Finally, pictures from the Keys!

After many, many requests to post some pictures from Florida here they are!

This is where I spent 7 days straight, just sitting in the water. We tried the pool one morning - but it didn't even compare to the view I had from this chair.

We went with friends Ben and Kallie - it was great to have other people there because Mike would NEVER just sit in the water and relax. So Ben and Mike entertained each other while Kallie and I just kicked it in our lounge chairs!

This is what Ben and Mike did most days in our little bay - snorkeling!
and finding things like this - hermit crabs!
We drove down to Key West one day while we were there. It's 95 miles from Key Largo to Key West, but since there's only one road to get there, and you can only go either 45 or 55 mph...it took us a while to get there!

Here are a few pics from the drive...

Here's Mike and I at the end of Key West - Only 90 miles to Cuba!

This is Mike at Sloppy Joe's, we had lunch there and found out it's famous for being a place that Ernest Hemingway used to hang out at.

A few years after he died someone found a back room at Sloppy Joe's that had a ton of his writings in it. Hemingway would go on drinking binges there and stay for days just frantically writing at the bar and I guess who ever was working there would just pick up all his papers and put them in a storage room. Random, I know.
After walking around the tourist-y area of Key West (which Kallie and I compared to Mexico - the same stores on each block all selling the same crappy stuff, oh except there was a Coach outlet which we did go into and it was wonderful!) we asked our waitress at Sloppy Joe's where a good beach to go to was - her response? "Key West is known for the water - not the beaches." What? Key West is an island...are you serious? So She told us to go check out a state park that had the best beach in town. Here's the obligatory 'foot with scenery' pic...
The water was pretty choppy and the beach was really rocky (not sandy) so it was tough for the guys to snorkel and us girls to sit on the beach. One day while we we're back at our hotel beach doing our normal routine (boys snorkeling, girls lounging) Kallie and I noticed a mom and her two kids on the dock pointing into the water and looking at something. We had heard that there were manatees there sometimes, so Kallie and I ran up to the dock to see what they were looking at. There were 4 manatees, and a baby one!
We started yelling at the boys to get their attention cause they still had thier heads in the water. Eventually they heard us and came over to check out what we were yelling at them for!

The baby one!

Mike and I are both fans of the ocean and of all the cool things living in it - we wanted to jump in and swim with the manatees so bad. On this trip I got the nickname Hannatee, but that's another story.

On the drive to Key west we saw a cool beach just on the side of the highway. We decided later in the week we would go check it out. Here is a picture of Kallie and I being the supermodels that we are... I got sun burned on the top of my head the day before - that's why I have Mike's hat on.

And one of Mike and I...

I have more pictures but I really better get back to work...I promise to post more soon!