So the husband surprised me out of the blue a few nights ago suggesting we needed a change of scenery. Get out of the tourist town and head south to our own little paradise. I was totally excited and couldn't wait.

We booked the hotels and left after I got off work Friday. We drove the 2.5 hour drive down to Sarasota. We love it there. It’s where we want to be. We used to live there before moving up to Orlando.

He’s from there but I went there to go to college and we met there. We were both in the same undergraduate program at Ringling and have been together ever since. So Sarasota is like our home. His family and friends still live down there and a few of my friends still do as well.

So it was so exciting to be going back. The beaches are my paradise. Powder sugar white sand is exactly how I describe them. I miss being able to go everyday. Here in Orlando, the only beaches close are Daytona Beach or Cocoa Beach and they are not nearly as beautiful as the ones in Sarasota.

So we stayed down there all weekend. Just came back this afternoon. I didn’t want to leave. He met up with his friends all day Saturday while I took the child to the beach for six hours. We had a blast. My really good friend met up with us there and we had fun playing with the kids in the water and sand.

The water there is perfect. This beautiful blue-green color and there were so many waves. The wind was blowing very hard. So it didn’t seem hot at all. However, not many clouds resulted in some powerful rays. We ate our lunch right there on the towel. We had strawberries and chips for lunch. It was great however, the sand kept getting in the food and I think I ate more sand then strawberries.

This seagull would not stop trying to take our food for anything. He would swoop down at my daughter’s hand when she had some chips. It was sitting this close to our towels just waiting.

We had flocks of them starting to fly around us. My friend started to get scared because they were coming within inches of our faces at times. They circled these people next to us for a good while too. Those damn seagulls. and their not-scared-of-human ways. It was cute at first but then started to become not so cute.

I got an extremely horrible sun burn on my face and legs. Everywhere else seems to be untouched. I used sunscreen all over my body but I guess my lower legs didn’t like the sunscreen and it failed. A really odd sunburn I must tell you. It hurts so bad I actually cannot walk. I haven’t slept either because of how painful it is. I’m doing all that I can to make it stop.

People {including my husband and daughter"} were laughing at how red I was and how I couldn’t walk. I looked like a tourist but I’m not really. Kinda sort of. So yea, it’s horrible but it was totally worth it. I had so much fun out there in the hot sun playing in the Gulf of Mexico all day. I didn’t want to come back to the crowded Disney tourist crap here. Blah! But I have to go back to work tomorrow and my daughter has school. So we couldn’t stay. I wish we could have.

So now we are back home again. I took this photo passing through Downtown Orlando to get home. I can’t wait to go back again to Sarasota. It had been a few years since we went and I don’t want to wait that long again. It's my happy place.