Celebrating the Anniversary of our Nuptials in Naples

My husband and I like to travel together for our anniversaries, but he is having major shoulder surgery a few days before our anniversary, so we celebrated early this year by turning his business trip into our anniversary trip. 

My husband got the opportunity to attend a leadership conference for CIOs at the Ritz-Carlton hotel resort in Naples, FL the week before our anniversary, and spouses were invited.  I joked with him that since IT guys tend to be introverts, they invited spouses to get conversations started at all the receptions and other networking events. He held his own, however, putting no pressure on me to initiate any conversations.  I'm amazed at how well my husband can engage others as if he were an extrovert since that is required in upper management.  He needs time to decompress after these events, however, for he is a natural introvert who complements my extroversion well.

My parents were saints to help us so much with the kids before, during, and after our trip.  They drove up to get them (an hour each way) the night before our flight. They kept the kids and our bunny until the evening after we returned since we needed childcare during my husband's surgery.  A full week is the longest they've ever kept the kids. It may take them weeks to recover! :-)

As soon as they left with the kids the Friday before our trip (around 9:00 pm), my husband offered to make "dinner". He baked delicious cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing (shh...don't tell the kids), and to show his vast love for me, he gave me the cinnamon roll in the middle.  Now that is sacrificial love right there! :-)

The next morning, we flew to Ft. Lauderdale, FL (the closest airport to Naples with a direct flight from our local airport) and then rented a car which we drove across "alligator alley" through the middle of the Everglades to Naples, FL.

Here are some cloud photos I took from the plane for my daughter to classify. She said she had never tried to classify clouds by looking down at them from an airplane but that she thought they were cumulonimbus, and she was correct!

I did not send her this pic which helps identify the clouds even better, but this is what those clouds looked like when viewed from the ground.

If you do a Google search for images of cumulonimbus clouds, the first image that pops up is this one, so she was right on target with her classification.

There isn't much of anything between Ft. Lauderdale and Naples except swamps, so when we found a truck stop, surrounded by swamps, offering food (very greasy nasty "food"), my husband insisted we stop for lunch.  He promised me a fancy anniversary trip at the Ritz Carlton on the Gulf, but that place was the pits, not the Ritz. Our anniversary trips are always full of crazy adventures, so I wondered where he would take me next.

Our next stop after checking into the hotel was a dinner cruise at Naples Bay. That adventure involved a big yacht and some storm chasing.

Before the storm while still docked in Naples Bay

Ready to set sail

Our host claimed that the house to the left was once owned by Larry Byrd.

The real estate was really nice, but I would not want the $250K/yr tax bill.

The food was spectacular, especially the chocolate covered mousse cream brownie dessert.  We met a really fun couple, Lisa and Matt, and spent the evening with them. Lisa gets seasick easily, so the storm freaked her out, but she kept us laughing.  The sunset wasn't exactly what we had hoped for thanks to the storm, but the company sure was nice.

After the storm sent us inside the cabin and off course

No matter what the storm, His light shines through the darkness.

After the dinner cruise we returned to our rooms, and I was overwhelmed by the extravagance I saw at the Ritz-Carlton.  I have stayed in nice hotels and eaten at luxurious restaurants when I traveled on business meeting with clients who wanted me to recommend them as our key client for a $6M a year business operation.  But the Ritz-Carlton surpassed all previous experiences.  It certainly made our ordinary lives and our home seem cheap and plain, but I could not live like that for long.  I'm too independent to have people waiting on me hand and foot, and I honestly got tired of tipping and constantly wondering how much to tip and when. :-)

Our room faced the courtyard in the middle from the right wing of the Ritz-Carlton.

I LOVED the white marble bathroom!

The lighted mirror shows every imperfection!

Cute foyer in our hotel room

Butterfly Garden

Turtle, fish, and alligator filled creek that ran through the resort

I wish plumeria could survive back home.

I loved this music staff harp water fountain!

 

Marble, marble, everywhere!

Every elevator lobby had cedar walls, a huge chandelier hung from
 a heavily molded tray ceiling, and gorgeous antique furniture.

I could handle that type of fitness facility every day, however.  Wow! It was unbelievable.  I especially liked the ice cold washcloths soaked in peppermint oil which they would bring me while I exercised.  It was so incredibly refreshing.  My workouts were shorter on vacation, but they were so much harder.  I could almost feel my body changing as I tested out new equipment.

All the recreational facilities were impressive.  They had at least three pools (a gorgeous leisure pool, a lap pool, and a kids' pool), tennis courts, state-of-the art pilates and yoga studios, fooz ball (my husband destroyed me in that game I had never really played), ping-pong (we were equally matched), and surely others I never found.  Note the cute pergola. I had to take a picture since my husband wants to add one to the patio we will build as soon as a contractor finds time in his schedule for us.

 

On Sunday after a prayer and worship time, we had lunch at a cute resort restaurant right along the beach.  The food was first class with fresh organic produce and fresh fish prepared in unique gourmet styles.

Cuban sandwiches with fried jicama

The view during that lunch certainly made up for the truck stop swamp view the day before.

