Royal Wedding

I love weddings! I absolutely just love everything about a wedding. While there isn't a single thing that I would change about my own wedding, I still love watching wedding shows and looking at pictures of other people's weddings. I mean, what could be more fun than helping someone celebrate the best day of their life?

When I heard about the upcoming Royal Wedding, I was of course ecstatic! It mixes two things which I absolutely love, weddings and tradition. It kind of makes me wish that we had such an extravagant tradition like the Royal Family here in America. I also happen to think that Kate Middleton is amazing. She's gorgeous, I have never seen her wear an outfit I didn't love and she has nice teeth, which is surprising considering she's British :) Plus, everyone loves a good fairytale, especially me.

For the past week, there have been tons of Royal Wedding shows and movies about William and Kate all over the television. So of course I couldn't resist having them on while I grade papers and write lesson plans. It was especially fun to see all the places in London that I have actually been before. My mom and I took a trip to London in 2008 and all this Royal Wedding fuss made me want to go back and look at all our pictures from the trip. Here is a picture of me on our trip at Buckingham Palace...in the era of blonde hair Jacki :)

Yesterday was the big day! I set my alarm for 5am because I knew that the wedding started at 11am in London and for some reason I was under the impression that London is 6 hours ahead of us...wrong. It didn't matter anyways though because I magically woke up at 3:45am and could not go back to sleep. So at 4am I turned on the pre-wedding coverage and watched it from my bed. About 15 minutes into watching the news, I noticed a little wedding countdown timer in the corner of the screen and it said there was 1 hour and 45 minutes to go. This was when I discovered that London is only 5 hours ahead of us...oops. I managed to fall back asleep for about an hour and woke back up just in time for all the important people to start arriving at Westminster Abbey.

I watched the arrival of all the family members and of course Kate's big moment getting out of the car while I was simultaneously getting ready for work. Kate's wedding gown was absolutely beautiful! I obviously would not have worn something like it at my own wedding because it was pretty poofy and long sleeved, but considering she had to have her arms covered in the church and she was becoming a princess, I thought it was perfect for her. Yet, my absolute favorite dress of the whole wedding was worn by the maid of honor, Pippa. It was gorgeous and she looked amazing in it.

All the traditional British pomp and circumstance was what really made the wedding worth watching. It really made me want to go out and buy a fancy hat...though I have no idea where I would wear it to. I have always wanted to attend something that required a fancy hat in the dress code. Since a Royal Wedding only happens like every 30 years and I'm obviously not going to be invited to one, I guess I'll just have to work on getting myself to the Kentucky Derby or something.

I was able to watch most of the wedding ceremony while I was getting ready for work, but then I had to go to work and let my DVR record the rest for later. Once I got to school, I plugged my projector into the cable outlet in my classroom and was able to watch the news while I was getting ready for class. I turned it on just in time to see them come out on the balcony at Buckingham Palace for the kiss. I felt empathy for Prince William when they were talking about how he doesn't like PDA because I feel the same way. Considering I high-fived my husband at our wedding...and then I kissed him :)

Once school started, I had about 10 students all day since the rest of my students were on the field trip. So in honor of the Royal Wedding, we had a Harry Potter marathon! It was a wonderful Friday.

After work, my mom came over to my house and we enjoyed some pizza and wine while we watched all the wedding coverage that I recorded on my DVR. I was kind of sad that they didn't let the cameras into the reception because I really wanted to see all of that, but I totally understand why they wanted that to be private. I did get up this morning and look at the pictures online from the reception and once again Kate and Pippa had amazing dresses! I'm sure that they all had an amazing time and that we will be seeing a lot of the Prince and Princess in the future.

Whether you actually care about the Royal Family and the wedding, or not, this was still a very historical event. I feel like this will be one of those things where 30 years down the road when the next Royal Wedding takes place, we will all be saying "I remember where I was when Prince William (he'll probably be King by then) got married". Seeing as how my mom told me that she remembers taking the day off of work to stay home and watch Charles and Diana's wedding 30 years ago.

