a night away

after lunch with my "blogger buddy" we dropped the kids back off at my parents and matt and i went to spend the night at the hotel where we spent our honeymoon on sanibel island almost 12 years ago.  this was such a treat!

originally we wished that we had been able to go somewhere 'fancy' for our honeymoon, but we just couldn't.  now it is great because we can easily relive our honeymoon when we visit my family.  and this was our first overnight away from the kids in two years!  we were both excited about some much needed sleep and time together.

we spent the afternoon walking on the beach and looking for shells. i spent a lot of time growing up doing this and with matt it became a competition which kept him satisfied with the slow pace at which i was getting down the beach.  storm clouds started to roll in so we went to get ready for dinner.  we did try to find some vegan options but the ones that were rated highly were not open for dinner (only breakfast and lunch).  so we decided to embrace seafood and had a great casual meal - and it was delicious!  we even split some key lime pie.

the rain had stopped and we went to walk on the beach until the sun went down.  we did do more walking than shelling this time, but i got sucked right back into to finding the smallest, most perfect conches.

we actually had a really poor night's sleep which was disappointing.  we had planned on sleeping until 10 and having a leisurely breakfast before heading back in.  instead we were up fairly early and unable to sleep at all.  so we got dressed, packed and headed down for breakfast.  after breakfast, we checked out and borrowed a few bikes.  one thing we liked about the hotel when we stayed here originally was that they had bikes with baskets we could ride all over the island.  

we were going to bike to get some coffee but decided it was too hot and went out to lighthouse beach instead.  on our honeymoon (back before digital cameras were the rage) we had someone take our picture in front of the lighthouse and then bought a souvenir frame that had the lighthouse on it to put the picture in - only the picture came out blurry.  ugh.  this time we took it ourselves to make sure it came out clear.  now i just have to find that frame...

then we biked back to the hotel and headed off the island.  since it was only 10am, we decided to do a little shopping at the outlets on our way back.  we made it back to my parents' house in time for lunch.

many thanks to my parents for watching the kids so that matt and i could have the much needed break.  we might not have gotten enough rest, but the mental break definitely made me feel rejuvenated.  love.