Trip to Florida - LPGA PTE (May 12-14)

It was finally time to take my Practical Teaching Evaluation for the LPGA! After 4 semesters of online work, it's now time to fly out to Florida (Daytona Beach) to do the in-person evaluation.

Nothing like starting the day with spilling your milk while trying to pour it into your mug. Sheesh!

And actually, at this point - Bobby is out of town for work and I'm also leaving! Thankfully the boys were able to split up and stay with some friends/neighbors.  I love where we live!

Another dilemma when I get to the airport, the golf travel case would not lock properly!  

Thankfully, I had a band in my golf bag.  Perfect to go around the case nice and tight!

Time for lunch at the airport. I'm always a sucker for anything Asian :-)

Couldn't help myself - must travel with gummy bears. LOL!

And off we go! It feels so weird to be traveling alone:

  And it's raining in Orlando:

And phew, talk about humid stepping off that plane!

Cool mosaic on the floor while waiting for the train to luggage:

Ahhhh, the luxury of being a pet!

Finally got to my rental car!

OMG, took me a few minutes to try and figure out this car.  The gear change is on the side like the indicator. These new cars are getting too complicated!

The view from the top is rather cool though!

The speed indicator is projected on the windshield. It was rather distracting!  So glad I figured out how to get rid of it:

Thankfully traffic wasn't too bad to Daytona Beach.  This place must be like a zoo during the Daytona 500:

Made it!

OMG, the amount of bugs on the golf course.  Can you see them on the cover of my golf bag??

Finally time!  Thankfully we had a entire/full day of practice - being a student, teacher, and also an evaluator.

So the test consist of two 30-minute lessons - one for short game (chipping/pitching, putting, or bunker) and one for long game. All the students were volunteers from the Cranes Lake GC community.  Thankfully mine weren't too bad!  

Another part of my trip was also catching up with an old friend, Lisa.  So glad to see her after 20 years!

We were actually able to grab 2 meals together - dinner and then lunch the next day. Yum!

She even took me on a little tour to find manatees.  Well, we spotted some manatee poop first. LOL!

And the manatee "foot prints", as they call it:

There is it!! 

Maybe if I moved to Florida, I would get one of these mailboxes too :-)

Lisa drove me along the Canaveral seashore. Look at that tiny strip of land!

Okay... nudes on the beach coming up soon!!

I'm glad I didn't see any in and around the rest of the drive.  Ha ha!

Watch out for that turtle!!

I had to take this photo for Graham :-P

Atlantic ocean!!

Always time for ice-cream. And yes, I do believe that Ice Cream Solves Everything!

After 3 days in Florida, it's finally time to head home.  And I felt more stressed after than before the evaluation!! Why do we have to wait 2 weeks for the results??!

A quick view of downtown Chicago from the airplane:

Etihad Airways!!

Flight would have been quicker if it wasn't for this storm cell. Ha!

Well, after 2 weeks of anticipation, the results finally came in.  And I passed!! Phew! I think I was more relieved than anything.  Really did not want to do the re-take, although it would have just been the video uploads versus going back to Florida. I did hear it would have been another $500 though, so I'm glad there was no re-take!  

I'm now officially an LPGA Class A member. YAY!! :-)