I'm just glad that I'm already married since I know that wedding planning will now be forever changed because of this wedding. Just wait, I guarantee that there will soon be many wedding gowns out there that look exactly like Kate's.

Zoo Field Trip

Every year we take our students on a field trip to the Jacksonville Zoo. I remember going on field trips to the zoo when I was in elementary school, but the zoo wasn't very nice and didn't have very many cool things back then. They have renovated the entire zoo since then and it is so much nicer now. I love taking my students to the zoo because it is a really easy field trip to chaperone and my little group (about 7-9 students) and I get to go around and do whatever we want to.

We took our annual field trip to the zoo on Tuesday. The science teacher on my team, myself, and a couple of parents chaperoned the trip. I had a group of 7 girls and they made the whole trip fun and easy. We took a bus to the zoo from school and as soon as we got there we went to the picnic area outside of the zoo. We ate lunch there before heading into the actual zoo. Remember, middle school starts really late so it was already about 10:45 when we got off the bus at the picnic area.

After lunch, we started our tour of the zoo. There was talk about possible rain that day, but it managed to stay away and give us a nice sunny day. It was really hot, but we didn't let that spoil our fun. Luckily, there are lots of trees and caves at the zoo where you can get out of the sun.

We spent the day frolicking around, visiting the animals and enjoying being away from school. We definitely made a stop at the shaved ice stand, which is my favorite thing to get at the zoo. That made battling the heat much more manageable.

There is a new attraction at our zoo called DinoAlive! that my group really wanted to go see, but it costs extra money in addition to the park admission and we were running short on time. I guess I will just have to wait until my sister-in-law, Erika, comes to visit and we can make a trip to the zoo together to see it :)

The girls in my group were so hilarious, especially when they kept comparing all the animals (mostly the monkeys and elephants) to the boys in their class. Gotta love 12 year olds :)

I had such a great day at the zoo with my students! I love taking them to places outside of school because I get to know them so much better as the kids they really are rather than just as students. Plus, getting paid to spend a work day at the zoo is not a bad deal either. Just another perk of being a teacher :)

My students are on another field trip today to the World of Nations at Met Park downtown. I stayed behind to supervise some of the kids not going on the field trip so that one of the other teachers on my team could go since I just went on a field trip. Sharing is caring :) Plus, I am going to go to World of Nations this weekend with Jared and my parents. If you have never been before, I highly recommend it!

Since I only have 9 kids in my class all day today, we are going to do a little work this morning and then we are going to spend the afternoon having a Harry Potter marathon, in honor of the Royal Wedding of course :)

Happy Easter

I absolutely love Easter because it is gives me an excuse to dress in a ridiculous combination of pastel colors, which I take full advantage of every year. I wish that we had little kids in our family so that we could partake in all the fun Easter festivities like egg hunts and Easter baskets. If it was up to me, we would probably do it anyway, but Jared says I can't have an egg hunt for myself because I am an adult...rude.

On Sunday, we met my parents at their church for Easter Service. After church, we went over to my parents' house for a late lunch and Chris and Melissa came to join us. After lunch, we went on a family bike ride around my parents' neighborhood. It was a beautiful day and Jared and I were excited to break-in our new cup holders on our bikes. We spent pretty much the whole day over at my parents' house and we all had a great day together.

Jared and I spent the evening at home just hanging out, as this was day 3 of our relaxing weekend. We were ecstatic to be able to spend our Sunday evening relaxing instead of getting ready for the work week, since we both had Monday off as well. I would spend my Monday catching up on school work and reading out in the sun, while Jared spent the day at a Seminole Booster golf tournament with Jimbo Fisher. What a wonderful end to a great 4-day weekend! 

Happy Easter!

