A Walk

I know that I've disappeared, but nothing has really been going on. So I just decided to ignore the fact that I've been missing forever and pick up from today. I don't know how long I'll be around this time, but I can promise that I'll be back more frequently!

This evening after I left work at 6 p.m. I decided to walk from my work to the Friendship Heights Metro station. I neglected to think about the fact that at 6 p.m. it gets dark REALLY quickly or that at that hour not as many people are coming home from work. So I headed out and was moving rather quickly. I managed to do the walk in about 45 minutes (its a 2.3 mile walk so Google Maps tells me) and felt really good by the time I arrived.

On my walk I noticed that the pine trees were starting to really smell good and totally puts me in the mood for a snowy night, a fire, and a cup of hot chocolate. I'm really excited for this winter for no apparent reason now!!!! I can't wait to decorate for Christmas (especially since it seems I won't be going home) and get in the holiday spirit!

My boyfriend and I also purchased train tickets to go visit my sister in PA for Thanksgiving!!! I am really excited about this trip since it'll be a trial run for my bf and I taking the train together. We'll only be up there for three days or so, but my family is getting together at my cousins house for the actual holiday meal. Really looking forward to the time away too!!

Hope everyone is doing well and still checking in with me!

Just has to congratulate Kater!!!

4th and 5th Days

Tuesday morning Tom and I woke up super early and went for a walk down to the local Starbucks. We grabbed our coffees and headed back to the house. No one else really got up till around 9 so we had bowls of cereal and tried to decide what to do with the rest of our day.

Once everyone else got up we all threw on bathing suits and went down to the beach. We hung around down there for a few hours (I found a ton of shells snorkeling along the edge of the surf). We decided to do lunch out at the same restaurant we had gone to for brunch the first day we came into town. We had a nice relaxing lunch and then decided that we would all split up. Tom's mom, sisters, and I went shopping at some of the local shopping centers and just hung out together. Tom, his dad, and brother went to the grocery store to pick up supplies for dinner (homemade individual pizzas) and then came home. It was a nice relaxing day and night with no big eventfulness!


That brings me to this morning : Wednesday

We woke up this morning with plans to originally go parasailing (cannot tell you how much I obessesd about that out of nervousness), but discovered that there were no more times left until noon. The boys and Tom's youngest sister all had plans to do a boat tour at one so that was out. We ended up renting waverunners which was a lot of fun (I was totally nervous about that too!). The water was a little choppy, but Tom made sure I felt safe and we had a lot of fun. We came back to the house and I rested and read my book (Time Traveler's Wife) while everyone else headed off for the tour. Tom's mom and older sister were out at some gallery so when they came home we went down to the beach together. I think everyone is basically caught up now!!! I'll blog again as soon as possible and I've taken a bunch more pics with my camera phone. I'll upload those pics when I can.

3rd Day : Monday

Monday morning I slept in and woke up to find that everyone (I found out later Tom's siblings were still here) was gone. I looked on both the front and back porches and when I still hadn't found anyone I ran across the street to the beach. I found Tom's parents walking along together, but decided to take a short walk down the beach by myself in the opposite direction. I ended up walking only a short distance before seeing this GIANT bird (identified a short time later as a Blue Heron) that was just walking along the edge of the water about three feet from a guy fishing on the shore.

I was curious about jellyfish and the local fish that swim around here (not to mention the GIANT bird that the guy barely seemed to notice) so I started up a conversation. I asked the guy if it was normal that the bird was that close and he informed me that the "Blue Heron" is a beggar and knows that the fisherman are the guys with the food. He also told me they are lazy and would rather wait for someone to feed them. I asked about the jellyfish (he said they aren't normally around at this time of year) and about some local fish (he was fishing for Snook). I continued walking for a little while looking for various shells and then noticed Tom come down to the beach. I walked back to meet and him and found that he had gone for a job.

We (Tom, myself, and his siblings) had decided the previous day that we would bike to the local movie theater to go see "The Ugly Truth." Now, we had clocked this ride at 10 miles when we went over there the day before, but it had not occurred to any of that a bike ride at one in the afternoon might not be the brightest decision we've ever had. We had decided to go to the movie to avoid being out in the sun the whole afternoon. HA HA HA HA!!!! VERY FUNNY!!! Because the whole of the bike ride was in the sun. Thank the Lord we had all slathered on sunscreen like it was going to save our lives because we basically ROASTED in the sun. I apparently had put on just the right amount because I never burned and my tan darkened nicely. The movie was funny (although a little crude). We all walked out of the nicely air conditioned theater and resumed our 10 mile bike ride back to the house.

I have resumed my new workout plans for when I get home with reckless abandon because I can honestly say that not once on the trip did I have to stop because I was having trouble breathing. I stopped because I was hot and needed water ;) Did I mention our bikes had the cutest little baskets on the front? Anyway, we got back to the house and basically did nothing. We were all too hot and sweaty to go back out into the sun.

We all helped make a homemade dinner of spaghetti with a some zucchini and squash in the sauce and garlic bread. It was delicious!!! Afterwards we all either read, watched tv, or basically headed right to bed.

It was a great (although extremely hot) day!

