Our Florida Home Archives - Page 3 of 17 - Enjoying the Small Things

Memorial Day

May 28, 2012 By Kelle

It’s a beachy weekend here.

Bored? Find the hidden watermarks. It’s like Where’s Waldo, but even more pointless.

We’ve soaked, sunscreened, sipped and simmered with friends the past two days, and we are, consequently, excited for summer.

I’ve packed more beach bags in my life than I’ve packed lunches, suitcases and heat combined. Okay, I’ve never packed heat. But I do have the beach thing down and can quickly load up my bag with necessities. We wear our swimsuits to the beach with covers, and the kids carry their own towels. A great extra I recently discovered from Parents magazine? Bring an ice cream scoop. It’s perfect for making sand balls.

Currently reading French Kids Eat Everything and rereading an easy read favorite: Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity
Unavailable for photo: swim diapers, hair ties, lipbalm with SPF, baby sunscreen, camera (in padded case) and a paint brush (Say what? I just learned this from my friend Andrea: a soft 2-inch paint brush is perfect for dusting the dials on your camera body to keep them sand free)

My three favorites from Isles of Capri yesterday:

Favorite retro yellow bathing suit: Popina Swimwear

The rest I threw into a video because everything’s better with music. We had a treasure hunt for the kids yesterday–clues that led to different locations around the beach and a real buried treasure at the end. It was a little bit fabulous.

Song: “5 Years Time” by Noah and the Whale

If you didn’t catch it last time, I created a quick tutorial for making video/photo slideshows like the one above in this post.

Happy Memorial Day. Remembering all those whom this day honors, especially our friends, the Terhune family. xo

I’ll be back Tuesday for a Hallmark post.

Mother’s Isle

May 14, 2012 By Kelle

Our beach at the Isles of Capri welcomed us yesterday, its skinny shore recently renovated with a line-up of new adirodacks in jelly bean hues that nicely compliment the kids’ swimsuits. Lime and lavender, melon and mint green, a great sea blue and my favorite–the yellow chairs, pulled to the front stage of knee-deep water.

Circling the colored chairs are red kayaks, walls painted yellow and trimmed in turquoise, a crayon box of colors represented in scattered beach toys, and a small community of sun-kissed children, darting from dock to shore in suits of blues and greens and loud purples. Together, it is quite a kaleidoscope of colors–an island buffet of happy hues, which happens to be exactly what I was craving for Mother’s Day.

Gulf water temperatures never drop as low as the Atlantic and, in Naples, you can damn near take a warm bath–a salty one–in August when swimming in the gulf offers little refreshment from hot and humid afternoons. But right now, the gulf is the perfect blend of inviting and adventurous. You can glide from knee-deep to waist-deep without holding your breath and yet, right when your brow is sweating and your legs are sticking to that lovely yellow chair, a trip to the water makes it all better.

Lainey and her Grandma Colleen

Because the beach is truly alive with the sound of music and Julie Andrews is one of a great many heroes, let me break it down for you Fraulein Maria style.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things (about our famous happy place):

By the way, I am singing this part. In a nightgown.

1. It’s a natural play pen. The beach is small, bordered by a dock, a cluster of mangroves, a stack of kayaks and Johnson’s Bay. There is no place for babies to wander off to but right here. No Nella chasing. No panicking because I can’t see blond pigtails in my peripheral vision.

2. Tide Changes. In the span of nine hours, the shore line will change–pushing forward while we pull chairs back and fetch floating shovels that have been swallowed up; and pulling back, revealing muddy puddles and dense sand that entertain the kids for hours. Nella flings wet sand.