Atlantic Beach

This weekend I got to celebrate my birthday again! I had a 4-day weekend, thank you Duval County Public Schools, so Jared and I decided to spend part of it at the beach. Jared and I live really far away from the beach, especially the beach that we like to go to. I mean seriously, I have to pass by pastures of cows in order to get to Publix, so there is definitely no beach anywhere near me. Sometimes we go to the beach in St. Augustine, which is the closest, only about 30 minutes away. Our favorite beach to go to is Atlantic Beach, which is about 45 minutes from our house. Not only do we like going to the actual beach there, but we also like the restaurants and bars in that area as well. However, driving all the way out there during the day is bad enough without having to come all the way home to shower and head back out there for the evening.

For my birthday present, Jared got us a reservation at One Ocean on Atlantic Beach. We weren't able to use it on my actual birthday because that was the weekend of the Spring Game and we all know that FSU football has priority over everything else, especially in my life. So we decided that this 4-day weekend would be the perfect time to cash in on our little beach vacation.

On Friday around lunchtime, we packed up the car and headed out to Atlantic Beach. We spent the day in our beach chairs, drinking beer and people watching. Going to the beach in Jacksonville is always a unique experience; there are just so many diverse looking people in one location. Oh and you can't forget the tourists, who think it is ok to let their kids to throw snacks to the seagulls, thus creating a swarm of seagulls attacking everyone on the beach. 

After spending a few hours on the beach, we headed up to our hotel to check-in and get ready for our evening out. One Ocean is super nice and very pretty. Our room had a view of the beach and one of my favorite places, Lemon Bar. 

The view from our room at One Ocean. You can see the little yellow umbrellas at Lemon Bar...

Jared and I met up with Boden, Brian and Scotty for our evening out in Atlantic Beach. Me and a bunch of boys...the usual. First, we went to dinner at Sliders which was super yummy as always. Next, we went for drinks at Lemon Bar which is my favorite. I've never been there at night though, so that was fun even though I was really cold...thanks a lot ocean breeze. After that, we went to Island Girl for drinks and cigars. Well, the boys had cigars and I just had pink wine :) 

Jared and I parted ways with the other guys after that and went back to the hotel, which was a good thing considering how Jared was feeling the next morning.

Saturday morning, I was up bright and early ready for the beach and Jared would not get out of bed. So I went down stairs, got my car out of valet and drove to McDonald's to get us some greasy breakfast. I'm pretty sure that the valet guys were judging me for bringing fast food breakfast into their 5-star resort. I ate my breakfast and Jared was still immobile. We had our hotel room until noon, so I was not going to waste time taking full advantage of the resort with or without him. 

The pool was crowded, so I set off for the beach. Being on the beach in the morning is awesome because there aren't a ton of people and it doesn't feel like the surface of the sun yet.

I spent the next two hours soaking up the sun on my towel and walking up and down the beach. I didn't want to go home so soon, but I knew that we had to check out and there was no way I was going to be able to convince Jared to go back out to the beach with me after check-out. So I went and retrieved him from the room and we headed home. 

Lucky for me it was still nice and sunny when we got home; so while Jared set up camp on our couch, I set up my lounge chair in the backyard and continued my tanning :) 

I had a great two days out at the beach and if you are ever looking for somewhere to stay close to the beach in Jacksonville, One Ocean is awesome. It was so nice to feel like we were on vacation, but we didn't even have to leave town. I think we will probably do this again over the summer, as I always love a little beach get-a-way! 

Vegetable Garden - Day 43

Our very first vegetables sprouted today! The little purple flowers have been slowly falling off of the green bean plants and today we noticed that there are little green beans beginning to grow on the plant. The work is finally starting to pay off...

Happy Easter!

On Turning 24

Last weekend, I celebrated my 24th birthday. I have never felt old in my entire life until this past weekend. I am used to always being the youngest. I am the youngest in my family, one of the youngest of our group of friends, and one of the youngest teachers at my school. However, going back to Tallahassee is one way of definitely making me feel like an old fart.