2nd Day : Sunday

Tom's older sister and I were actually trying to figure out a church service to go to because there were a few that looked good. We ended up staying up late and his sister, A, didn't get up in time. I, on the hand, was awake at 6:30 in the morning. We got up and went out to the back of the hosue and down the path that leads to the bay side of the island. We watched the sun come up while sitting on the dock. It was gorgeous and afterwards we walked over to the beach and walked along the gulf. It was a nice relaxing morning.

Tom and I talked to his mom and then went for coffee at a local Starbucks. We were supposed to find a "local" grocery store, but could never actually find it and ended up back at the General Store. We bought milk, cereal, and a few other random things we might need. Tom and I headed back to the house and had a bowl of cereal and waited for everyone else to wake up.

Everyone got into their bathing suits and we all went back down to the beach for a little while. Afterwards, we "kids" decided to go find a bike rental place that was down the street from the hosue we're staying in. The place wasn't too far and we each got our own bikes to ride (the girls bikes have baskets!!!) and rode back to the house. I was determined that we could bike everywhere after that moment, but the next day was to prove me wrong about that.

We went out with Tom's mom and siblings to the real grocery store and found all the necessities for making sandwiches and a few dinners. We came back to the house and made sandwiches for lunch and basically hung out for the rest of the afternoon. Whatever everyone wanted to do was what they did. Some went to the pool, some went to the beach, some took a nap (anyone else thinks this sounds like "This little piggy"?). It was a nice relaxing afternoon.

We made barbeque chicken and broccoli for dinner and stayed in for the evening too! We watched the sun set over the Gulf which was absolutely beautiful!!!

Florida Day by Day

I promised myself that I would blog about this trip so that I wouldn't forget anything and so that my family could read about it instead of me trying to remember everything. Not to mention repeating the story to about 10 different family members. I'm here until Thursday (today is Tuesday) so I'm not quite finished with my vacation yet. But I figured I would do the days a little at a time.

Day 1 : Saturday

Tom and I got up at the crack of dawn to load up the car and get ready to leave for our flight. Thankfully, I was already completely packed and just had to get myself ready. We left our house around 7 a.m. and headed out to the airport. We made it through baggage check and security (and the airport breakfast at McDonald's) with only about fifteen minutes until our flight. We found Tom's family at our gate and got in line to board with them. The plane was PACKED, but thankfully we found seats together. The flight was uneventful and I read/slept most of the way. We landed in Fort Myers, grabbed our baggage, got the rental cars, met up with Tom's sister and brother (who were on a different flight that landed about one hour after us) and we were off to the island.

It took us about 30 minutes to find the road that would lead us out onto Sanibel Island. Tom, his sister, brother, and I were all in the convertible (could you ask for a better car at the beach?). Tom's parents were driving in an SUV with Tom's younger sister. We all decided that stopping for lunch before we got to the house. We stopped at a cute little restaurant for brunch. Everyone hopped back in the car and we were finally on our way to the house. We are staying in an attached house, but the neighbors are VERY nice and we cannot hear them at all through the walls.

The house is beautiful. The whole house is beachy. I'll try and take some photos and blog them (Tom brought is camera), but we'll see if I remember to do that.

We all figured out which bedrooms would be ours and immedietely dug into our suitcases, located our bathing suits, and headed down to the beach. The water was WARM!!! Probably warmer than any bath I have ever taken. How warm was it? Warm enough that it felt better to get out of the water than to be in it. We hung out down at the beach for awhile then headed back up to the house to shower and change. We all realized fairly quickly that we were going to have to invest a small fortune in sunscreen since we went through almost an entire bottle in one afternoon.

After everyone cleaned up we went out in search of dinner. About three miles up the road from us is a little General Store. Attached to that was a restaurant that, by appearances, looked like it would serve burgers and beer. Once inside the restaurant we realized that it was a lot nicer than we had thought. The manager told us that it would be about 15 minutes till we could have a table. We noticed later that there was an occupancy limit on the place of 24 people and we would have pushed them over the limit. The manager offered us a glass of wine or beer and said that we could take it down to the beach if we wanted. We all accepted a drink of some sort and decided just to hang out at the bar they had. We checked the menu and realized even further what a nice restaurant we were at. Once seated at the table we immedietely ordered our food. It was DELICIOUS!!!! Everything was beautifully displayed and delicious to eat. We all shared bites of our food with each other.

We stopped at the little General Store after dinner and picked up a few snacks and necessities to have at the house until we could get to a grocery store. We headed back to the house and everyone relaxed with books or TV until we all slowly trickled away to bed.

FLORIDA!!!

I have never been to Florida before.....NOW!!!! Woo hoo!!! My boyfriends family was nice enough to invite me on their family vacation to Sanibel and Captiva Islands on the Gulf side of Florida. If you haven't been I strongly suggest you add it to the "places to be seen" list! It's beautiful and peaceful. It's known for finding shells just laying all over the beach. There are turtle nests everywhere right now (unfortunetly they aren't supposed to hatch for another 45 days). It's just amazingly cool!!!

I took a few photos with my cell phone (still haven't replaced the broken digital camera).