It looks like we brought Bellingham's weather with us to Florida. I was so looking forward to making everyone back home seeth with jealousy as I penned about our days of frolicking in the sun. Splitting our time between the beach and the pool. Retiring to the back porch for an evening of watching golfers, sipping sweet tea and listening to the harmony of the crickets.

Here's what I get for being so shallow: Not rising the first morning until almost noon--we did get in at 1:00 a.m. afterall. By the time we got it together the sun was a distant memory behind the clouds that were arriving for the next two days. Day two the sun didn't show her face--AT ALL. Made our way to the hood of Jacksonville to "one of the first skateboard parks ever built in America". Trey reminded us how many occasions he had visited this place as a young lad. It wasn't such a big deal when he discovered that most of the skaters hitting the rails with my kids weren't EVEN BORN the last time Trey was here.

Today we got up "early" around 9 a.m. and hurriedly readied ourselves for a day of sun and surf. As Mimi and I settled our buns onto the beach to watch the boys test their boogie boards against the waves, the skies opened up. While Trey and the kids threw caution to the wind ("we're getting wet anyway") we huddled under the boardwalk and an umbrella willing the sun to find its way to us. No such luck. The only thing that found us was some hungry seagulls. Two hours later everyone (but me) was at the movie theater watching the new Indiana Jones movie. We're still holding out hope for tomorrow.

On the brighter side, (no pun intended) it is 80 degrees! That makes it count as a tropical vacation, right?