My mother-in-law has started this birthday crown tradition, in which everyone has to wear this ridiculously awesome crown on their birthday and then pass it on to the next person in the family with a birthday coming up. On Saturday night, we all went out to the bar and at midnight it was time for me to put my crown on. All these girls kept coming up to me all excited and saying, "Is it your 21st birthday?" When I responded with, "No, it's my 24th birthday", I got the same reaction every time. Their smiling face went to a look of disappointment, there was an awkward pause, then an "oh", and then they would walk away. After this happened like 5 times within a half hour, I was feeling really old. However, I did not let this impose on my good time.

I definitely had a great time celebrating my birthday in Tallahassee, but it was nice to come back to the land of adults where I get to feel young again :)

I never thought that I would get to celebrate my birthday at a tailgate and football game, being that I was born in April. However, thanks to the FSU Spring Game falling on my birthday weekend this year, I got to do just that.

We started Saturday off with a tailgate at Kappa Sigma...obviously. It was nice to be back in tailgating mode, especially in the spring weather, rather than the September heat wave. This was the beginning of my harsh realization that I am officially old. Aside from the old alumni guys that were there, I could only recognize some of the senior active brothers who I last remember as being pledges...depressing. Since we didn't really know any of the active brothers or care to impress anyone for that matter, there was no need to stand around looking pretty. So Erika and I ran around the yard playing football, and we rocked...better start polishing our Heisman. 

Finally, it was time to walk to the stadium for the game. So we set off down the "rape trail" from Heritage Grove...it was like walking down memory lane :) 

The actual football game was really not that exciting...I mean seriously, we were playing against ourselves. I will say that it was so nice to be back in Doak with that Seminole football atmosphere all around us.

After the game, it was time for my birthday dinner! We went to El Jalisco for Mexican and margaritas, yum :) As much as I pleaded with everyone at the table to not have them come sing to me, they just would not let me off the hook. So at the end of the meal, here came my singing Mexicans and my tequila shot...gross. The sole reason that I drink frozen margaritas instead of on the rocks is because I do not like the taste of tequila. However, I took my shot like a champ and then we were really in birthday celebration mode!

After dinner, we changed clothes and headed out to the bars for some more celebration. We spent the rest of the evening at Ken's, of course. Whoever thought it was a good idea for Ken's to start serving liquor is retarded. I just drank beer the whole night because I was not going to go down that road, but people kept buying me shots because it was my birthday...nice gesture, but no thanks. 

At midnight, it was time for the birthday crown and Christina brought me a birthday shot. It was clear and when I asked her what it was, she simply said "water"...so then I asked her, "well if it's only water, then why did they give me a lime?" She smiled and I made this face because I hate tequila....

Later on, some genius requested Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" on the jukebox and it pretty much made my night. Apparently, all the frat boys who are regulars at Ken's are secretly Celine Dion fans because literally everyone in the bar was belting out this song. It was hilarious and priceless. 

The night continued with more ridiculous fun and photos...

All of a sudden, the FSU Offensive Line decided to show up and party with us...

Overall, I had a great birthday and I could not be a happier 24 year old :) Thanks for all the birthday wishes and celebration in my honor!

Luckily, the fun doesn't stop there! My birthday gift from Jared is a beach weekend at One Ocean Resort in Atlantic Beach, and we are going there today! So now I am off to enjoy birthday weekend #2...

Happy Earth Day and Good Friday!   

Vegetable Garden - Day 40

I apologize for getting so behind with my blogging about our vegetable garden, but we have been a little busy. So here are some updated pictures of our crops :)

The green beans have these pretty little purple flowers on them that apparently bloom and fall off and then the beans sprout afterward. 

