we're back.

Whew! Long time, no see. Well actually, not for you I guess. Thanks to Blogger's handy dandy scheduling feature, you didn't even know that we were gone last week, did you? We were fortunate enough to spend all of last week basking in the sun on the beach in Florida. Ahhhhh..... I've been wishing all day long that I was still there. I have loads of stuff to catch up on, including 570 photos from the trip. That's right, I said 570. Our friends Aaron, Kathy, Clint & Brieanna traveled with us all the way down to Fort Myers Beach were we spent our time in the sun, swimming, drinking and so much more that I don't even know where to begin.

The beautiful sky on the way down:

This place is very special to us. Our relatives own a house directly on the beach there that they rent out to people. Lucky for us, they let us stay for free whenever we want. So, this was our third time there. The last time we went was in 2006 when Brian proposed to me. Right on this very beach, so it will always hold a special place in our hearts. And we were so happy to get to go to our special place on our anniversary!

We did so much last week, but freshest in my mind is of course our first wedding anniversary that we celebrated last Monday. Brian and I snuck away from the gang for a crazy romantic evening together. First we ate dinner at the most gorgeous restaurant, right on the beach:

Our table was litterally on a patio over the ocean. It was incredibly romantic. And then the sun started to set:

Then we headed back to the house... where our wedding cake was waiting for us. Yep, we brought our top tier of wedding cake with us to Florida so that we could eat it on our acutal anniversary and I couldn't imagine it any other way. It was SOOOOOOOOOO good! We actually couldn't even get over how good it was. Delish! We got back from dinner and sat outside on the beach with our cake, champagne and presents for each other:

Here is Brian reading the book that I made him. He loved it. :)

First he gave me an envelope. Inside was a letter that he wrote to me, and a poem he wrote to me, wiht all sorts of photos of us around them. It was the absolute sweetest thing ever. I still can't get over that one. Sadly the gift that he got for me was too large to take on the plane, so he took a picture of it to show me. He got me a Sugarboo frame!!!! I have wanted one forever, but could never spend the money on one. And the kicker, he found one with the E.E. Cummings poem that we had in our wedding programs on it! :) It was the absolute perfect gift. Here is a picture of it from the Sugarboo site. And what's even better, he put a picture of us from our wedding inside the frame... and in the picture he is carrying me on his back. I will take a picture of it as soon as it is hung.

YUM:

We had the most absolute perfect anniversary. I can't even try to explain how perfect it was. It's ridiculous how much I love my husband. :)

And look at this cute card that my parents sent. Bullies!!

Everything was perfect. And our vacation was just starting!!!

The gorgeous pier:

One of our first nights there, we were all making friends with the alcohol and decided to go for a swim. Well, Brian and Aaron ran out to the ocean first and by the time Kathy and I made it out the boys were walking out of the ocean toward us...... butt naked!!! It was defintiely a sight. Neither Brian or I had ever been skinny dipped before... we were game! Off come the suits and in Kathy and I go. Clint and Brie were in for quite the suprise when they walked out next! HaHa. So here we are, all six of us sitting in the ocean together, midnight, dark, beers in hand, butt naked, laughing about how we should be in a horror movie right now. I'm not even kidding you, 5 minutes later, we see a shark. And not just see a shark, see a shark swim RIGHT BY US! Literally about 10 yards away from us. It wasn't coming toward us, but swimming right by us. Brieanna and I saw the fin first, and the boys thought we were joking. That is until they turned around. So picture our six naked asses running out of the ocean in the middle of the night screaming shark! It was definitely a sight. We all made it out fine. But once we were out and putting our suits back on, staring blindly into the water, here he comes again. He swam in a circle and came right back to where we were. It was obvious that if he wanted to get us, he would have. I'm sure he was just looking for fish and feeding, but let me tell you- it was the scariest and most incredible moment of my life. I was terrified out of my mind, but it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen with my own two eyes. Sadly, we were in the ocean, thus no cameras were with us. And even if we had some, we probably wouldn't have even thought to snap a picture while swimming for our lives. HaHa. But it sure makes a great story. We sat out by the pool for hours afterward just in awe of what we had just seen. The boys took this time to light up some celebratory cigars:

Most of our time was spent outside on the beach, in the ocean, swimming in the pool, relaxing in the hot tub, drinking, eating, playing drinking games, watching The Office complete with our made-up Office drinking game, napping, playing beach volleyball and shuffleboard, talking & laughing. Just how a vacation should be. Since I have loads & loads of pictures from the trip, I put some of them {flickr wouldn't even allow me to put all 570 of them!} into a flickr album {minus the naked ones!} Click here to see it. Enjoy!

Me and the hubs:

The boys:

The gals:

Oh la la:

Beach volleyball:

Us at sunset:
The girls on the gliders on the top of Lani Kai:

Our "90210" shot. Doesn't it totally look like we are a tv show cast? :)

How's this for a signature?