The "Beach" at last...

We took our annual trip to Florida, in mid-February. After a marathon all night drive from Chattanooga, we arrived at the "beach". Elizabeth's pronunciation is improving, thankfully, so it sounds more like "beach" now. We LOVE Marco Island. It's very peaceful, no crowds (esp in February), and laid back. This year, we stayed on one of the canals, and watched the fish under the dock day and night.


Elizabeth, of course, had a blast. She loved playing in the sand and swimming in the pool, especially the pool at a friend's complex, which was nice and warm. The ocean...not so much...She's terrified of it. She wouldn't even let mommy go in, for fear mommy would get swept away. We're going to have to work on that. She stood, horrified, hanging on to grammy yelling "No, mommy, No! No ocean, no ocean!"

While in Florida, dad took Jeff, Karen, and I to this place called Goodland. "The little drinking village with a fishing problem." Live music (which we never really heard b/c they were setting up for 2 hours), bar food, lots of alcohol, all on a Sunday afternoon. What more can you ask for?

We enjoyed an afternoon on John and Sue Siegfried's boat, and Elizabeth is now quite the seasoned boater. Not timid at all, she ran up and down the boat looking for dolphins, which we saw quite a few of. We tooled around the canal, to say hi to papa, who stayed back at the condo.

After a week hanging out at Marco Island with grammy, papa, and auntie Karen, mommy and daddy headed off for some time on their own. Stayed for a few days at the Hilton Clearwater Beach, quite a nice hotel that nickel-dimes you to death. Luckily we weren't too keen to hang out on the beach, b/c 2 beach chairs were $31/day. We thoroughly enjoyed our sunset cruise on Captain Memo's Pirate Ship, though. Probably a little too much...

On our way home, Jeff and I stayed overnight in Atlanta to have dinner with Ian. We stayed at the Hotel Indigo in Midtown, which is a totally neat old hotel. Went to this great little wine bar called Eno. Spent Saturdayshopping at Ikea, Harry's Farm Market, and Trader Joe's. Luckily we didn't have Elizabeth, as she wouldn't have fit between all the loot.

All in all, we really enjoyed the break from reality. And have been quite productive since returning home.