Where in The World...

Thought I'd post a map of Florida (that I stole from Amy Burch's blog!) to give you a better idea of exactly where we are on the Gulf Coast. Florida is an interestingly shaped state...as one of my dear friends pointed out, it's better known as America's male genitalia. In any event, ahem...we are located just south of the line that's above Sarasota. We live in Manatee County, but very close to the Sarasota County line, which is important when you're shopping because the sales tax in Sarasota County is higher. Bruce works in Tampa and crosses the Sky Way bridge from St. Petersburg to the peninnsula you see above it, then back across another bridge to Tampa where his office sits overlooking that bay...terrible view huh? Orlando is less than two hours away which is very convenient since we're major DisneyWorld fans! Tampa is home to the Buccaneers football team and the Rays baseball team (who, by the way, play in an air conditioned stadium!). Tampa is also home to Busch Gardens, where Bruce and the boys are going for Jonah's 11th birthday while Isabella and I go to Adventure Island, a water park right next door. To the south of Sarasota is Fort Myers, where Isabella and I visited several years ago on our girls' vacation. A little north of that is Sanibel Island, where Bruce and I truly fell in love with the Gulf Coast.

Bruce's parents live on the east coast of Florida near Ft. Lauderdale. They're here visiting until Tuesday and love being able to visit us with a four hour car ride instead of flying. Tonite, we went to dinner at Chili's and ran into a friend of Jonah's from his fifth grade class at Twin Ridge, Joey Ogg. He was here visiting his grandparents, who live near us. It was really crazy! Jonah and I both saw him and I really thought it was someone who just looked a lot like him but it really was him!