Naples

We got up at 4:15 to head to the airport by 5:00. We left on time from our house! This never happens!! We got to the airport and it was a ZOO! Goodness. We'd read about summer travel creating long lines but had yet to really experience it until now. Thankfully we have our handy TSA precheck so security only held us up by about 5 minutes (can you tell that this was the best travel-related purchase ever?!). We got on our flight, sat together in an exit row with only 2 seats (love when that happens), plugged in our Bose noise-canceling headphones into our iPads (thanks for both sets of headphones and both iPads, Mom!) and before we knew it we'd landed in South Florida. Hooray!

We grabbed our rental car and headed South for Naples. We grabbed a quick late breakfast/early lunch at my favorite place, Tropical Smoothie, before heading for the condo to get changed to head to the beach.

Tropical Smoothie for...brunch...is a must!

We've mastered the turnaround from plane to beach so we were on the sand by about noon.

The best way to spend an afternoon!

Jackson got out my bodyboard and spent time playing in the waves

I tried to join Jackson in his bodyboarding fun (since it is my board from college), but the water was too choppy making me too unstable on my bad knee. UGH! I'm so over these injuries. I headed for shore and spent the rest of the afternoon reading magazine and soaking in the warm sun. It was lovely.

We finally left the beach, got cleaned up and then returned for sunset.

We love the view of the pier!

Petefish

Ahh, this view

We knew we wanted to have The Cove for dinner so we headed that way for my final birthday dinner.

Handsome date

32.

DOCK SHRIMP NACHOS

"LOTSA LOBSTA"

The summer is not busy season down here (I cannot imagine why not-- a little humidity never hurt anyone) so the restaurants are far more affordable. We had shrimp nachos, clam chowder and Jackson's two lobsters for $65. That's incredibly reasonable especially for Naples so now we're committed to coming down more during the off-season! The restaurant was not crowded, our server was very engaged and entertaining and it was just a lovely evening. We had a splendid day in one of our favorite places!