5 real years!

Warning: LARGE journal entry to follow!
Hey remember me? The girl with the golden ticket! The one that always wins Publisher's Clearing House! How about the one who has never had an accident while skiing/wake boarding/running/cycling/or even walking!? Yup that's me--nothing but GOOD luck ever comes my way. So just keeping with the theme...Scott and I went to Miami/Fort Luaderdale for our 5 year anniversary (and for me to attend a cardiac work conference). The week before we were there it was 80 degrees and this week it has been 85. BUT DON'T YOU WORRY...while we were there, Florida experienced an all-time low--freezing at 50 degrees during one of the days at 30's at night! OF COURSE IT DID! So on our first day there we found a goodwill and purchased pants and a jacket (for a total of $6), so that we could actually go outside without cursing. I only brought shorts, flip flops and swimming suits! On our way out the door to the airport Scott told me I better grab a jacket...pishaw...jacket shmackit...I'm headed to Florida! Once again, I should ALWAYS listen to Scott.:) Regardless of the weather, we had a really good time! There was no snow and the sound of the ocean, no matter the temperature outside, is always fantastic! But don't worry, I was still hell bent to wear shorts and flip flops!!!

M: "We rented a car and this look was often found on Scott's face, as we were lost a few times!:)"

M: "This cool bridge was raising and beautiful yachts were passing. I seriously don't know how people have so much money...the homes were incredible, not to mention their toys!"

M: "Scotty givin' me the thumbs up as I raced back to the car from the draw bridge."

M: "Ya, this is someone's house with their yacht parked in their back yard."

M: "The $6 purchase from the Fort Lauderdale Goodwill, to keep us warm!"

M: "We took the coolest tour at Gator Park! It was awesome because there were only 4 other people on the tour. The tour guide thought we were nuts because it was so cold to them. We took the tour on an air boat! It was awesome we went flying through the Everglade swamp!"

M: "Scott is really good at photography and captured some beautiful pictures of nature and the alligators at Gator Park. I really love nature and animals and love to see them in their habitat."

M: "This is "Scarface," the alligator. He lost his left eye in a territorial fight!"

M: "If you click on this picture you can see his missing left eye and his scar."

M: "I love this picture of the Everglade swamp. We slowly air boated through this. It was really cool."

M: "Check out the tour guide driving the air boat...he has a full face mask on!"

M: "This is a wood stork. Really an interesting creature. They are monogamous and mate for life. Isn't that cute? Why doesn't this stork fly a package and drop it off at my front door? How did they get that fable of the stork anyhow?!"

S: "This lil' dude is a Blue Herring--one of the largest birds in the United States. He picked up and flew away and had one heck of a ginormous wing span, he was pretty impressive!

S: "We were able to catch the Wood Stork in flight as our air boat caught up to him in one of the narrow channels."

S: "Upon our return to the docks, we saw the same one-eyed gator that we had seen in that channel on the way out to the Everglades. I am pretty sure that this is the same Gator that ate "Chub's hand in Happy Gilmore" fer reals!

S: "This little man was shown to us at the beginning of our Gator Show, they let a few people touch and play with this little man. So OF COURSE MEGS needed to ease her heartstrings of leaving our doggies for the week so she proxied a Gator. This little dude is just 8 weeks old!

S: "This was her TRUE initial reaction to holding the Gator! He is eyeballing the camera thinking that he just wished he was bigger to be able to bite one of the many gawkers!"

S: "But they of course left on good terms."

S: "This guy was a little older, 3 years old that is! His name is Norman, he's about 6 and a half feet long. Since the weather was pretty cool he was very mellow and overall was pretty chilled out."

S: "I snapped this pic as soon as they handed this 10 month old dude over to MEGS. So, no matter what she says, her first reaction was definitely a "WTF am i doing" reaction. His name was Larry."

S: "Larry weighs about 20-25 pounds, and is about 3 1/2 feet long."

S: "Good GADS can I even see out of my squinty eye balls?"

S: "Here is the trainer/show dude that handles the Gators. He was a pretty chill guy that we both thought was way cool and we really enjoyed his sense of humor and personality. He made the show fun!"

S: "So just off of the Ft Lauderdale beach strip there is an area called Dania Beach and from what we gathered it is usually a pretty happening place...just not when Florida sees record lows, which was this day that we hit the roller coaster! Anyhoo on Dania Beach is the largest wooden roller coaster east of the Mississippi!"

S: "So we rode the roller coaster alone!!! ROCK ON! We had found a buy one get one free voucher so we were able to hit it twice. First time we rode in the very front, then we rode in the very back to get a different perspective on the ride! It was way fun and MEGS loves roller coasters so it made it even better to have her elated."

S: "So here is a shout out to our nephew Wrigley who's nickname happens to be "the Big Wrig"! "

S: "Amish = AWESOME! I kept trying to find Harrison Ford amongst their group like building a barn or something."

