time, I didn't want to leave. I have some memories of this trip and conference that will be with me forever! I hopefully will be back to this area very soon.

One of the men that spoke to us on Saturday at the classes said to come get sand in our toes, and make sure to come back again. So here is the sand in my toes, and I will DEFINITELY be back! I fell in love with this place this weekend. I want to move here, not necessarily to live on the beach, but I want to live closer than I do now. Right now I am 3.5 hours from here, which is a small distance, but the distance will not keep me away. My first time to Destin was in October 2008, and I never knew this place was even here. A wonderful part of Florida, gorgeous white sandy beaches, and beautiful blue water (most of the time, but not right now with all the rain we've been getting).

Here I am posing in front of our hotel on the beach. I am not good at striking a pose, so this is it. :)

Rhonda snapped this one while I was playing with my hair. I almost took it down, but it was so windy, I didn't. Oh and we were trying to keep the port-a-potty hidden, and it looks like I missed, and it's right on the side of my head. We were having so much fun.

My wonderful friend Rhonda, posing for me in front of the hotel. The workers were getting everything packed up so the umbrellas weren't open. We had some fun with them too.

This is Cheryl, one of our room mates. We spent time together during the afternoon, and she came with us to the beach.

After we got back from the beach, we got ready for dinner and the dance. We had dinner at the SanDestin Church building, and the dance and activities were there too. Dinner was great! Thank you to all who provided food for us for this conference. This is some of the dance photos. This one has Vladimir in it on the right.

David and I were taking pictures of each other, and so here is one of each. I got his during the day...

And he got mine on the beach at the bonfire on Saturday night.

David took this picture of Kay, Debbie and me at the beach. Debbie, David and I were playing in the water, running up and down the beach. Then running into the surf, and having a great time at the beach in the dark. The stars were so bright, and as we were sitting listening to some of the devotional David and I both saw a shooting star at the same time. It was so amazingly beautiful out there. It was a new moon so there was no moonlight out. The spirit was so strong as testimonies were being said.
A gentleman that was out on the beach with his family came up and spoke to us a little bit, it was great. Also, some of the others in our conference got up and bore their testimonies, since the testimony meeting wouldn't be long enough for everyone to get up. We had a bonfire on the beach and I have never seen anything like it, it was so awesome!

The sun has set over Destin at the close of a wonderful day. I had a great time here, and can't wait to return again. Looking forward to the next time I can come back and visit the beauty of these beaches. Au Revoir, Destin till next time! :)

The wonderful sunset picture was taken by my great friend David.

Some of the other pictures in this post were done by Rhonda Wolverton and David Simmons, well and me of course. I wanted to give credit where it is due. These two others are very good photographers, and took photos of me when I couldn't take them of myself.