More green beans 

 

Jalapeño peppers

Cherry tomatoes 

Cucumbers

Epic Failure

One of my favorite things about being married is trying something new together and failing miserably at it. It ends up being so hilarious that there is really nothing else that either of you can do, so you might as well just pour a glass of wine :)

This past weekend, Jared's dad met up with us in Tallahassee and brought some stone crab for us. It was sitting in my refrigerator for 2 days and I was already sick of my fridge smelling like seafood. After work yesterday, I decided that I wanted to make something for dinner involving this crab meat so that I could be rid of it. I knew that we weren't just going to eat crab meat ala carte for dinner, so I was going to have to make this into some sort of dish. I googled crab recipes and found one for a pasta dish...sort of like shrimp scampi, but with crab instead of shrimp. I figured that this would be the easiest to make and would probably come out the best.

Jared arrived home from work and we got started on our little cooking experiment. He cracked all the crab legs and pulled out all the meat. I was in charge of making the angel hair pasta and getting started on the scampi sauce. Once I was done making the sauce, he seasoned it up a little more since he is actually the one who knows how to cook well. We added the sauce to our crab meat and tossed it over the pasta. It looked quite delicious.

Disaster. We started eating it, took about 2 bites, looked at each other and started laughing hysterically. The flavor was decent, nothing great, but not terrible. The epic downfall of our pasta dish...crab shell. Even though Jared thoroughly shredded the crab meat, little pieces of shell managed to sneak in there. So as we are trying to eat this mediocre-tasting meal, we keep biting down on little hard bits of shell and trying to fish them out of the pasta. That managed to destroy what little bit of enjoyment there was of this meal to begin with. Dissecting a pasta dish with your fork is rather difficult and I did not like that I had to keep sticking my fingers in my mouth to get the hard shell bits out of my crab meat.

Eventually, Jared and I both gave up on this meal and opted for a glass of wine instead. I was so disappointed that this meal did not turn out how I expected it to. Either way, Jared and I had a lot of fun making this meal together. We were so excited about our new creation...and it sucked. There is really nothing more you can do about that than have a good laugh :)
  

Party Like It's 1987

My birthday is in 3 days and as I sit here surrounded by student papers that I don't feel like grading, I keep reminding myself that I am about to be 24. While that doesn't seem very old, it seriously feels like only yesterday I was in the 4th grade getting all excited about turning double digits. So I sit here and look at my students' papers remembering what life was like when my students were born. The ones who are not vastly overage for a 6th grader were born in 1999...that year I was listening to *NSYNC, didn't have a cell phone, and the most exciting thing we could do on a computer was AIM.

Since my concentration is obviously not on what I am supposed to be doing, I start thinking about what life was like in the year I was born, 1987. I've seen the pictures in the family album...my mom with the big hair and my brother riding around in his Knight Rider car. In an attempt to further my procrastination for the night...I seriously put the "pro" in procrastination...I decided to Google "1987". If this blog is already starting to make you feel old, then don't read any further.

Ready for a trip down memory lane? In honor of my 24th birthday, here are 24 fun facts about 1987...

1. April 17th - I was born...obviously the most important thing that happened in 1987 :)

2. Ronald Reagan was President - like I would dare be born under anything but a Republican

3. Gas was 89 cents a gallon

4. Average income was $24,000

5. Disposable contact lenses were invented

6. Prozac was invented

7. The Simpsons premiered on TV for the first time

8. New York Giants won the Super Bowl

9. Minnesota Twins won the World Series

10. World population reached 5 billion

11. Microsoft released Windows 2.0

12. The Beastie Boys were the first act to ever be censored on American Bandstand

13. Hit Singles:
       - La Bamba
       - Bad
       - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
       - I've Had the Time of My Life
       - Heaven Is a Place On Earth
       - With or Without You
       - Faith
       - Livin' On a Prayer

14. Movie Hits:
      - Three Men and a Baby
      - Lethal Weapon
      - Dirty Dancing
      - Fatal Attraction
      - Good Morning, Vietnam
      - Robocop

15: Hit TV Shows:
      - 21 Jump Street
      - The Bold and the Beautiful
      - Full House
      - Married with Children
      - The Cosby Show

