The Sunshine State

We flew to Florida the day after New Year's. My parents rented a house in Fort Myers Beach, and my brother and sister-in-law flew over from England. My sister and brother-in-law and Miss Josie were there as well.

It was wonderful. Clare swam in the pool every day - she is getting braver and braver in the water. We went to the beach. We rented a pontoon and tooled around the back bay. We saw dolphins. We drank lots of wine. We ate Mexican food. We had dueling dinner parties. (Clare won the Eiffel Tower building contest. She used toothpicks and cheese - she is quite the engineer.) We took long walks. We visited Sanibel Island and a wild bird sanctuary. I almost hit a car with our rental minivan, ruining both my brother-in-law and my lunches while we stewed over whether or not I had in fact caused the large scrape on the side of the other vehicle. (Our conclusion: I hadn't.) Christopher was crabby for the first few days. Uncle Gobby's orca impression in the pool snapped him right out of his funk. Uncle Andrew's mermaid impression wasn't bad, either. Ben, Andrew, Robby and Andri visited the Everglades. Some of us saw Star Wars. We watched football. We talked and laughed and had a blast.

I can't wait to go back next year.

Ready to fly.

He ended up on my lap for most of the flight.

My favorite girl and I at the bird sanctuary.

With two of her favorite people

Christopher is under that towel. Crabbypants did not like the wind.

Captain Clare.

The best family photo we got. It was a bit chilly that day - but we had some wonderful weather too.

Joy.

Ready to be entertained. (And he actually went swimming!)

75 and sunny in January? I'll take it. So will Clare, even though she complained that the beach was "too bright" and the sand was "too dirty." Be glad you live in Minnesota, kid.