0 Florida

I used to think Florida was the coolest place on earth. Obviously "coolest" being a poor choice of words. See I met Craig in Holland in 1988(long story) and he was from Orlando and I was from a town outside of Buffalo. At the time any place that I didn't have to shovel snow and freeze my ass off sounded like paradise. So when we got married and moved to Miami where Craig went to med school and I worked full-time and part-time and went to grad school, I was pretty stoked. The fact of the matter is, we were so damn busy with all that work and school we didn't even know what city we lived in and it didn't even matter. But living in Florida did allow me to shave 20 minutes of my morning routine because I didn't need to scrape ice off my car. SCORE!



We moved out of Florida in 1996 when Craig sold his soul to the army. But, we visit family and friends there once a year or so. And while we're there we...



build sandcastles at the beach...







sit in puddles and have wet sand draped on your legs...







surf until you see a shark and head back to shore...







canoe and swim in gator-infested water (which Craig swore to me for years wasn't alligator infested, but of course IS).







Then you go to Gatorland or some other outdoor attraction where you are not in water...







which clearly means you're either clinically insane or just a stupid tourist. The ratio of insanity to tourist is 2:4 in the below photo although it's hard to tell the difference...







Cause why would you do that? Why on earth would you leave your air-conditioned house, air-conditioned car, air-conditioned work place, air-conditioned mall, air-conditioned anything else and face that Florida traffic to go into that inferno? WHY?







Now, we always thought we'd end up in Florida. But in October 2004 with three young kids and two months before Craig separated from the army, I actually thought about living in Florida. We've never in our married lives gotten to choose where we lived. The army always chose for us. So I confessed. I hate Florida and I don't want to live there. You see, I love being outside in the fresh air and it turns out I really like having seasons. Florida is just too hot and too crowded for this small town girl who thought she was a big city girl, only to discover she's a small town girl after all. I want to live somewhere cool, where it actually is cool, like Colorado. Not that either of us had been to Colorado or knew anyone in Colorado or had any job prospects in Colorado. But what we did have was the idea that Colorado would have the laid back outdoor lifestyle we wanted for our family. Five years of living there proved me, I mean us, right.



The day before we left on our trip from Morocco to Florida we told the kids the surprise we've been dying to tell them. Not only did we come to the states to visit Florida, but we're also going home to visit Colorado!



To be Continued...