5 Years

Time sure does fly when you're having fun!!  When I tell people we've been married for 5 years (minus a couple weeks), they just kind of look at me with a perplexed expression and say, "I can't believe it's been that long already."  Amen to all of you who have said that.  We can hardly believe it ourselves.

Since we hadn't been away just the two of us on an extended vacation since our honey, we decided to go somewhere fun for our 5 year anniversary.  We found a good deal on a 1 bedroom condo in Marco Island & snatched the opportunity to get away.  For anyone who's newly married, I highly recommend getting away a few years down the road.  It was so much more fun vacationing together 5 years after our wedding than it was 1 week after our wedding.

Before we left, we got extremely high raves about Marco.  I was a little skeptical that it wouldn't be as great as everyone said.  Thankfully the praise did not ruin the experience.  It was just as wonderful as everyone said it would be!  We will hopefully be going back in the future!

THE APOLLO

This door was something else!  Our first problem was that our key wouldn't unlock the dead bolt.  (Not what you want to find out after unpacking your car & hauling everything up 5 floors!)  We figured as long as we got it open once we just wouldn't lock it again the rest of the time.  Not a problem.  Well, the second problem was that even after you locked the second lock, the door wouldn't completely latch shut.  Yes, anyone could walk up to our door & pull it open at any time, if they so desired!  Um, now we had a problem!!  We couldn't get anyone to come fix this until Tuesday so we just hoped that no one would come tugging at our door! 

Excuse the mess.  I don't straighten up when we're on vacation.

Tennis Courts above the parking garage.  We would have enjoyed playing more, but didn't get around to trying it out until the last day!  We'll be back!!!

Private Pool & Hot Tub

 View From the Pool

The walkway to the beach

See that sky!!  That's what it looked like ALL WEEK LONG!  We had amazing weather!

They take care of their beaches here!

THE FOOD

Ne Ne's was delicious!!

Crunchy French Toast

Bacon Waffle (One other morning I had an omelet that was delicious!)

The Sunset Grille was attached to our building so of course we tried it out one evening.  The food we got was okay, we personally wouldn't need to go back.

Supposedly, Kretch's has the best Coconut Shrimp on the island.

Quinn's on the Beach!  The Ale Battered Fish wasn't our favorite, but the bacon cheeseburger & fries were one of the best things we ate all week long!!!  And check out that pickle!

The Marriott had recently done a huge renovation, so we decided to check it out!  It was beautiful.  We thought it would be fun to stay a couple nights here the next time we come (use up some Marriott points) & then head down to the much cheaper Apollo for the rest of our trip!

Tropiks is their breakfast restaurant.  These prices are what we paid for some of our dinners!  As much as I love fresh squeezed orange juice in Florida, I think I'll save that $4.50 thank you!

Quick side note. We ran into a couple from our church one morning at breakfast & they so graciously invited us out for dinner that night. They're such a fun couple & they were headed to one of the restaurants we wanted to try out so we couldn't refuse the offer! We didn't get any pictures that night but it was probably our favorite evening of the week. We went to the Pelican Bend & were the last customers to leave the restaurant that night. What a fun, unexpected night! We would highly recommend this restaurant (especially the sauteed shrimp & broiled fish)! 

THE FUN

Apparently, I brought the wrong beach chair for Ryan, so he improvised!

Beach bummin' it

"Selfie" from the lanai (balcony)

We didn't really miss Leo too much until we saw this sweet little girl!  Aw, Leo would have loved this vacation we decided, but we loved it more without him!!

Night out on the town!

I've never seen a flame thrower in real life!  This guy had talent...and a little bit of craziness!

This was the temperature in Marco when we arrived on Saturday.  It was the "coldest" day of the week!

The seagulls on the beach LOVED food of any kind!  You had to be very careful what you ate or you might get bombarded by these birds.  

THE SUNSETS

Sigh, you don't get them like that at home!

Even though Leo probably would have loved Florida, we think he had a pretty great time with his cousins, aunts, uncles, grandpa's & grandma's while we were away!!

Jenna found this sweater at the bottom of Hallie's hamper and offered it to me for a church shirt for Leo since it fit him so well!  Personally, I think he pulls off pink & purple very well!!

If I had to guess, I'd say Aunt Lynn got lots or brownie points for giving Leo the whole bag of marshmallows.  Good thing she didn't give him Rice Krispies!

Can you tell Grandma Fiechter has dressed her share of boys for church over the years!  Leo looked so cute that day (especially the curly hair)!