Next, we went for a walk along the beach.  It was a gorgeous day!

Then my husband got a crazy idea.  Perhaps he had already reached his fancy quota for the day, but he wanted to drive back to the swamps to do 360s in an airboat. So after dolling out more tips to get our car from the valet guys, we drove 45 minutes to a 200 acre swamp preserve in the Everglades beside Tamiami Trail.  We had an interesting time at Corey and Billy's Airboats.

Our airboat for the afternoon

Ready to "fly"

I told our boat captain, Leebo, that he looks and talks just like my uncle who grew up in southern Georgia. I told him that we like to call my uncle "Gator Man" because he wrestled alligators and sold snake venom as a teenager. [When I returned home, I also learned that Uncle Dennis built a tree house over Hodges Pond which is a swamp filled with alligators and snakes, and that his tree house is still there according to images viewable on Google Earth.]

"What's your uncle's real name?" Lee asked.  When I told him Uncle Dennis' full name, he asked, "Did he by any chance spend time in prison for trafficking marijuana?"

"No sir," I said.

"Well the man driving the other boat has the same first and last name and he certainly did."

So, Leebo drove us straight to Dennis' boat, so we could meet him in person.

Captain Dennis said he just had to come closer to see me because once a stranger told him she was his daughter he had never known about before and sure enough, she was. I assured him my uncle lives near me now and that our families are not related. Still, those captains esteemed my uncle highly as being one of them.

Captain Dennis and his boat

These Florida mangrove trees are a great example of God's perfect design. They can survive in salt-water swamps and in unstable, anaerobic soil through their dendritic aerial prop roots which extend from their branches to the soil deep below the water.

Mangrove trees and fake spiders placed to scare gals like me

Sabal Palm trees (Florida's State Tree), aka "swamp cabbage"

We got back to the hotel just in time for the business reception and buffet style gourmet meal for all the conference attendees and guests. I could not pronounce half the items on the buffet, but every dish was certainly a delicious experience.

Ready for another fancy feast at the Ritz-Carlton

P.S. I love you!

I had hoped to watch the sunset after dinner since it stormed the previous night, but dinner ran long so we just missed it. Here's all we saw of it, and since it stormed the rest of the week, it's the only south Florida sunset we got to see during our trip.

 

 

My husband attended the conference the next two days from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm while I slept late, worked out, and was just lazy around the pool and the beach.  With these views, can you really blame me?

An alligator came to visit each day at the bridge over the swampy creek that runs beside the resort.  A large turtle rested right next to him.  They are hard to see in this low-res Android pic, but there is a large turtle right next to the alligator.

 

Here are some more pics of the friendly alligator.

We did enjoy some beach fun together after my husband finished the conference and took some time alone each day followed by very nice dinners together each evening.

That black spot is my hubby!

Monday night was extra special since we dressed up in semi-formal attire and went to eat at Ruth's Chris where we used a generous gift card from my husband's youngest brother's family.  I haven't been to Ruth's Chris since a 3rd party transportation consolidation company took me to the restaurant in Jacksonville, FL while vying for our business.  The scallops, salad, vegetables, and dessert (white chocolate cheesecake with dark almond bark) were far better than what I had before, but perhaps the difference was the fine company I had with me this time.  Ruth's Chris is priced the same or less than Angus Barn, but it's quality far surpasses the Angus Barn in my opinion.

Ritz-Carlton lobby before leaving for Ruth's Chris

It rained most of the day on Tuesday, so I could only get out to the beach when it backed off to just a  sprinkle.  I tried to take an afternoon walk, but when I saw these clouds, I tried to estimate how far I could get down the beach before the sky fell. I missed it by about 36 seconds and got soaked!

 Gorgeous homes along the beach

 

We had our last business reception that evening.  After getting soaked on the beach, my hair looked rough, so I don't really look quite like myself in these pics.

 

I got up early for a short run on the beach our last morning there (a short run is all I can do these days as I haven't run in weeks and no more than two miles at a time in over four years, but I did manage to run three miles on the beach where the turf is soft though footing is shaky).  The beach was covered with starfish that morning, so I was reminded of the story of the boy who kept throwing starfish back in the ocean.

A man asked him why he worked so hard because he could not possibly save all the starfish, for there were too many. But the boy simply replied as he threw in another starfish, "I just made a difference in the life of that one."

 

We cannot save the world all by ourselves. But we can make a difference in the lives of those around us. Go make a difference in someone's life today.

We drove back across alligator alley (well....technically, my husband drove while I slept) and then flew home that afternoon. I remembered that it was Muffin's "Gotcha Day", so I emailed Mom and asked her to remind the kids since they had told me before we left that they wanted to celebrate.  My parents sent me these cute pics of the kids with Muffin all decked out for her Gotcha Day!

I love the hat and bow!

Look how Muffin is holding her finger.  Cute!

All three match!

Interesting....the kids celebrate Gotcha Day for their bunny, yet in the 41 years since my adoption, I've never celebrated a Gotcha Day for the day my parents got me. I may have to throw a really big party next year to make up for it. :-)