Mike and I celebrated our 23rd Wedding Anniversary last weekend!!! Wow, I love this man with my whole heart! Love works in strange ways because I thought back on our wedding day that I couldn't love him more. Somehow, today I do! God blessed us and we birthed four healthy babies! God's been good to us and we have a thriving marriage after all those years! It's because of God's mercy and love and peace and joy that we really love doing life side by side. When rough patches come, we talk. We pray. We talk some more. We agree sometimes. Sometimes we think differently. At the end of the day, we move on! God helps us! It's all because of HIM!!!!
We planned a weekend getaway weeks ago and booked a flight to Florida! We love, love Florida and couldn't wait to stay on Anna Maria Island for the first time. We've toured and visited this area before but never stayed there! This time we are!!! We were excited!
When my dad got admitted to the hospital, Mike and I questioned if we should still go on our trip? We asked my parents and they said to go. I asked a few friends and they said the same thing. Mike wanted to go but said it was up to me. I hate decisions like this but decided to keep all the arrangements in place. We would go and be back the night of dads surgery.
When dad's surgery got pushed back from Thursday to Monday I wasn't happy. I was hoping surgery would happen before we leave. Then it was rescheduled for Monday and I thought well, we will be back that night. Then when I got the call on Friday, right after landing in Florida, I was told that Dad's heading into surgery any minute. Too late to do anything but cry.
Mike was so patient with me as I cried and tried to grab my belongings on the airplane. I was on the phone with Dad as I was walking off the airplane. He was upbeat, nervous but ready to go forward. I was too. I sat on the side of the parking lot just crying and thinking this all through and concluded that God's got this whole thing in His hands and in His timing!
We drove to our cute AirBNB home and then drove off to find something to eat. The island has a really good, cute taco place that makes the best food! We stopped in here every day we were there. Sometimes we ordered tacos or sometimes just warm tortilla chips and guacamole, salsa and crushed jalapeños. Just delicious!
We took a short walk out to the beach and saw we were not the only northerners on the beach!
There are piers going out in the water and we walked out to hear some music, sipped on iced tea and awed at the sunset.
Our island ride was sweet too!
We got a call later that night that surgery went longer than expected but Dad's OK!
We ate breakfast at a restaurant right in town. Such good avocado toast!
I loved seeing all the seagull feet prints in the sand!
Cold plunges are the rave right now and I had mentioned it to the kids at New Years that we should cold plunge into the river at the cabin. They didn't think so. I chicken outed. On the beach, it wasn't that warm but we were walking along the water. It felt so cold against our toes but I wanted to plunge! With all the heart talk with Dad, I knew it would be good for me! I told Mike that I'm going in the ocean water. Not stopping! He took a video and off I ran into the cold, salt water! Before I knew it, Mike was jumping in too! It actually wasn't as cold as I though it would be. It felt good in a weird way. We walked back to our house and warm showers felt wonderful! We had another round of chips and salsa with greens!
Here are the steps that we sat at on Friday night when my brother John Micheal called with the doctors report on Dad's surgery. Brother had us on speaker phone so we could hear for ourselves everything the doctor repaired inside of Dad! It's gestures like this that helped me being so far away from home. Thanks family for doing this for us!
We ate a nice dinner each night but here we are on our anniversary night! We ate lots of seafood, Grouper, shrimp and tacos!!!!! The weather was nice when we arrived but got a bit cooler after each day. We hugged the back porch on Sunday to get as much warm sun rays on our northern bodies as we could!
I had my eye out for an outdoor farmers market! I love these and Mike and I have walked through some of them hand in hand in Florida the past few years. When we saw a line up of tents along the water one morning, we swung by and found one!!!! There is a company that has THE BEST guacamole and pineapple salsa at a market in downtown Sarasota! I was so excited to see their foods here! Yep, we grabbed a container of the guac and pineapple salsa and then drove to our favorite warm tortilla restaurant for chips! So yummy!
We were excited to watch another Chiefs playoff game in the south! We put our game gear on, ate salsa and chips and called to talk to Dad before game time! Go chiefs!
It's another win!!!! The Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl!!!!
There was a French bakery not far from our AirBNB and it was delicious!
Had to FaceTime Austin during the Chiefs game too!!!!
And here is the huge crepe from the bakery!
We were only a few steps away from the beach! Amazing views!
Last year, Mike and I drove down to the island a few times for breakfast and we came across this diner we liked. It's a narrow diner, filled with customers and yummy breakfast potatoes. The counter was lined up with tons of different hot sauces. Mike wanted to find this diner again this year and after driving around for some time, we found it again! We ordered breakfast and Mike tried hot sauce. He asked the waitress if he could purchase one of the hot sauce bottles. He really liked it. She said that they can't sell him one but the guy that actually makes it is at the diner right then too. He's from Tennessee and could take Mike's order. So funny! The guy came up to us, Mike placed an order for five hot sauce bottles, paid, shook hands and down deal. The sauces got delivered to our house yesterday! So cool!
We packed up our bags and headed back home on Monday. We were ready to see the children again! We were so ready to go visit Mom and Dad in the hospital! We were ready to get back to real life! Time away with just Mike and I are always refreshing, fun and special! Our 23rd Wedding Anniversary trip was sweet, teary, heart tugging and fun all in one package! I love my husband more today than I did back 23 years ago! I don't know how that all works ... because I was head over heals about him back then! Now it's 100 Xs more! Love works like that! I'll treasure these moments for forever!
I love you, BABE! ❤️
