About six weeks late

So here are the real pictures from Florida, FINALLY!  I was really wanting to get my blog 100% caught up before I went to Duck Beach so after I could have it all printed off and made into a book buuuuut it doesn't look like that will happen since I just haven't felt up to blogging lately.  We'll see.

So Florida was a totally blast, and totally needed.  On Wednesday night Caroline, Janice, and I flew down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  We got to the condo in Bonita Springs at about 2am and were exhausted, but not too tired for a late night swim in the pool.

We got up early the next morning to go to the beach.  Please note how pasty I am.  All ready for my first sun of the summer.

Day 1: Barefoot Beach

So I don't think I've ever been to the beach before that was on water from the Gulf.  It was seriously the strangest thing not having any waves!  Very confusing.  Caroline suggested we load rafts into the car when we were packing up and I thought, "Um, no one goes on rafts in the ocean but, okay."  Turns out they do when they're on the Gulf.  There were paddle boats, canoes, rafts, etc.  I didn't last too long on the raft, I was too scared of sharks.  I hear they're everyone down there, and considering I get scared in lakes (I know) you can imagine how much time I spent in the water.

I had no idea how much wildlife was just out and about in Florida.

Putting on my Rainbows for the first time in months seriously felt SO GOOD.

So Janice was wearing a tube top bikini and about five minutes into our beach trip on our first day the plastic piece holding it together totally popped off while she and Caroline were in the water.  I went over there to see what was going on.  We seriously had nothing that would help.  Janice wanted me to start walking up and down the beach asking moms if they had a safety pin.  I didn't really want to do that, because who brings safety pins to the beach?  And I thought it would probably just rip the suit.  I told Janice to give me her hair tie to see what I could fashion. I didn't really know what I was going to do, but this is what I came up with, and guess what?  It lasted all day!  I was pretty proud of my MacGyver moment.

Headed back to the condo after a yummy italian dinner.

So I'm pretty sure this was the first time I've ever put on sunscreen in my life.  Being olive complected I just don't really burn, but now that I'm a working girl (and don't live in California where you can lay out year round) I get pretty pasty.  So apparently I'm not very good at getting the sunscreen on evenly...

By Friday we'd picked up Tammy and Adam, who'd flown down at different times.  This is day 2 on Sanibel Island, the shelling capital of the world!  Don't mind Adam, in the middle of a conference call for work, and Caroline studying for a financial test.  It was interesting to see what a hard time it was to transition from the busy city life to relaxation on the beach.  It took me about 24 hours to get in the relax mode.  Our first day on the beach I purposely left my blackberry in the car and after about 10 minutes was totally bored sitting on the beach and went back to get my phone.

I wasn't kidding about the wildlife.

Adam, Janice, Tammy, Caroline, and me.  We ate dinner at the Island Cow.  It was a long wait but so worth it.  We were so hungry and left feeling great!

Janice and Tammy are cousins and are Greek Orthodox.  We had really interesting conversations the whole weekend about our beliefs.  There are a lot of similarities in lifestyle between the two religions.  It was fascinating to hear about the Greeks.

Day 3: Naples

This was my favorite beach/day.  It was Saturday and just beautiful.  We had so much fun.  And I swear my swimming suit isn't as scandalous as it looks.  It is the same style as Caroline, I just had my straps down because I didn't want the funky tan line.

Loved the dolphins everywhere.

Going back to the cheerleading days...

Nice basket toss.

Saturday night Adam and I flew out so this was the last shot of vaca I got.

I had such a great time in Florida.  It was seriously exactly what I needed.  It was so nice to get some color, be in warm weather, drive in a car, and not have to work.  It's crazy once you get out of the city and have nice customer service everywhere you go!  I always say the people of New York are actually pretty friendly, but the customer service is the WORST.  People are so rude, not helpful, and act so put out if you ask them anything.  It was crazy to have people actually act like they don't hate their jobs, and be friendly towards you.

On the plane ride home I had a strange moment that you can only appreciate if you know New York vernacular.  I was talking to the guy I was sitting next to and mentioned to him all the families I noticed while I was waiting "on line."  What?  In case you didn't know, instead of saying waiting "in" line, New Yorkers say "on" line.  I have no idea why and every day when I hear it "next customer waiting on line?" (usually when I'm buying lunch) I always think it sounds so weird.  And now here I was, just saying it casually, as if that's how I always speak.  Weird.

So the strangest part of the whole trip was what happened the next morning when I was in New York.  I got up and was washing my face, getting ready for church, when I noticed my forehead looked a little weird.  It looked, like, big, for some reason.  I started investigating it and thought it just seemed kind of swollen and puffy, and it felt a little strange to touch.  I didn't think it was that noticeable, and thought maybe I was just imagining things.  It wasn't super noticeable, and I thought I would ask Curtis if he thought I looked any differently when I got to church.  So after Sacrament Meeting we were talking for about 10 seconds and before I could even ask he asked me what happened.  So sad.  He said it wasn't that bad but of course he would notice.  I didn't know what to think of it, but felt like later in the day the swelling had gone down a little bit.  Nope.  Monday at work the first thing my coworker asked was what was wrong because the puffiness had spread.  My forehead wasn't as big, but my eyes and bridge of my nose were a little puffy.  That night I iced it and took some Benadryl, and by Tuesday it still was puffy.  I went to the doctor (after doing lots of research online) and he really couldn't give any straight answer.  Basically the conclusion I came up with from what he said, what I read online, and what I heard from other people was that it was some strange allergy or poisoning from the skin.  I guess if you haven't been in the sun for months and then are exposed a lot (like I was for three days straight) this can happy.  Also, lots of people said the Florida sun is different from California sun.  So weird.  I mean, I've laid out in Hawaii, and other parts of the country and have never had anything like this happen.  I'm just happy to say it was back to normal by the end of the week.