16. Red Bull was invented

17. Debut of Pictionary, Jenga and the Koosh Ball

18. The Legend of Zelda was released on NES

19. Run DMC collaborates with Aerosmith on "Walk This Way"

20. The first American fast food restaurant opened in China...it was a KFC

21. Condom commercials begin to air on TV for the first time

22. National News - the little girl in Texas that got stuck down a well...she was rescued eventually

23. The first e-mail ever was sent...it went from China to Germany

24. The first 3-D video game was invented

The Worst 4-Letter Word

There are a number of shameful 4-letter words in the English language, and personally I wouldn't mind combining all of them into one sentence to describe how I currently feel about one 4-letter word in particular...FCAT. If you live in Florida and have to deal with public education in any facet: as a parent, teacher, or student, then you know that FCAT is truly the worst 4-letter word in our vocabulary. The FCAT invaded my school this week and I am left feeling like this...

We began FCAT testing on Monday and I thought that day was bad. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and frustrated by how ridiculous my homeroom students (the students I am responsible for testing) really are. During the actual testing time, my students are fine. However, when our testing session is over and we are having to wait for the other classes on our hall to finish testing before we can all go to lunch, all hell breaks loose. My students seem to think that because they were just calm and quiet for 70 minutes that they need to make up for lost time in their ridiculous antics. Here's a good visual for how my students act immediately after testing time is called...imagine that you go to the zoo and there is a small cage with 27 irritable lions in it. Next, someone sets off a series of fireworks inside the lions' cage and then throws a helpless human being (me) into the cage to try and calm the lions down.

Yesterday was even more frustrating and exhausting than Monday. However, nothing takes the cake like today. The only word I can think of to describe today is hellacious. First of all, we had to do two 70 minute sessions of testing today. The past two days we have been doing one session per day, so it has been manageable. Today, we did one session of testing, went to lunch, and then came back to do another session of testing, and everything was way behind schedule. By the time I got rid of my homeroom students it was after 2:30. Needless to say, I was sooooo ready to be rid of them. I'm sure that they were ready to be rid of me as well. At this point, I had morphed into something even more ferocious than the actual FCAT...see picture below...you might as well erase "FCAT" and put my name on that beast.

 
Being the young-in that I am, I do distinctly remember taking the FCAT in school. Additionally, I also remember that once the test was over we still managed to go about the rest of our day functioning as human beings. For some reason, my students think that taking the FCAT gives them an excuse to not do work and act like circus monkeys for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, I managed to survive this week of FCAT testing without doing anything irrational...minus drinking large glasses of wine every day when I got home.

I can't wait till tomorrow when I get to hear my next favorite comment of pure stupidity that is fostered by the FCAT..."are we going to do anything important for the rest of the year, since FCAT is over?" If one of my students dares to ask me this question, I think I might actually say, "nope, so you can just stay home for the rest of the year, see you in August." According to my students, it is so unfair that we make them go to school once FCAT is over because there is no point...awesome, love the positive attitude.

Ultimately, I am very happy that FCAT is over. I don't have to hear about it or talk about it or deal with people being in a pissy mood (myself included) because of it. So I will forget about it for now, until our scores come out over the summer and I can start worrying about job security, yay!

So until next April, goodbye FCAT and good riddance. Best of luck to all those teachers and parents who are still in the midst of testing! Hang in there and treat yourself to a magnum bottle of wine :)

Keys Trip - Day 3

I am always asking Jared to take me fishing, but for some reason we never go...either we don't get up early enough or it's too windy or some other ridiculous excuse. Not to mention that our only available fishing vessel is our Gheenoo, which is pretty much an over-sized canoe with a motor on the back...real luxurious. Plus, our Gheenoo also happens to be housing a bunch of the junk in our garage that we don't have room for. Hopefully, we will do some fishing in Jacksonville soon, but until then I guess some offshore fishing in the Keys will have to suffice...no big deal :)

Saturday, April 2

When I decided that I wanted to go to the Keys for Spring Break this year, one of my must-do activities was offshore fishing. Luckily, Jared's dad had a friend who owed him a favor and he happens to be a charter captain, so Jared didn't have to shell out an arm and a leg to take me fishing...I'm so demanding :)

Jared, Erika, Ben (Jared's dad) and I set out bright and early for a full day of fishing with our captain Jimmy. Erika and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to sport our matching tie-dyed Sloppy's Joe's t-shirts. In the Keys, you can wear pretty much anything and not be considered ridiculous looking.

