Friday Favorites: Week 4

For this week's installment of Friday Favorites the prompts are:

• Favorite (or Dream) Job
• Favorite vacation spot
• Favorite Book

Favorite (or Dream) Job:

When I was a kid I always dreamed of being a Marine Biologist.  Every trip to the aquarium or to Sea World would get my mind thinking of how these animals could survive in just water and what exactly makes them work.  In High School I excelled in my biology classes (my dad was a science teacher so science always interested me to begin with) but at some point in high school and when I got to college I decided Marine Biology just wasn’t a feasible career and instead I settled on something more reliable – accounting.   I know, I know, apples and oranges, right?!  I jumped from a science to a math career.   In some ways I think I would have made an excellent Marine Biologist, but at the same time the road getting there would have been much different and I don’t know if I would have had the strength to stick it out...

Now when I take my son to the aquarium I still wonder about the fish and get jealous of the Marine Biologists who are feeding the sea lions.

Favorite Vacation Spot:

My husband and I love Sanibel Island, Florida.  We went there for the first time back in 2003 and we absolutely LOVED it.  For vacations we are very content to just sit on a beach, relax and maybe do a little boating/fishing and easy hiking.  Sanibel was definitely the place for us.  It’s a very small island (12 miles long) with another small island (a 4 mile long island named Captiva) connected at the north end of Sanibel.  There are cute little shops, great restaurants, bike paths, fishing, golf, a wildlife refuge and beautiful beaches.  Sanibel is known for their seashells and if you wake up early enough and stroll out onto the beach you could be lucky enough to find one of the big conch shells that has washed ashore during the night.  When we were there I did some shell picking and used the shells to decorate a picture frame to put picture of the two of us in from the trip. 

We always rent a condo on the beach which works out perfect for us.  We’ve been renting from the same woman every time we go so we know exactly which unit we’re going to be getting and it’s a very beautiful complex.   We have a private beach a few steps away, a screened in porch to relax and watch the sunsets from, a pool & jacuzzi, and our own kitchen to use for breakfast and lunch so that we’re not eating at restaurants for every meal.  It really is like a home away from home when we’re there.  We haven’t been back to Sanibel in quite a few years but we would like to plan a trip back soon with our son so that he can experience our favorite vacation spot.

Here’s a picture from our first trip to Sanibel.  It’s the only one I have scanned in…goes to show you how long ago we went.  I didn’t even have a digital camera back then!  Ahh, we were so thin back then too.  This is our dieting inspiration picture :)

Favorite Book:

I have to kind of cheat on this one.  I don’t have a favorite book at all.  I love to read but I’m horrible at keeping up at it.  I don’t have a favorite author or a favorite book, but I do have a favorite genre.  I tend to gravitate to mystery/suspense novels.  I like Stephen King and Dean Kootz but I also like to read a lot of non-fiction.