Adventures in Florida: The Callihans Take Tampa: 20th Anniversary on Marco Island

Wow...it's hard to believe its been 20 years since that lovely morning at Smithfield Church when Glenn and I got married. We are so lucky to have each other.

I could not have asked for a better husband. In fact, he completely blew me away with my anniversary gift this year. Glenn gave me a small jump drive. On it, I discovered that he had been making little videotaped messages for me every year around Christmas since 1999!

What a treasure! Each year, he tells me a little about what happened that year, along with photos set to music. The technology has certainly changed, since he started out using his dad's old Super 8 video camera, but has now progressed to his iPhone.

Anyway, I can't believe he's kept this a secret for 14 years (!!), but at last I get to see all these old tapes along with some very heartfelt messages. I've also gotten to see a younger Glenn, along with Buddy and Tocchet, and Maxine and Mojo as puppies. We've been watching a year or two together every night. So far, we're up to 2006. It's priceless. (I said, "Crap, I have nothing to give you that would possibly compete with this....")

Definitely the most romantic gift ever. But we did have a wonderful trip to Marco Island on top of that. We didn't make this sandcastle, but it seemed like a good picture to take to introduce our trip.

We stayed at the Marriott Marco Island Resort & Spa, which was gorgeous. We had a great room with a balcony on the 10th floor. This was our view.

There's a big fountain at the entrance when you come in.

And proof we were actually there...

But there really isn't too much to tell regarding our activities. We walked on the beach every morning and evening collecting shells (I have never seen so many shells on a beach!) and spent the afternoons lying at the pool or reading on the balcony. We also had a couple of spa appointments on Saturday. It was lazy and lovely.

Here's the view from the hotel lobby.

And here are some shots of that fabulous pool area.

And here is the beach.

We found out these thatched shelters are called Chickee Huts.

On our last night, we were treated to an amazing sunset. We plopped down in the sand and stayed for the whole show. Glenn took a zillion pics so it was a challenge to narrow down the ones for this post, but these are nice.