good day, sunshine!

We were supposed to leave Florida on Friday, March 18.



Our thought was that we'd break the drive in to two separate days, as opposed to pushing through in one, long, 17-hour day, as we'd done on the drive down. So on Friday morning, I was out of bed early with the intention of packing and also, photographing the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean.



It's not very often that I see a sunrise. Mostly because we have a lot of trees around our house. But also, while waking up and seeing the sun peek over the horizon is a truly spiritual experience ... as a busy mother, I've determined that snoozing in a blissfully quiet house is quite possibly, the most intense spiritual experience of all.



So on that Friday, I arose early and felt like I was part of the elite few who were awake to witness the very first light of day. Because we were determined to get an early start, I packed up all of our belongings and Charlie ran down to put them in to the car. As he did ...



Our children were slowly waking up.



And the pelicans were flying in formation, overhead.



Everyone got dressed, ate breakfast and we said goodbye to my mother and Jim.



And then, as my husband prepared to take the children down to the car, I took one last look over the beautiful ocean.









Right about then, a force greater than myself provoked me to go to the refrigerator, take out a beer, crack it open and sip it while sitting on the porch watching the waves crash on to the sand as the sun rose higher and higher in to the sky.





When Charlie saw me, he was shocked. "Uh, what are you doing?" he asked. "Aren't we supposed to be leaving? Driving away? MmBye, Bye?! Seriously? What's with the BEER?"

Doing my best to feign surprise I responded, "WHAT? How in the WORLD did THIS happen?! I honestly have NO idea! The sunrise has provoked insanity!"

Then I added, "Aw, come on. The drive down wasn't really that bad was it? What would you rather do, spend a day on the road... or spend a day here?"

Before I could even finish my sentence, Charlie was sitting next to me, sipping a beer of his own.

And that's how we made the decision to stay an extra day.

It's the reason we were able to see the sun set that night on the opposite side of the island...



And watch the moon rise, over the Atlantic, a short while after that.



I absolutely love spontaneous decisions.

Sometimes they make life so much more fun.