Anna Maria

Greetings from Anna Maria Island in Florida! On Saturday we trekked out to the airport and made our way from the middle of the country to a coastal section of the country. It's good to be by the beach again.

So far, so good. We are loving the beauty of Florida. The colors are lovely, especially the amazing variations in the water. Blues, whites, greens, teals - all surrounded by green flora and amazingly white sand. And the sand here..... it's as soft as powdered sugar! The shells and bits of ground up shells make it much more rough, but the sand itself is lovely! The gulf coast beach water is as warm as bath water. It's so completely different from the Pacific ocean. You actually want to be in the water here, and your feet don't slowly succumb to hypothermia.

We rented a little bungalow in Holmes Beach on Anna Maria Island. We are two blocks from the ocean one way, and I think it's 3 in the other direction. Our place has a pool in the back yard, which has officially transformed us into the best parents ever, according to the kids. They are having so much fun. It's much easier to watch them and swim with them in a private pool versus the public pools in our town (not to mention we don't have to deal with all the nasty chlorine). Not having the life jackets has also been good, as the kids' confidence and swimming abilities have improved. Brandon especially. Caitlin is our fish, but Brandon has taken to jumping off one end of the pool and swimming underwater as much as he can to to the other side of the pool. They just love having a pool. We've noticed that Caitlin gets all whiny when we take her away from the water, either the pool or the beach. We've also noticed she's exhausted at the end of the day and is asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow. Score!

Now that we've lived in Colorado, land of no moisture, for 3 years, my ability to handle humidity has gone waaayyyy downhill. The almost 70% humidity levels we're experiencing here make the mild 85 degree weather feel 7-10 degrees hotter. We notice that the heat rises as we leave the island, and we feel hotter and stickier away from the beach breezes. I've heard it's better for my skin, though, and I don't feel the need to slather on lotion all the time. Floridians must just get use to the weather eventually. I mean, my parents aren't nearly as bothered by the central valley heat as I am, so one can only conclude that you get use to weather you live in. Eventually. I'm glad we have A/C in our rental house. I'm not sure I'd last a whole week here without it. This might be the most humid place I've ever been. It feels the same in the water as it does out of the water. And it's can feel hard to take a deep breath at times, despite the higher amounts of oxygen here than what we're use to.

Brian is cooking a yummy dinner, so I'm going to sign off now and get to setting the table. I'm sure we'll either head out to the beach after dinner, or head back into the pool. I'll post pictures after we get home so you can share in the beautiful sights of Florida.