Mini Family Vaca to Key West

A few weeks ago, my husband and I decided we were going to take a short vacation to Key West before Thanksgiving to visit our good friends that actually introduced us to each other.  Strangely, we were introduced to each other 10 years ago while visiting them.  It took us about 6 hours to get there from home and thankfully our son was able to keep occupied with either a video or a nap the entire trip down there.  There wasn't much I really planned to do except to catch a glimpse of the world renowned Celebration Sunset at Mallory Square.  I have gotten the sunset there before on previous visits however now that I have reached amateur status with my photography (ha, ha) I wanted to get a GOOD one.  But since we arrived there in the evening, we relaxed and my friend and I exchanged photog secrets until the early morning hours.

The next day we hung out at the house catching up and watching the kids play outside.  Our friends' daughter is so photogenic I had a little fun photographing her.  

Later that afternoon, we got an early dinner at a pizza joint called "Big John's Pizza and Subs" and headed over to Mallory Square.  However something was quite puzzling.  The last time we arrived at Mallory Square, there was an area open to view the sea and sunset, but today there was a huge cruise ship blocking majority of the pier.  Crossing my fingers we walked further up the pier but to no avail there was a crowd of people that blocked the view of the beautiful sun that was soon to set.  Thankfully I brought my trusty Manfrotto, set him up as tall as I could behind the row of heads and smacked on my 55-300mm zoom lens... Ta-da!  I got my front row.  Although I forgot to bring my remote shutter release, I was able to reach the button on the camera with a little help with my toes.  Thank goodness for my Manfrotto because I absolutely LOVE the photo I was able to get.

Later we walked about downtown then headed back to the house for more relaxing and photo editing. 

On our last full day there we planned to photograph each others family for Holiday cards.  We headed over to Smathers Beach and had a fun shoot.  Unfortunately the wind was kind of crazy so hair was flying all over the place but I think we were able to get some decent shots.  We later went to a secret spot in which we called "the Wall" because well that's all it really was, a wall.  It was definitely a cool find for photographers to use as a background.  To check out the photos of the shoot, check out my photography blog at http://tabfoto.blogspot.com.  That evening we enjoyed a dinner out with the kids to celebrate their 10 year wedding anniversary coming up later that week.  When we got home, the men enjoyed some night fishing while the ladies enjoyed more catching up and that's right, editing photos on the computer.

All in all, we had a wonderful, relaxing visit with our friends.  Wished it was longer but it was a long, well desired visit we needed to take!