Florida

Florida. What can I say? We pretty much dominated you last week. At least, we dominated Tampa, Orlando, and Sarasota. Domination may be a bit strong of an adjective, but I'm confident that we covered a lot of miles in our rented Ford Focus. (Or the Fast and Furious Focus as I like to call it).

The reason for our Florida escapades was because my good friend Jessica Murphy was getting married to one Sarasota local, Jason Puckett. Jessica and I have been going through this whole wedding planning process together, and it was so fun to be able to see all her hard work come to fruition in the most excellent of ways. AND she's such a good friend that even though she was working full time and planning her own wedding, she and Jason still made the time to come out and celebrate with Tim and I last month.

I met Jessica through a school program I was privileged to go on in college called the International Business Institute (IBI). There were a few of us going from Westmont, and basically the rest of the trip was composed of students from Messiah C0llege in PA, and Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois. Jess and I became good friends quickly (along with our other sidekick Jill Carlson -- who I also got to see at the wedding!) There is nothing quite like traveling Europe with strangers to form lifelong bonds. I could go on and on about IBI, the fabulous people I met and friendships I get to maintain; IBI was such a blessing in my life. I digress.

Jess and I in Russia in the Red Square circa 2007.

At the top of Mount Chamonix in France.

Jess, Jill, and myself in Antwerp, Belgium.

This was my first time in Florida and I didn't quite know what to expect. I've heard stories. I've heard tell of gigantic bugs, weather so hot and sticky it's better to never venture outdoors, and alligators showing up in your backyard or swimming pool. My ideal outfit of choice based on these factoids consisted of a bodysuit made of breathable, yet insanely strong netting covered in bug repellent. (So as avoiding the bugs, weather, AND alligators). To my great pleasure, I found Florida to be none of these things, and was quite comfortable wearing the normal clothes that I had packed.

Tim and I spent our first night in Florida exploring downtown Orlando. To be honest, there's not too much to see. I could be comparing too closely to the GIGANTIC city of Chicago where we were earlier in the week, but Orlando felt small and slightly boring. However, we did eat a delicious meal of flatbread pizza downtown. That was the highlight.

Day two brings us to the Magical Kingdom. With thanks to Anna Storvick, Amanda Crowley, and Todd Pulliam, I have a slight obsession with all things Disney. It was an obvious choice to make Disneyworld a necessary stop while we were in Florida.

Tim and I had epic timing, arriving at the opening gates for the ten second countdown to open the park. We raced around like pro's to get fast-passes to all the best rides. We covered the park so well that we even had time to watch the 3D movie, go to the Hall of Presidents (which was awesome!), AND the Tiki Room, which in my opinion is a last resort at D-world. We witnessed three parades, AND the fireworks, AND rode Big Thunder Mountain six times. Not too shabby.

The famous Disneyworld Castle.

Watching movies in 3D!

Sunday brought us to Sarasota to get ready for Jess' wedding! Tim and I got to spend some time with Jill catching up on her jet-setting lifestyle before the ceremony. (I hadn't seen her in three years!) The wedding was at a beautiful venue called the Powell-Crosley Estate. It was right on the ocean and couldn't have been a more picturesque place to tie the knot, so to speak. Jess had everything planned perfectly, and the whole shebang came off as a huge, roaring, god-honoring, Jess and Jason celebrating SUCCESS!! We're so glad to have been there, congratulations to the both of you!

Mr. and Mrs. Puckett being introduced.

Jilly Bean and I circa 2010.

We've already done that "getting married" thing.

The sunset. Nice work by God.

It was hard to follow the success of the previous evening, but we tried our best on Monday by exploring downtown St. Petersburg and Tampa before our flight back to Denver. I did get to see a few dolphins, but most unfortunately, no dugongs, stellar sea cows, or manatees.

Overall it was an awesome trip, with the most important part as getting to celebrate with Jessica and Jason Puckett. I can say, however, that I'm glad to be home with a future of COOKING, rather than eating every meal out. Huzzah!