About 15 minutes into our trip, the guys had all the rods out and set up, ready to go. All of a sudden, one of the reels started going and Jared jumped up to get it. He set the hook and a sailfish jumped out of the water. He called me over and told me that he was going to get it started and then he was going to hand the rod over to me so that I could reel it in. I was very excited about this because I had never caught a sailfish before. The fish jumped a couple of times and I was starting to become concerned that my little weak self (remember it's been at least 3 years since I've been to a gym) was going to have to reel this giant fish in.

Finally, Jared handed the rod over to me and the fight was on. He kept standing behind me the whole time; I think he was afraid that the fish was going to pull me overboard.

I was pulling up and reeling down for what seemed like an eternity. My arms were killing me and even started to feel like noodles. It got to the point where I had to use every ounce of strength in me to pull that rod up. I seriously thought that my arms were going to give out and let go of the rod. After about 30 minutes of fighting this fish, Jared asked me if I too tired and wanted to give him back the rod to finish it off. I had come too far and I was not giving up now. Finally, after 45 minutes my sailfish was up to the surface of the water next to the boat. I did it!

My arms were so tired and shaking, but I wanted a picture with my sailfish...this was a glorious moment for me :) After all that fighting, I still had to lift this 50 pound fish out of the water and hold it up for my photo. So in a hurry, our captain Jimmy and I lifted that fish up into the boat, snapped a photo and threw him back into the water.  

In all the fishing I've done in my lifetime, I've never caught a fish this big and I've never worked so hard to catch a fish...I was feeling pretty badass :)

Once we got my fish up to the boat, we discovered that he was hooked in the side of his body instead of in the mouth. This was the reason why it was so difficult to fight him and why it took me so long and so much effort to reel him in. I have no idea how the fish managed to get hooked in the side, ask Jared...he must have set me up...rude.

After we released my sailfish back into the water, it was time for me to take a long break from the activities. Whatever fish was hooked next was definitely not going to be reeled in by me, I was exhausted.

Not too long after, Erika caught a dolphin with a little more ease than my sailfish. We ended up keeping it and I can't wait to eat it soon...love me some mahi mahi :)

We relocated to the reef in hopes of more action and spent the rest of the day fishing for mangrove snapper. We caught a lot of grouper, but we couldn't keep them because they were all too small and grouper is not in season right now. Among all the mangrove snapper and spanish mackerel that we caught, Jared, Erika and Ben each managed to catch a king fish as well. It was quite a successful day of fishing! 

While the guys were cleaning all of the fish back at the dock, Erika and I ventured over to the bar next to the marina for some strawberry daiquiris...cleaning fish is not our forte :)

Afterwards, we had to go pick Gina up from Peggy and Paul's house and took a little swim in their pool to cool off and relax. 

Jared, Erika, Gina and I went to dinner that evening at Keys Fisheries which is right on the water behind Gina's house.

It was a wonderful end to the perfect Spring Break trip! I can't wait to go back to the Keys this summer!

Keys Trip - Day 2

The second day of our trip was all about celebrating Gina's birthday! This date also used to be my and Jared's anniversary when we were dating. We started officially dating on April 1, 2006 after spending the evening prior together at Barnyard Bash...like I always say, "Kappa Sigma, where dreams are made" :) So not only was this day my mother-in-law's birthday, but it was also the 5 year anniversary of Jared and I being together.

