Orlando trip

12-3-07 Right after the T-day holiday, I had to get ready for a conference in Orlando where I was speaking at the Medical Fitness Assoc. conference on, guess what? Exergaming! ;-) While there, I was able to visit with some friends from college that I hadn't seen in over 20 years! I also worked on a project for my academy alma mater, Andrews Acad., with a PE teacher from there, John Reichart. We're looking at putting in a new fitness center in the mezzanine in the gym, so he came down to look at all the equipment in the trade show.

Guess who we would run into but another AA alum, Daron Zimmerman? He was known as one of the fastest students, ever, at AA. Fortunately, he attended my presentation and I had him do my Xavix Dash demo, which he did very well at. (Darron is on the left, John on the right).

One of the keynote speakers was Dr. Dot Richards, the Olympic gold medalist in softball. She was a very motivational speaker and also is the Vice Chair for the President's Challenge.
Speaking of challenges, one of the new exergames unveiled at the tradeshow was the Neos. They were giving away a Nano to the highest score every hour! Fortunately, after a few tries, I was able to win a Nano, being presented here to me by some Neos VIP. Of course, since Summer and I already have Nanos, guess who's getting this in her stocking??? (And it's the video Nano, too!)
I left the conference on Fri. afternoon to spend some time with friends before leaving Sat. night. The first friend I met up with was Cletus George. He looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him back at Andrews University in '88! We had a good time, albeit short, catching up.
After visiting with Cletus, my trusty GPS directed me to Tisha and Dennis Aguila's place. Tisha's sister, Tiffany, also came over for supper and then after everyone went to bed, we stayed up talking and catching up on over 10 year's worth of stuff till 3:00 AM! We could've kept on going but I was starting to zone out.
Tisha and Jenna. "Mom, why are you playing with my hair?"
Is this what they mean when , "You're in the dog house."? No, they don't punish Jenna and Jordan this way.
My hosts before I left--the Aguila family: Tisha, Dennis (psst! hoy!), Jordan, and Jenna. Uncle Elmo says, "Thanks for letting me stay in your pink Hello Kitty room!" Since Summer's room is also a shrine to Hello Kitty, I felt right at home.
Saturday AM, I was able to sqeeze in a visit to my cuz (2nd cousin) Eric Cadiente, Lori, and his 2 boys. It was great catching up because like the others, I hadn't seen him since the 80's. And their oldest is in his 20's. Yikes! I last saw him as an 1 year old infant at a friend's funeral. It was great reliving our college days, especially telling his boys how bad an influence his dad was! LOL! My memory must be going because Eric had to fill in the missing details from our "cruise" in Ferdie's red 928....I can't believe we did that! LOL!
After visiting with the Cadiente's, I zipped over to church to catch the sermon and afterwards, met Dan Tambunan and his family.
After church, we (along with a good number of the Forest Lake Church) ended up at Sweet Tomatos, the other name for Souplantation! Again, I felt right at home.
I flew back later that afternoon, and got back to CA around 11 Pm that night. The very next day, we had a swim meet and of course, afterwards, where do we have to go? Yup! Souplantation! Here's our shot with the swimmers. Nothing like Souplantation to satisfy your ravenous appetite after all that swimming!