feel the burn.

ok. so i feel like i did a lot of complaining yesterday on behalf of both of us, but really, we are so blessed to be on vacation and we're doing our best to make the most of it. the main reason that we are here is because Jake and Lizzie Ladd were generous enough to give us some flight vouchers for our wedding that they didn't think that they'd be able to use. thank you friends! it's really easy to complain, so i appologize for taking the lazy approach while telling you all about our trip so far. let me try again...

as we approached the Ocean on Monday, anticipation built up inside of me to get my first glimpse of that marvelous sight. i did not get directions at all really for our trip, so we just followed signs and looked for that great body of water that appears to never end. the town of Clearwater was bigger than we thought it would be. it's still a somewhat small, cozy little beach town, but there were lot's of Spring breakers and the beach looked great but we couldn't even find a place to park. we ended up going to a different park a couple miles down the beach where it wasn't as busy. there were tons and tons of fresh shells washed up on shore, so it hurt your feet to be close to the water unless you got out a little deeper. the sand on that beach wasn't the greatest, but the waves were big by where we were, so it was fun to do a little body surfing and pretend that we were on our honeymoon again (if you know what I mean). after our time on the beach we casually headed down the shore line just checking things out. we stopped for a beer and an appetizer at a little outdoor bar and realized we were just a little ways from our condo in Indian Shores. there was an envelope waiting for us at the office, but no one was there and the "emergency number" seemed to be out of service. they did not tell us what room we were in so we split up on different floors and started trying our keys in every room; one by one. luckily about the fourth one worked. it was in interesting room. a great big bathroom and tub, but two double beds. we successfully pushed them together though so don't worry about that :) 

so our plan was to maybe have one night toward the end of our trip that we went somewhere nice to eat and just splurged. well we found ourselves starving at about 9pm on that second night and we stopped at the first place we saw: an Italian cuisine place. so I guess we got our "night out" taken care of right away. We split a delicious meal and appetizer, but with a glass of wine each, key lime pie, and a cappucino it got expensive awfully fast. I think we talked about how we are going to raise our kids the entire time (thanks to Hope... just kidding). don't worry (or get too excited) though; this was just for fun (as of now anyway...)

Our second day on the beach was pretty much a disaster, but we are trying to be as creative and upbeat as possible to not let it ruin our trip. I currently have the worst sunburn in the history of Florida. well, my history in Florida I guess. I haven't decided to go to the hospital yet (ok, it 's probably not quite that bad), but last night I was tempted as I failed to try to spend the night in the bath tub. we both got too much sun. Hope must have missed a spot or forgot to re-apply sunscreen after swimming, but I totally and confidently refused sun-block altogether; being the tough man that I am... now I've been whining like a little girl ever since. thankfully the past two days have been kind of cloudy and there has been a tennis tournament in Miami that we've been watching on tv. we didn't really expect this trip to consist of walking around our air-conditioned condo naked; constantly spraying Aloe on eachother, and laying face-down on the bed watching tennis while swapping out chilled, wet towels to place on our backs every few minutes. I think that I slept for about one hour last night. 

we spent the last two nights in a room with a kitchen, so we have decided to "dine in" for the rest of the trip. we had rotissurie chicken, potatoe salad, beans and rolls the first night. we invented an interesting "sandwich bar" for lunch yesterday, and Hope made a salad while I made a frozen pizza and fried potatoes last night. AND we've had delicious smoothies, coffee, fruit and toast for breakfast the past two mornings. 

the beach right across the street from us does not have the greatest sand or the biggest waves, but it is close, quiet and very relaxing to just go for walks, take pictures and sit and talk. we found a nice little coffee shop to blog at and the lattes are pretty good. 

today we're going to try to find some thrift stores, maybe a disc golf park, and hopefully go back near Clearwater beach to catch some big waves and soft sand one more time before we head back to Orlando for one night and take off for home earlier afternoon tomorrow. 

not having an mp3 hookup in our car to play the ipod led to us buying a couple of CD's at Best Buy when we first got here. one of there songs keeps playing in our heads this week, and we hum it as we think of each other and about our God: "no amount of coffee, no amount of crying. no amount of whiskey, no amount of wine. no, nothing else will do. i gotta have you..." (the weepies). 

z&h