Thank you...

*1/1/15*

2014 for being a great year.

For obvious reasons, 2014 was a big year for us.

This trip was a mighty fine ending to what was a mighty fine year.

For the fabulous eve of the New Year, we wanted to see something great drop.

Will and I have a tradition.
Every year, we try to watch something different drop for the New Year.
One year, we watched a pickle drop in Mount Olive.
We've seen a giant flea drop as well as a beach ball.

Key West drops four things.

They drop a slice of key lime pie.
They drop a conch shell.
They drop the -aforementioned- red shoe with Sushi the drag queen aboard.
And they drop a pirate wench.

We chose to watch the conch shell.

We figured the conch shell was the most interesting (while still being family-friendly) thing to watch drop at midnight.

We had no idea...

We will begin by telling you that we, firstly, decided parking would be a nightmare on New Year's Eve in Key West.  So we opted to take the transit bus from Summerland to Key West.  It stops directly in front of our house; so it made perfect sense.

Unfortunately, the Key West transit wasn't fully prepared for all the willing people and constant stops.  We had to wait for an hour for the bus to get to our stop.
But, during the wait, we made some randomly fun bus stop friends.

The bus was standing room only by the time it made it from Marathon to Summerland.  So, at the next stop after ours, a larger bus pulled up and we transferred to the larger one.  Will and I lucked up on this transfer and were able to sit for the remainder of the ride to Key West.

Upon arriving in Key West on New Year's Eve, we realized one thing:  Key West on the last day of the year is like Mardi Gras!

Beads were flying, people were half-naked, and the streets wafted an unpleasant odor.

But, that's alright.  We still had a blast.

We made it to the conch shell and rang in the New Year in flip flops.

Promptly following the conch drop, we raced back to the bus stop where we waited twenty people deep with a wrapped line of over a hundred people trying to make it out of Key West and into the Lower Keys.

We made it back to our house uneventfully and celebrated not only the New Year but, also of course, Will's birthday!

Happy 2015, everyone!

Thank you for being a part of our lives.