The above photos were taken on Tuesday to celebrate our nine years in Tampa Bay as of this week. You can see a larger version at our Flickr account.

Nine years ago today we loaded up the truck and we moved to Beverly Tampa Bay. Hard to believe it's been that long! We were just 24 years old at the time. Babies, barely out of college. We were also newlyweds, married less than a year. Claire was still a puppy. And Todd didn't even have a job yet (he got the interview for the job he would eventually get the first day we turned on the phone at our first apartment in Tampa - thank God). The amount of money we arrived with to live on indefinitely wouldn't even see our budget through a month now. Ahhhhhh...to be young and stupid.

But it all worked out. We bought a house four years and three Bay-area communities later. Todd has an even better job. And oh yeah, we have two beautiful little Floridian-born boys.

Today I celebrated our ninth Floriversary by standing out in the street and watching the launch of NASA's New Horizons rocket mission to Pluto. Being on the opposite coast, there wasn't as much to see as during a Shuttle launch but you could definitely see a small, white jet-trail across the sky. Very cool. I brought my telephoto out with me but it was pointless to take photos. With my lens, you couldn't differentiate between sky and faint rocket-streak. Regardless, in ten years from now I can look back and remember I "saw" it live.

Little things like that make living in Florida all worthwhile. But ask me how I feel about living here again next hurricane season.