Last day in Sanibel :(

I'm sitting by the pool as I write this post. Daniel is splashing around in the pool and trying to fit his body into a child's inner tube. It is quite amusing.

The wedding on Friday was a blast. The ceremony was held at a Catholic church in Sanibel. The ceremony was nice, and to be honest, it was short, so that's always good. Around 6pm we all headed over to The Sanctuary, which is a golf resident area and country club. This place was beautiful! Before the actual reception began, we went to the back of the club house and there was an open bar under a tent, and we all drank and mingled by the golf courses. It was so beautiful, it reminded me of the large wedding that is in the movie 'Wedding Crashers'. By 7:30pm, everyone moved inside and the reception began. It wasn't huge wedding, which made it much more fun in my opinion. Everything looked elegant and very 'swanky'. There was an open bar in there as well. Daniel forced me to go catch the bouquet when the DJ asked all single women to go up there. There was maybe only about 10 of us single gals... and low and behold.. I caught the damn bouquet. Let's just say that I didn't stop getting commented on about that the rest of the night, or the following day at the newlywed brunch.. haha.

I don't know what else to say about the wedding/reception other than it was simply beautiful and elegant. They couldn't have picked a better place to have their wedding and reception. Everyone there was so nice and it was nice seeing all the airshow people out of their usual airshow attire and dancing around being goofy.

Well, let's just say that I felt like absolute balls the next morning, and having to wake up for the newlywed brunch was awful. By 11am we went to the brunch at Devan's paren'ts condo. Their place is GORGEOUS! It overlooks the ocean and they have a pier that you can walk straight into the ocean. Daniel got splashed by the dolphin right on that dock! He even took video of it too. Devan's brother, Barrett, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, prepared tons of finger-food. Their condo was huge and was decorated in a lovely nautical theme. I definitely know where I want to live someday! Note to self: win the lottery.

During mid day I came back to the hotel to rest up because I was feeling like crap. I felt better by around 2:30pm and Daniel (who had gone back to the newlywed brunch to hang out with Brian and others) came back and picked me up and then a group of us went to walk down the beach that is by Devan's parent's house. After that we just hung out at the condo some more then eventually came back to our hotel and got in our bathing suits and went back to the beach to shell and lay out.

We decided to do a late dinner at the Mucky Duck on Captiva Island. Captiva is about 20 minutes north of Sanibel, and is separated from Sanibel by a tiny bridge. Captiva looks much like Sanibel with its gorgeous mansions, cute inns and cottages, and really great restaurants. The Mucky Duck is located right on the beach. Daniel and I got crab cakes and corona and enjoyed that on the beach while we waited for our table. After about an hour a table finally opened up for us and we sat down and had some l'orange roasted duck and coconut shrimp. We ended the night with a brownie fudge sundae and bought Mucky Duck t-shirts! We were pretty wiped out so we went back to the hotel and went to bed around midnight.

Today is our last day and I'm so sad! We definitely need to come back. Coming to a place like this just really makes me feel motivated to set goals in my life so I can one day achieve the dream of living in a location that I love.

Anyway... we woke up early this morning and got breakfast at Amy's Over Easy Cafe.... YUMMY! Then we headed to the beach and spent about 2 hours just basking in the sun and shelling. We saw dolphins again! These men were also fishing beside us, and we got to see them catch some cat-fish-looking-creature, and a white stingray! They let the stingray go of course.. it was really putting up a fight!

After spending 2 hours at the beach we decided to pack up and stopped by this really cute store called She Sells Sea Shells. It is shells galore inside. I bought a huge sand dollar, a huge sea biscuit, and a gianormous trumpet conch! I've always wanted a conch since I saw some for sale in Hawaii but I never bought it then. So yay for me and my new conch.

Now here we are just sitting by the pool. Daniel is still splashing around in his little inner tube. We're going to grab a bite to eat soon, most likely hot dogs at Schnappers Red Hots. They make amazing dogs! I think we're going to check out Periwinkle Place as well. It's an outdoor shopping complex. We actually haven't really done any shopping since we've been down here, so we're going to see what the hype is all about there. I think we're going to go somewhere for dinner as well... my guess is either at the Island Cow or Cheeseburger Cheeseburger.

I'm not so sure when I'll get to post another entry, since tomorrow morning we'll be heading to the airport. Daniel's buddy pass has him on the 11:30am flight to Atlanta, then I think he has to wait 4-5 hours layover before he takes off for Columbus. I, on the other hand, takeoff from Ft. Myers around 1pm direct to Columbus.

I'll post some pictures soon, and all of them will be on facebook for your enjoyment!

ta ta