3. Island Adventures. There’s one sidewalk that trails around the one main street on the Isles of Capri. When we’re feeling adventurous, we’ll leave the happy confines of our beach sanctuary and walk barefoot past the newspaper stands, past the marina, past the little bait shop with the live shrimp that jump out of their pool, past the vegetable stand with the rainbow umbrella–the one where the woman stands inside and says “ONLY VEGETABLES.” Even when you point out that there’s also fruit and a cooler of soda and a coffee pot in the back next to the inviting tables that, you swear, are for guests–she still firmly demands “ONLY VEGETABLES!” We found two treasures yesterday–well two if you count a graveyard of fly-ridden crab pots that reeked of dead fish a treasure. The other was a closed island mart–abandoned on a Sunday afternoon but practically rigged with a sign that said “Please Visit.” I mean, there were two chairs, a small table and a deck of cards just waiting for us. We Goldilocks-ed the place.

4. Island Initiations. For first-timers. (This includes newborns). I still haven’t perfected the initiation ritual in my mind which–not to get you excited–but involves some sort of chanting, a rain dance, some burning sage, a pelican feather, a shot of Jamaican rum, two conch shells, and the scales of a native fish. Until then, we say “Welcome to our happy place,” slap a dollar on a bar beam and take a picture for posterity’s sake.

Nella’s P.T. and O.T. and family joined us yesterday

‘Sup, Ivy? It’s your FIRST TIME to I.O.C.!

My friend Rebecca’s cutie husband, Ian (when a guy can hold a baby like that, I think we can all agree, he’s cute).

5. Heavy skies. They glide in like time lapse photography, sending us excitedly running to grab our bags and move camp to the tiki hut. On a perfect Sunday, this happens right after sunset, and the remainder of the evening is spent huddled around bar tables where we share drinks, wind down and brush sand off the babies.

There are more favorite things, of course, but I have to leave room in the song for when I jump off the bed, grab the curtains and decide to chop them up into little German rompers for my girls to wear next picnic.

The crazy part about Sundays at Isle of Capri? Going home is just as much a part of our enjoyable ritual as packing the car and getting there.

I usually hate endings. I’m a walking ad for Zoloft the day after Christmas holidays, and the last day of vacations might as well just be a wash because I’m so sad it’s over. But Sunday nights, after the perfect Isle of Capri day and right before the dreaded Monday? I’m actually cool with it. The wind-down is necessary and good. The drive home is quiet. We all process our memories in our own way, and as we arrive home and unpack, quickly bathing the kids and tucking their tan little bodies under sheets, I’m always ready to go to bed and start a new week. Maybe I’m just getting older–understanding that work and routine are just as important as fun and relaxation.

Either way, I appeciate them both. Fridays and Mondays…and all the in between.

*****

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*****

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day.

Camped Out

May 9, 2012 By Kelle

If there was a game that involved points for how many times you can say supermoon, let it be known that last weekend, I would have won. And if extra points could be measured in mosquito bites gained–well now it’s just not fair. I have returned from our weekend camping excursion with a connect-the-dots pattern of mosquito bites so vast, it resembles a map of night sky constellations. The night sky that, might I add, showed off its brilliant supermoon Saturday night.

It’s been almost two years since we’ve gone camping and, despite the fact that we love the wilderness (I’m loosely using that phrase), I will admit, it’s work. Especially when you’re married to someone who prides himself on having everything one could possibly need on a camping trip. “Please tell me you’re staying longer than one night,” my friend asked when we pulled up in our house-on-wheels. Seriously, Brett brings a camping dresser. Yes, dresser. A five-drawer plastic dresser full of things he hopes people will ask to use just so he can say “Got it!” when someone needs, oh I don’t know—aluminum foil, extra batteries, a jack knife, a bottle opener, dish soap, pot scrapers. All of that? In the dresser, thank you.

Enamel mug? Got it!

And while Bear Grylls is unpacking our “house,” setting up tents, organizing his dresser drawers, the kids and I set out to explore.

Hugged to the north by the Estero River and a tall bamboo forest, Koreshan State Park is rich in both nature and history.

