Postcard from Marco Island

I just got back from a glorious four-day trip to the beach where I felt like a newlywed all over again. 
Mr. Right had a conference in Marco Island, Florida, and I happily hitched a ride with him and turned it into a mini vacation. Emphasis on the vacation – I did almost nothing but lie on the beach, lie by the pool, sip diet coke and soak up some new books. 
And write. Every morning I took my laptop down to the pool and hashed out pages of my new novel. Did I mention that I finally got the nerve to start the novel I’ve been day dreaming about for years? It’s absolutely terrifying and I’m not yet ready to divulge much about it, but it’s also exhilarating and a bit dangerous – in a good way – to finally sit down and pour out my thoughts onto paper and see where it all ends up. Who knows where that will be.
In the afternoons Mr. Right would join me (laptop-free this time) on the beach or by the pool for more sitting and doing absolutely nothing. I never just sit and do nothing at my house, so this made me over the moon happy. Besides, Mr. Right looks even dreamier while hanging out at the beach.

Two of our evenings were filled with conference obligations (which we enjoyed, the people there were a lot of fun), but one night we had all to ourselves, and Mr. Right cooked up a little plan to wow me right there in Florida. We got takeout Chinese food for dinner (he called it the “best bad chinese food” on the island), and we had a picnic on the dock of a yacht club, watching the sun set into the ocean as we dangled our feet in the water.
It was quite romantic.
And then we topped everything off with ice cream. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Our trip also allowed me to cross TWO items off my summer bucket list
1. Dip my toes in the ocean. This photo shows my toes in the sand, right next to the ocean. The picture of my toes in the ocean makes my toes look funny. And I’m a girl and I don’t want you to see my toes looking funny (I think it’s something about water reflecting light and making things look distorted? I should have listened in junior high science class.). So here are my toes in the sand. But trust me when I tell you that I not only dipped these toes in the Gulf, but I swam all the way to my shoulders. You see, I don’t like to get my hair wet. Even for special occasions like bucket lists.
2. Take a moonlit walk on the beach. We put this off to the last night there (because the other two nights we were in food comas from so much dessert), and on that night it rained. But I couldn’t let a little rain (and mild lightening… mama, I promise it was very mild) stop me, and so we took a moonlit walk on the beach, in the rain. It was like something straight out of the Notebook. It was also my favorite part of the whole trip – standing in the dark, barefoot on the beach, listening to the waves and kissing in the rain.
I wish I had gotten a photo of it, but it would have looked like this:
So instead I’ll leave you with this – an almost equally bad picture of us enjoying dessert, just the two of us, right before our rainy moonlit walk. The quality of the photo may be poor, but it’s a good reminder of a special date filled with big conversations and lot’s of chocolate cake.

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