Sarasota Anniversary Trip

Jonathan and I will celebrate our fourth anniversary on Thursday so we traveled down south to Sarasota for a few days while Rosemary stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Peine. We chose Sarasota so that we could go to the Ca d'Zan and the Ringling Museum of Art--two places that we've wanted to go for awhile.

On Sunday, we spent a few hours on Siesta Key. It was insanely warm and incredibly crowded. I think that I am an east coast girl. I missed the waves of the Atlantic.

For dinner that night, we ate at Marina Jack. Boats could pull up right beside the restaurant and everyone on board could grab a bite downstairs. We ate upstairs in the Dining Room and had a beautiful view of the bay just before sunset.
After dinner, we walked over to Bayside Park.

At the Ringling estate on Monday, we walked in the shade of huge banyan trees. It made such a difference to be in the shade and out of the sun. It rained later in the day--apparently the first rain that they'd had in the last six weeks!

Mabel's Rose Garden

This is from the second floor of Ca d'Zan looking down. It's one of the few houses that you can go through that actually has many of its original furnishings since Ringling left the house to the state of Florida upon his death.

The front exterior of the house.
Here we are on the back terrace, by the bay.

The bay.
The back exterior.

Our last stop of the day was the art museum. Ringling brought each of the columns that you can see in the colonnade from Europe, although they didn't all come from the same place. If you look at the bases, you can see that they are at different heights so that it will work.

Shoes and Family Fun

Rosemary loves shoes. "Shoes" is even one of her newest words.


This is her favorite pair of my shoes. She sets them down, holds onto something as she puts each of her little feet in, and off she goes.

She's so stylish!

Jonathan came with us to the gym on Friday night for Family Fun Night and got to see Rosemary climb up the cargo night, jump on the trampoline, and hang on to the bars. She loved showing her daddy all of the things that she does in the mornings.

On the landing with her dad.

Coming down the slide.

Jonathan's teaching Rosemary to stay hydrated.

Cargo Nets

She may be small, but this girl is strong.

A few weeks ago, Rosemary started climbing this cargo net that leads into a 3-story playland, complete with twisty slides and plenty to climb on. I thought she might make it 3-4 feet up and then want me to pick her up and set her back on the ground. I was wrong. She climbed the entire way up the cargo net, which at the top of the picture has a small landing and then goes up again. I'll take a pic next week to show how far it actually is. So since she really can't go up alone, I got to climb up behind her. We get down via the slide, which is kind of steep for Rosemary to tackle alone so she sits in my lap as we head down.