Yolinna's Other Mat: Breathe Deep

By now, I am sure everyone is sick to death of hearing about my trip to Florida. Barry & I don't get out much... at least beyond the perimeters of Bowie... so I know we both have been just going on and on about it. I'm sorry to everyone who has hidden us on their facebook news feed! LOL! I do feel as if I need to post a blog for posterity though, so feel free to just go to the next thing if you are sticking your tongue out at your computer screen, saying, "yeah, yeah, we KNOW you went to Florida!".

It was our 30th Anniversary and we wanted to celebrate BIG. Barry & I have never been wealthy, it's never been a big priority but we thought 30 years of dealing with each other's issues and surviving was reason to celebrate LOL. We were planning and researching all kinds of once in a lifetime trips... until our beautiful daughter got accepted into a truly once in a lifetime adventure and we felt that was a much better investment. My BFF recently moved to Florida and extended a generous invitation to have us come impose on their substantial hospitality and we jumped at the chance.

We are soooo glad we did! Jenny & Ron live in Boynton Beach, which is real close to Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale and within a couple hours of the Florida Keys. These are all places I have only dreamed of, never thinking I would actually get a chance to visit. We flew into Ft. Lauderdale and I was enchanted. When I was a kid, one of my all time favorite movies was "Where the Boys Are" which is set in Ft. Lauderdale. It looks just like the movie, I couldn't get the song out of my head the whole time we were there.

Jenny & Ron live in a gorgeous house with a huge screened in porch on the back that they call a lanai.

Lanai:

[lah-nah-ee, luh-nahy] –noun,plural-na·is. Hawaiian.
a veranda, esp. a fully furnished one used as a living room.

I spent every morning there drinking coffee and watching the palm trees sway in the wind. Jenny would join me, bundled up against the "cold", some days it went as low as 60! LOL After our winter, 60 degrees was absolutely balmy to me, I soaked it up!

Capt. Ron, as Jenny affectionately calls him, has a great boat. The very first full day we were there, knowing how much we love to boat, he generously offers to take us out. Generous because there were

HUGE thunderstorms and rain on the horizon. Jenny seemed quite concerned. Barry & I, weather geek and thunderstorm enthusiast, were thrilled. BRING IT!!!! Barry & Ron seemed to bond quite nicely as they watched the radar and predicted how long we had til Gilligan's Island became a reality show starring us! It was soooo fun! We finally decided one of the storms may require us to get off the boat for a sec, so we docked at the West Palm Beach new... tie ups? docks? I dunno... and ran into a swank little waterside restaurant for the biggest plate of nachos I've ever seen. The bar was actually outdoors, but they had plastic screens to tie down so we sat outside while the winds howled and the lightning flashed. Ahhh, that was a great day!

Jenny had planned an itinerary for us, and Thursday was 'go to the Florida Keys' day! They were planning to take us to Key Largo (go ahead, start singing...) but as we were searching for a hotel, we kept going South and finally Capt. Ron said the magic words: Well, when will you get a chance to see Key West? We've come this far, may as well go the whole way! What he didn't see was Barry & I high-fivin' in the back seat...