Too Many Pictures!!! (Part 2 - Anna Maria Island)

Merry Christmas, Everyone! 

Hope you all had a lovely holiday and are getting geared up for New Year's! I'm just going to dive in here and start bombarding you with our vacation pictures. I'm thinking I'm gonna still have two more blog posts to go to get caught up! 

We went to Anna Maria Island, which is a small island near Sarasota, with a very laid-back, old Florida vibe. No big condos or resorts here - it is mostly older houses. We rented a cute little beach house - very small inside but an ideal location, as you'll see. The weather was perfect and summery - temps in the 80s every day.

So here's the view off our back deck. 

Literally just steps from the beach.

Heated saltwater pool.

Inside, here's a peek at our galley kitchen (and galley living and dining room).

And a ladder up to a loft area that is only usuable if you are under 3 feet tall.

I immediately cracked my head against the ceiling up here.

The beaches down here were wide and beautiful, with that powder-sugar sand that nearby Siesta Key is famous for. (And as you can see, not very crowded.)

We'd take some chairs down to the beach most evenings to watch the sunset.

Our house was a duplex, so we had the right side.

Do we have more sunset pics? Yes, WE DO. But let's take a break and check out the moon.

I also think we went to three nature preserves on the island, so here are some pics from those walks.

Look at the trees growing out of this fallen tree

Lots of fishies

I've heard many people saying how weird it must be, having Christmas in Florida with no snow, but Floridians are pretty fanatical about making up for it. I will do another post with the Christmas lights at the Selby Botanical Gardens, but here's a taste of some of the other lights we saw all over the island.

This is historic Bridge Street, at sunset. 

One day, Glenn spent hours putting together an amazing sand castle...someone destroyed it literally minutes after we came in from the beach. People are terrible. At least we got some pics first.

We went over to the Anna Maria City Pier a couple times...the first night was windy, at dusk, and fog was rolling in...

But here it is on a clearer day...look how turquoise the water is!

I love this.

Ok...here are some more miscellaneous pics taken from our deck or on the beach...(and you guessed it, more sunsets!)

And look - an unexpected guest!

Ok - that wraps up tonight's blog...but it does not wrap up our vacation. There are still more pics to come.

Wait! We typically try to take a family selfie every year at the holidays, which is inevitably a disaster. Here is this year's attempt.

Happy Holidays!

 (My one friend said it looks like Eddie took this picture!)

We decided to also do one of the guys and one of the girls for more predictable results.

Later gators! Love, us

Too Many Pictures!!! (Part 1 - Largo Park and Folly Farms)

Hi Everyone and Happy Holidays! 

Glenn and I just got back from a beautiful week on Anna Maria Island and we have a ton of pictures from the beach, several nature preserves, the Marie Selby Botanical Garden's "Lights in Bloom" holiday event, and a day trip to the Ringling Museum. Additionally, before we left on our trip, we went to Largo's Nature Preserve and Glenn had his holiday luminaria event and the bottom line is...we have too many pictures. 

Like, this is going to be exhausing. 

So, I'm probably going to break this up into several blogs and just do a little at a time. Please bear with me. 

First, here are some random pics from Glenn, with a wide variety of wildlife.

Fly, be free! 

Next, we'll move on to Largo's Nature Preserve. Somehow, back a few years ago when we were on a quest to visit every park in the area, we missed this one, and it was a beaut! 

Amazing shot! 

"Wanna buy a watch?"

This is a limpkin.

Ibis.

Moorhen.

This is Tinkerbell.

Softshelled turtle 

And now, a three-part action series...bird vs. fish.

Gulp!

So, next, we went to a local park called Folly Farms for a holiday charity event one night, which was nice.

A couple nights later, Glenn held his "Neighbors Unite" luminaria event, which coincided with Safety Harbor's Light Up event for Folly Farms. Glenn set up the ACS arch and a zillion luminaria bags along the lighted pathway through the park. 

For you, Tom!

Alright guys, that feels like enough right now. That gets us up to the night before we left on vacation. 

Stay Tuned.

Love you! Later, gators!