Lido Key - A Lovely Laze

The opportunity for forty-eight hours of much needed rest and relaxation came our way this week.  A trip to Lido Key on the west coast of Florida is where we returned from our travels yesterday.  This morning I'd prefer to still be feeling refreshing salty breezes on the balcony of our hotel that overlooked the gulf,  however, I am so very thankful that my husband planned this special get-away time for our family of five.

With one child post college, another still working her way through college, and a third with a life full of activities, it is incredibly hard to find more than 1/2 of a day to spend together.  The moments that we can steal away together are incredibly treasured.  We are blessed.

Our girls walking in the sunset

A few sunset pics

So many seashells - they were very small, but pretty all the same.

My two favorite men - looking at cell phone pics.  Our hotel is in the background.

Amanda and me.

David and I walked on the beach each morning, enjoying the cool breezes and beautiful birds.

Lunch at The Columbia House - Yummy Spanish food.

Another beautiful sunset.

Proof of our early morning walks.  We were hoping to find a few large colorful shells that the west coast of FL is notorious for.  Good news!  Fantastic weather the entire trip.  Thus the reason we had no spectacular seashell finds.

Loved the many birds we saw making their early morning breakfast dives.

A seagull and it's shadow.

I had to go to whatbird.com to find the name of these unique creatures.  They are called Black Skimmers.  After downloading the pics, I was pleasantly surprised by their great reflections in the water!  I'll have to remember that when using the camera in the early AM.

Looking up the history of this 40' statue was slightly amusing - and disappointing.  We guessed at why this VJ-Day Photo turned statue look-alike was sitting in Sarasota.  Our hypothesis was way off...  As much as we hoped that one of the infamous strangers was a local to the area, we found ourselves altogether wrong.  As a matter of fact, it's problems are as big as it's stature.  After the city agreed to "accept" the kissing couple from it's artist, they found themselves in the midst of a lawsuit - as the man who was it's creator was being sued for making it just a little too much like the original photo.