Into Another Year Goes She

Sunday was the birthday of my creative soulmate, the beautiful Lita!
We celebrated by taking a quick day trip over to Marco Island. Neither of us had been before and we were excited to see what adventures we would find. Now, we usually don't go with map or plan, just get there and see what happens! We headed to the islands South Beach first and took a few shots of the beautiful white sandy beaches.

South Beach, Marco Island

Sea Oats

Although not as many shells as Sanibel, there were some nice finds like jingles, clams and cone shells.  Birthday Girl collected the nice round flat jingles to use in future crafting.

Sand Shark!!

Laughing Gull who is not laughing over the catastrophe happening in the Gulf of Mexico which is now affecting Florida's shorelines. 

Of course we had to do some shadow shots on the beach.

After a short time on South Beach we headed over to Tigertail Beach. As we were walking down the boardwalk towards the beach a guy leaving said to us "There's nothing down there to shoot". I loved Birthday Girl's response which was "it's subjective" which is true as we can always find something to shoot. We continued walking and came across a playground. Birthday Girl gets motion sickness easily so I was the one who got to fly through the air and pretend I was seven years old again!  What fun!

When we made it to Tigertail beach the first thing we saw was an Osprey who flew right over us with a catfish in his grasp and landed on a tall post. We quickly hurried over and snapped several shots of this beautiful bird of prey.

Once this raptor began drawing blood, it was time for us to move onward. We met a Londoner named Tiki Tony and he told us how to get over to the Gulf of Mexico which involved crossing the lagoon. We were a bit nervous, afraid of falling with our camera equipment but we love being adventurous so we carefully made our way over to the west side of the lagoon.

We laughed and giggled the whole way over...feeling the soft, slightly slimy seaweed under our feet.

Almost there birthday girl!  I love your adventurous spirit!

When we finally made it over to the other side we walked down a path that had tons of cute little crabs running in and out of the brush. The sound they made when they all started moving at the same time was like a stadium full of people all clicking their fingernails together.  It was quite the symphony!

The lagoons at Tigertail beach were stunning. It was a beautiful area teeming with life, like this little stretch here that had silky seaweed to hide the silvery minnows darting about:

Adding to the experience, I became one with the seaweed.

After our morning on the beaches, we had a wonderful lunch at NeNe's cafe followed up by a visit to a little chocolate shop where we met another Englishman, this one from Birmingham and where we discovered a Lita doll! It was this little plush doll that looked just like her! Of course I had to get it for the Birthday Girl and once she posts a picture of it on her blog, I will link it here so you all can see this little Lita lookalike! 

We wanted to do the trails at Rookery Bay in the afternoon but for some crazy reason they have the trails closed on the weekend. We then headed back over Alligator Ally to our local Barnes and Noble where we went a little nuts and bought magazines, a book on writing and a huge book on Pinups. Birthday girl and I are already getting inspired from it and have some digital ideas that we will be creating in the coming months. The Birthday Girl also picked up a great book called "How To Be An Explorer of the World" and it has tasks that get you more involved and in touch with the world around you.  This week we will be starting the tasks together and blogging about our explorations:

As Birthday Girl says goodbye to another year, our day together reminded us both that you can grow older without growing up. Keeping that spirit young and adventurous is important to longevity.

So, as she leaves one year behind and steps into another, she will keep her heart light and full of love and nurture her soul with creativity and child-like laughter and her loved ones will benefit from her joys! xoxo