Check marks on the bucket list

Since we stayed here over the holidays I was determined that I get some of my bucket list items checked off (bucket list being currently in urgent mode seeing as we've hardly done anything in our 4 1/2 years here and we only have 6 months to go).  The second driving factor is that I forget that in a few months I will be cursing the weather and the hot mess I call hair and not want to leave the house to do anything but get in the pool that only requires about 10 steps of effort out my back door.

So over New Year's we met up with some friends (I should call them Our Friends - as in like basically one of the few and far between that actually do anything with us!  So sad they moved).  We did the west side of Florida.  Oh my.  Why didn't I go there before?  Except that then I would want to spend all my money on beach houses going there again and again, and we may have never had our Disney adventures. We went to Naples, Ft. Myers Beach, Sannibel Island, Lovers Key and Marco Island.  BEAUTIFUL sugar-sand beaches, great shelling, and beautiful (almost cool!) weather.  Totally changed my mind about Florida.  I loved it over there. They had the BEST beach houses right on the ocean front.  Sadly, as a last minute idea they were all booked for our trip.  If I was staying here longer I would definitely go oceanfront and splurge on a big ol' beach house with a fire pit overlooking the gulf coast sunsets...

 

Check out this awesome sandcastle!  (Not our doing).  And all the detail!  So cool.

Snowman, Florida style.

Oh look!  There were Other Friends. 

Front row seats for the sunset.  Every night we were there people literally clapped when the sun finally went down.  It cracked us up every time.  Way to go, sun.  Nice show.  Good job on another hard day's work.

Hurray for the New Year!!

It turned out very fitting that we literally watched the sun set on 2012.

And I love the self-taken picture of the dirty, chubby baby feet.

  

    

It was really the most perfect trip we've been on.  We realized that camping with 4 kids = lots of work.  Disneyworld with 4 kids = lots of work.  Beach with 4 kids = actually a relaxing vacation.  We've never been beachy people.  Ryan and I would take the streets of Italy or New York over the Bahamas any day. But now I can see why people are.