Visiting my Peeps in Florida

Lido Beach, Sarasota, FL

Ah, back to Florida. What a wonderful thing, especially at the end of January. When it's cold and wet in Virginia, it's feeling like paradise in the Sunshine State. I feel like it was really a blessing to be able to go. I've of course wanted to visit my mission again, but didn't really see that happening anytime soon, until we bought the business and found out that the annual conference this year was being held out of Tampa. It provided the perfect opportunity to visit my mission with my husband.

We had quite the ordeal getting there. Our plane took off as scheduled from Dulles airport around 8 am; however, about halfway into the flight, they said a brake sensor wasn't working, so they had to go back to Dulles. Now the crazy thing is, we were over halfway to Charlotte, our destination for the first leg of the flight! Chaos ensued when we got back to the airport. Everyone was trying to change their flights to get where they needed to be. We ended up spending the entire day in the airport and flying out at 5:45. Luckily we got a direct flight and it felt so good to be back in Florida!! I loved it. Ryan and I both had very different experiences living in Florida, so he doesn't have as fond of memories as I do of being there.

We arrived in Tampa, rented a car, and drove down to Sarasota. It was my most favorite area of my mission. We stayed with Harold and Barbara Wilson, a couple I taught while I was there, for two nights. It was so fun to visit with them. Friday we went to lunch with Eddie and Donna. They were a couple that it just felt like home to go to their place. I adore them. The rest of that afternoon I took Ryan down to St. Armand's Circle to do some window shopping and walk on the beach. It was in the 60's when we were there, so for the locals, they were all freezing. But for us Northerners, it felt great. The locals were not at the beach that day. :) There's not much better than strolling the beach hand in hand with my true love on some of the most beautiful beaches I've been to. I was grateful to get to share this with Ryan.

Saturday morning we got up and visited Sister Daniel and her family. Allison's family was sick, so they couldn't come, but Bo was there and it was fun to see him again too. The best was to hear that Allison and her husband and the kids and getting ready to go to the temple soon for their sealing! Wahoo! It's awesome. We hit the beach one last time while we were there for a short walk, and then headed back to Tampa just after lunch.

They had had a red tide the day before, which is a type of algae that can occasionally wash in and it kills all the fish. It was crazy trying to walk on the beach and avoid all the nasty rotting fish that speckled the beach.