S: "These next few pics are from the 'Monkey Jungle'. It's kind of a sanctuary wherein the pathways are wired in and the monkeys are able to run amok and do whatever they want. You're in the cage not them:)"

S: "Near the 'monkey skin diving pool' this old timer monkey (we thought looked like Mufasa) was just chillin watching all of the other/ younger monkeys; climb on all of the ropes, scale the rocks and even dive in the water to retrieve fruit and nuts from the trainers. It was pretty cool to watch them interact and see their hierarchy of monkeyhood.

S: "This mamacita just got up to the edge of the pond pool and ate whatever was within reaching distance."

S: "Here was a tiny monkey and in the back of my mind I could hear a mother's warning of "Now don't get too close to the edge Scott."

S: "We figured this to be a lil family of monkeys, pops, baby and mama."

S: "These guys had climbed up the rope after getting fruit from the pond."

S: "Here is another monkey playing on the ropes."

S: "This was one of two Dragon Iguanas, and man they were frickin' huge!"

S: "This parrot had some 'blue' type of name but it escapes me at this moment. He was about 3 feet long. We liked him because he was our wedding colors--blue and orange!"

S: "We set out our camera for a timed photo of the two of us and this is when you realize that pictures from your trip are almost always of just one of you! REMEMBER ask others to help out and snap couple's shots!"

S: "There were so many kinds of monkeys! "

S: "They had these cups dangling and you are supposed to put raisins or seeds in them and amazingly...

...monkeys are awaiting the feast, then hoist the cups up hand over hand and retrieve the goods!"

S: "It was SO COOL to see these dudes so close up."

S: "I could reach up and hand these dudes the raisins if I really stretched, they of course had to stretch just as much!"

S: "Once we figured this out the hand feeding was ON! It was like the movie Gorillas in the Midst"

S: "MEGS gave this lil' man food and another one figured his tail was longer so he ended up stickin' his tail out past this one's arm and MEGS put the raisin in the palm of her hand and he totally took it out of her hand with his tail!"

S: "These white dudes were little acrobats. They had a full gymnasium style of bars to swing from and kept themselves busy swinging all over the whole time that we were there watching them!"

S: "We decided to take a day trip out to the Keys!!! We hit the first key (Key Largo) then went all the way out to the last key (Key West, which happens to be the southernmost part of the continental US). It was a WAY FUN road trip of sorts, but really worth the time to get out there and hang for the afternoon."

S: "Our toes on the Key West Beach!"

S: "A self pic of us on the Key West coastline at sunset!"

S: "Oooh BABY!!! I am one lucky man to have scored a hott lil' lassie such as Megan!"

S: "And for Mendy...'X' jumps!"

S: "Here is me and my bad old self; kayaks, sand, sunset, pier = perfection."

S: "Wowzers this was a gorgeous place!"

S: "Beautiful Megzers giving me her smile!"

S: "I wish that we could have stayed here longer than we did! We had to get back to Lauderdale and not worry about falling asleep on the drive home...as is we didn't get home till about 1:30 am."

S: "A little fuzzy on this one but gorgeous!"

S: "We had this beach to ourselves, well except for this chubby couple that stalked us while we were there...okay maybe they were there first, but we were definitely cooler than they were!"

S: "You know Megs and her love of all animals! These fat dudes were chilling near Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, which BTW is fantastic! Their Mahi Mahi ROCKS!

S: "This one reminded me of the Goodfeathers from Animaniacs."

S: "I am not sure why we didn't have the waiter take our picture FACING THE OCEAN!?!?!? We had a fantastic view of the surf from our table outside on the restaurant's veranda."

S: "The Forrest Gump parkbench complete with running shoes, suitcase and box of chocolates."

S: "This was in the Atlanta airport! Right near the end of our trip. We are counting this as us visiting Megan's mission! We had a FULL/overbooked flight, but Megan had the idea to volunteer our seats. So by waiting an extra 2hrs 15min we got put in 1st class, and received a $400.00 credit EACH that we can now use for whatever we want on Delta Airlines. ROCK ON Meggerz! Man oh Man 1st class rocks too...free drinks, food and snacks without feeling like the flight attendant is going to poison your coke."

M: "I can't believe we have been married 5 years...that has flown and yet seems like yesterday! They have been five very real years. There have been some of the highest of highs and a handful of lowest of lows. It's a good thing we really like each other because life has thrown us a number of curve balls over the past 5 years. Probably like everyone else! I mean is our life as good as it seems by reading this blog? VERY MUCH YES! Are there times I want to pull my hair out (or Scott's)? YES! We are very real, normal, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of people. But at the end of the day we love each other, turn to each other, and trust each other. Marriage is not "hard" work but "fun" work. I love you my Scotty! To infinity and beyond! 1234 eva"
S: "5 years wow! That is like 2.5 missions! Hearing it like that makes it seem painfully long, but fer realsies I know that we have both grown immensely, BUT most importantly we have grown together! Life is hard but with someone who helps you become a better you, it makes it just a little better! Megz you are what I never knew I always wanted."