Enough With The Rain, Already!!!

It feels like it has been rainy and gloomy here almost everyday since I returned from the Puerto Rico.... which feels like 100 years ago! YUCK!! There is something so depressing about waking up to darkness. Sure, I am oft waking up to darkness inside (Ba Dum Bump! Depression jokes- always go down a storm) but I hate turning lights on at 9AM. Lame!

I don't even like to be up at 9AM, really....

And as I got out of the shower this dark and gloomy Thursday, I realized I had forgotten to share one of the most exciting parts of our Puerto Rico trip!!! Love in a cabana with Jose? Me almost jumping off our balcony to save Anne from being Natalie Holloway'd at 7AM? Elizabeth fighting for a computer in the Business Center?? NO!

I found a LIVE sand dollar!!!

I don't know how it never occurred to me that they were alive once. Last year, on the Oregon Coast, my Dad explained that sand dollars are basically sucked dry by starfish and the like and then left to dry out and bleach on the shore. How did I not know that?? I LOVE aquariums!! I love sea shells!! I love weird Jesus/doves of peace poems that sand dollars represent! (OK, that last one is a lie.) But there was Diamond Don with some new nautical information for me!

Fast forward to Puerto Rico- Anne & I are swimming in the ocean at the Intercontinental (the place where I was called "Mister" by a 3 year old) and it is just glorious. Sun. Gentle ocean. Sure, we didn't have towels as we weren't guests of the Intercontinental- but it was so pretty and lush we didn't care. And as we soaked it in, I was feeling about in the sand with my toesies for sea shells- the only thing lacking from our trip thus far... and I found something that felt funny so promptly dove down to bring it up and it was a LIVE SAND DOLLAR!!!! It looked like this

Now I didn't take a pic of my own because I couldn't bear to bring the little guy ashore as his cilia and tiny sucker mouth were feeling creepy enough in the water. And I figured- soon enough, some star fish would suck him dry and he would wash up on the Oregon Coast for Eli to gather up (spoiler alert- gratuitous Eli pics coming up)

(Seriously- how cute is my nephew?? Denn & Eli licking Beaters '09)

And then he would live in his new home- unbroken and dove poem free- in MY bathroom!!

Now get out your Ark building supplies, people! It's raining AGAIN!