Friday, April 1 

My husband and his sister are truly similar when it comes to sleep schedules and I am their polar opposite. They both stay up till all hours of the night and don't get up easily in the morning. I, on the other hand, fall asleep early and wake up early. So as usual, I was up super early and ready to go before anyone else woke up. Once Erika finally got up, her and I went on a little trip to her old workplace so Jared and Gina could get ready for our trip down to Key West for the afternoon.

Last year, Erika worked for Dynasty Marine, and Jared used to work there when he was in high school as well. Dynasty is responsible for all those cool tropical fish that you see when you go to an aquarium. They go out diving in the Keys and get all kinds of different sea creatures; then they ship them to aquariums all over the world. Erika wanted to stop by and visit her old co-workers and I wanted to go see all the cool fish. Most of the guys that work there were out on the boat diving for cool new fish, but one of them that was there took us on a little tour of the tanks. I was very excited to see all kinds of pretty, colorful fish as well as sharks, sting rays and lots of other little critters too! I was really intrigued by how they ship all these fish all over the world. Seriously, can you imagine having a shark delivered to you in the mail? I can just imagine the UPS man showing up at my house with a big box with a shark in it...haha, just kidding :)

After visiting the fishies, we met back up with Jared and Gina to head down to Key West. Gina's friends, Peggy and Paul, joined us in Key West for the festivities. We made the hour long drive South from Marathon, which I didn't mind because I love driving through the Keys...all the pretty water and scenery makes the drive more entertaining. We started off our day at Schooner Wharf Bar where Erika introduced me to the "Miami Vice" drink, which is a pina colada mixed with a strawberry daiquiri...yum :)

Next, we went to lunch at A&B Lobster House at the marina where we got to see some giant tarpon and nurse sharks swimming around outside of the restaurant. After lunch, we started walking toward Duval Street to begin our tourist festivities. However, I must have a built-in "Lilly radar" because we just so happened to walk right by the Lilly Pulitzer store. It seriously has so much Lilly, I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. Shockingly enough, I didn't actually buy anything in there, but Gina bought her very first Lilly dress!

After I managed to escape Lilly without buying anything, we headed over to the Kino Factory. Key West has this famous, signature sandal company called Kino's. They are leather sandals and they are super comfy, cute and really cheap. I used to have a pair of ivory ones, but Lola chewed them up. This time I got some garnet and gold ones :)

Our plan for the rest of the day was to frolick around town and do all the cheesy, touristy things that we never do when we go to Key West. Well, that plan didn't last very long. Some how we managed to turn our tourist itinerary into a bar crawl. The only historical sites we managed to visit just so happened to serve alcohol, but those are important Key West staples as well :)

We started at Captain Tony's Saloon and then ventured across the street to my favorite bar in Key West, Sloppy Joe's. Erika and I even got matching tie-dyed t-shirts to show our love. Ernest Hemingway used to go to Sloppy Joe's all the time and even wrote some of his famous masterpieces while sitting at the bar there. Being the English nerd that I am, I absolutely love Ernest Hemingway, he is one of my favorite authors...hence my love for Sloppy Joe's :)  

Next, we went to Irish Kevin's which is home to this ridiculous signature drink called the "Green Alligator". I also bought my brother a cup from there that says, "I came, I drank, I don't remember!" If you are curious about the story behind my gift, just ask him :)

One thing that I love about Key West is that it is perfectly normal to be sitting at the bar next to a crazy, drunk guy wearing aviators and a chicken hat...

You absolutely cannot complete a visit to Key West without a trip to Fat Tuesday! I just love a good alcoholic slushy. We ended our bar crawl of Key West here with a jello shot in Gina's honor. Plus, Erika and I were really excited about the coozie bottles that Jared bought us :)

We left Gina, Peggy and Paul in Key West for the evening as they continued the celebration. Jared, Erika and I headed back to Marathon to have dinner with Jared's dad. After dinner at Sparky's, we went to Key Colony Inn again for some cocktails. The night ended fairly early since we were tired from a busy day in Key West; plus, we had to get up bright and early the next morning for our fishing trip!