Sand Key

The first day in Florida we spent at Sand Key beach right outside our condo.  The kids played in the ocean there and then went swimming at the pool towards late afternoon.  They loved getting in the hot tub toward evening.  I have a little over 400 photos from the week, so I am not quite sure how to share these.  This post mostly contains photos from Sand Key.  Shawn joked that he felt like we were on the Truman Show while there.  The whole week everything just fell into place.  The weather station called for rain the whole week.  It only rained one day, and even then by evening time it had stopped.  Family sickness did not occur anytime during vacation.  It peeked its ugly head before and after but never that week.  I had bought a butterfly kite a couple weeks before going to Florida.  I was so bummed on the way to the airport when I realized it hadn’t gotten packed.  When we arrived at the condo Shawn opened a closet door and found a butterfly kite, and I knew God was in the small things of our lives as well as the big.  More “magical” things happened on vacation.  I made a comment to Shawn while in the elevator (It was toward the middle of the week) that you would think we would run into someone on the elevator.  At that point, we hadn’t seen anyone in our condo.  Just after saying these words, the elevator door opened and a delivery lady stepped on.  We never saw anyone on the elevator again that week.  I also prayed for someone on the beach who could take our family photo before going out to eat one evening.  We walked out to the beach and saw a young man.  I walked up to him and asked if he wouldn’t mind taking a photo for us.  He was so happy to help and cheerfully said, “Oh, yeah!  I actually take photography!”  Our last night at dinner there was a musician in the back of the restaurant playing guitar and singing.  She sang a song that Shawn recorded for me during a rainstorm at an amusement park one year when we were dating.  As we stood up to leave later, she began singing “Brown-eyed Girl,” our song in our wedding video.  Vacation was amazing!!  I loved every part of it, from watching the dolphins from our balcony each meal time to catching crabs.  Cody told me the other day, after being back home for several weeks, “Mom, I am never going to forget Florida! One, I never forget a good time.  And, two, I will never forget when we were playing Frisbee out on the beach, and it, instantly, began pouring down rain on us!”  He loved that memory. Who knew?!  The rain came down in buckets, Cody shouted, “Run!”, and I scooped Abigail up and ran for the condo.  We were all drenched and laughing, and I am glad Cody holds that moment close to his heart.  Oh, one last thing before I forget…I saw Dylan playing in the sand one evening.  He shouted to me, “Mommy, I can even write my name with this stick!”  I looked, and he had carefully scratched his name in the sand.  That touched my heart deeply because I had just taught him how to write his name.  He is in kindergarten now, and I could see images of him and me flash in my mind of times when we sat on the sofa or at the kitchen table working hard on shapes, on letters, on facts.  To see his face light up with excitement over his name was such a special thing for me.  These moments will be etched in my mind forever.