Its grounds are shared by a campground and a historic settlement founded by Cyrus Reed Teed who, together with his followers, lived on these grounds in the late 1800s/early 1900s and practiced Koreshanity, a faith centered around the belief that the universe existed within a hollow sphere. Several of the Koreshan buildings still stand and—in between kayaking, fishing and roasting marshmallows—we toured the historic grounds, peeking in windows, admiring the character of old wood floors and antiques that held stories, and agreeing that we were pleased the neighboring campground was far enough away to avoid a creepy nightfall. However, there were quilts, and quilts tend to soften any ghostly vibes.

While Lainey went canoeing with Brett Sunday afternoon, I walked a couple hours, pushing Nella in her stroller, pausing to apply more sunscreen, readjust her hat and position her head more comfortably after it gradually slid into that famous sleeping baby head slump. Quiet and near vacant, the park provided an appropriate environment for a hardly-a-thought walk of solitude, a necessary routine I need to make time for more often, I realized. I think a lot–analyzing emotions, creating ideas, philosophizing about over-philosophized things. And sometimes I have to tell myself “Stop thinking. Just be.” So I did just that, focusing on no more than the crackle of the stroller wheels on the broken shell path and marveling at how such skinny trunks on Washington Palms can stand so tall and sturdy.

The sun was strong and steady this weekend, but the breeze was forgiving. It felt so good to do nothing. To sit on picnic benches, drinking cold beer and watching the girls drag shovels through dirt like it was soft sand and knowing a quick splash under the campsite spigot was all that was necessary to clean them up before bed.

We did camp-ish things because, when you go camping with a man equipped with a five-drawer camping dresser who pulls lighters and roasting sticks out of his pockets like a quick-draw sharp shooter, you don’t miss a camping beat.

S’mores? I take them as a challenge. I will brown those marshmallows into crisp perfection–evenly roasted, gooey in the center and toasted to the color of brown sugar. Chocolate–slightly melted but still firm. And then the trifecta smash. Voila–the perfect s’more, a very camp-ish thing.

Our friends, Dave and Julie, who upped the camping ante with an open jeep and their own kayaks.

Alright, I admit, we’re camping wannabes. We didn’t even bring a guitar. And my camping backpack was a knock-off Vera Bradley bag. But I pretended it was an Osprey Pack–with holes burned into it from campfire embers, and a real canteen inside.

Favorite camping moment? If unicorns went camping, I’m pretty sure you would find them canoeing down Estero River at midnight. Under a supermoon. I tried it, and trust me–put canoeing under a supermoon on your bucket list. Add wine and stir.

The water, the land around it, the palms, the sky, the silver edge of the boat–everything was illuminated as if thousands of candles lined the brink of the river. We needed no flashlights as our boat made its way through the river’s winding path and we made toasts under the glowing midnight sky.

Completely worth the mosquito bites.

I like camping. I like the dust clouds and the cricket sounds and the way the sun seeps through thin tent nylon early in the morning, begging you to wake up. I like rusty old Coleman grills and husbands who know how to use them. I like the sound of tents unzipping, the sight of bright flashlight circles against the black night sky, the taste of a well-roasted marshmallow. And finally, I like returning home, after all the work of tearing down tents and cramming things back into the five drawers of the camping dresser, to review details of the trip with Brett like a wrap-up meeting. “We’ll bring the Pack ‘n Play next time,” we decide, perfecting our camp sleeping methods. “And more hot dogs,” Brett adds, certain to make next time even better.

A much needed weekend, indeed.

*****

I have to say, I have been so moved by the stories you have been sharing with the We Bloom invitation. I have many more thoughts on this, but for now I am reading and learning, humbled by the shared human experience of grief, determination, resilience and hope. Thank you for sharing, and please continue to do so (and take some time to read through some of the stories–my goodness, is there much to learn). Four stories will be published this weekend on the blog, and those chosen will receive a personalized signed copy of Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected.

*****

Finally, I was thrilled to have a short commentary featured on NPR’s All Things Considered this week. You can hear it HERE.