Marge & Gary gave all of us an early combined birthday present: a group ride on Speedy Johnson’s Airboat tour!  This is something I have always wanted to do and felt bad that we didn’t do it when we lived in Florida.  Speedy Johnson’s is located in Everglades City, FL, so we had a 2 hour drive to get there.

The tour itself was great!  The drivers were knowledgeable about the wildlife and they were not afraid to open up on the throttle!  To get to the tour area, we had to travel through a very thick mangrove swamp.  The path was clearly maintained to allow airboats through, but it was narrow enough to add excitement!  My favorite part was when our driver floored the throttle through a tunnel and we broke out into large open water!

Our driver took us straight to a gator, which meant we had a few minutes alone with the gator before 2 other boats showed up.  I got plenty of great photos of the gator since a friend let me borrow her 70-300mm lens.  Check out the pictures and video!

Mobile version of video: Speedy Johnson’s Airboat (Mobile)

Since we are on family vacation in Florida, we decided to do a 3d ultrasound so Anna’s family could witness Zoe first hand.  I’ll let the pictures and video speak for them selves, but we learned today that she looks like her dad (me!), she is stubborn, and likes to hold her hands by her face.  She is 28 weeks along at this point and is due February 12, 2010.

23 minute video: Zoe Marie

As the Program Director for Cincy Reef, I am mostly responsible for organizing the annual frag swap.  We worked really hard to make this our best swap yet and we think it was!  We estimated around 500 people over the course of the day.  The raffles and silent auction went smoothly and there was plenty of hobbyist action on the floor!  We had 11 vendors, plus the Newport Aquarium‘s mobile shark touch tank!  We are already planning for next year, so keep an eye out for the details!

Finally, here are some pictures of my latest coral acquisitions. Some of these are from the swap, some are from prior to the swap since I knew I would be busy.