Road Trip

This weekend, my boyfriend and I finally made the 3 hour trek to the east coast of Florida to visit my family.  Our drive started off rocky - I ran over my first animal, and it wasn't even running on the ground! A black bird flew so low in front of my car that it caught my tire.  THUD.   A peek in my rearview mirror confirmed my terror as I saw poof of feathers explode onto the road.  Ugh I thought I was going to be sick.
Thankfully, that didn't set the tone for the rest of the day.  It was so wonderful to finally see my grandma who had broken her hip almost two months ago.  I was also thrilled to spend some time with my aunt's dog, Abbey.  My family dog, Sidney, passed away two weeks ago, and it has been overly traumatic loss for my family.  Getting to pet and play with Abbey was very therapeutic.  She really let me love on her all day :)

Our time on the east coast was spent chatting with my family and taking a walk to the beach with my aunt and uncle.  How unbelievably gorgeous is this?!  The sound of waves crashing was music to my ears!  95% of the time the gulf is as flat as bath water (which can be a good thing since I'm not the best swimmer in the world).  This view was absolutely stunning and made me miss the ocean a bit.

We continued our afternoon with lunch and dessert at my aunt's house followed by a trip to the bar on the beach.  Being the lame-o that I am, I opted for a soda.  Watching the pelicans and boats sail in and out of the inlet made that soda taste delicious though!  

After a much needed relaxing afternoon, Mike and I said our goodbyes and began our journey home.  Unfortunately, the weather had taken a turn for the worse.  The sky was gray and thick clouds were teasing us on the horizon.  Of course we drove directly into a surge of rain, but, as usual, it only last about 15 minutes.  I'm actually very thankful that it down poured on us for this reason:

I think the last time I saw a full rainbow in the sky was when I lived in Ireland.  It was so beautiful, as was so much of our day.  I can't believe I'm leaving this to spend my spring break in cold NJ.  EEEeeek!