Being In Navarre: Our first Two Weeks

We had an amazing time with Shawn and Mindy, but it was time for us to pack up, and head down to Florida once more! We stayed an extra day, and left Monday morning, getting to Navarre Florida that evening. As you see in the photo above, that is the sign we saw before we crossed the bridge to Navarre Island. We love it on the Island, but it’s difficult crossing the bridge back and forth to get anywhere. Still, it’s nice being right on the open ocean rather than in the bay.

We arrived at our condo around six or seven, and we started to unpack. Of course, we wouldn’t be unpacking everything that night, but we did our best to get settled in. Our first look at the condo was a little bit of a letdown. I’m not being negative, trust me! It just wasn’t as clean as we were expecting, dirt on the carpets, the wood floors had mud on them from someone fixing the drywall, and there was still stuff left out like the cleaners had done a half-hearted job at cleaning. We weren’t trying to be rude about the dirtiness of the place, but we tell the owner privately that her condo was a little dirty, and we sent her some pictures to show what we meant, but she got very offensive. A tip to people renting, usually, people don’t mind being given a tip like this. We told them that the cleaners hadn’t done the best jobs, and we were telling her, and giving her some new information, so those future renters wouldn’t be disappointed and so that she would get better business. This should show her we weren’t trying to be rude. If I was an owner of a condo, and someone came to me telling me these things, I would absolutely say, “Oh no! I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize the cleaners didn’t clean it properly! I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, and I will make sure to fix that.”

We’ve done this with many of our renters back at our Michigan home, like being told the powers gone out, and we asked around and looked at the outages around the Gaylord area. Another time we were told about the bug problem in the house because it’s that time of the season when the earwigs are really bad because they like the colder damper areas of the basement. We called pest control and got them on that. We were glad that our renters were pointing out stuff so that we could fix the problem before it became an even bigger one.

This lady though was quite taken aback, was angry that we would be so, as she put it ” How could we call ourselves Christians if we were so picky.” We took it very well, we said we were sorry, and that we weren’t trying to be rude, and that we would clean it ourselves. We didn’t say anything else, and the lady even threatened to evict us and tried to find a place other than that condo, because if we didn’t like what it was, she wouldn’t have us stay there at all. Of course, she didn’t have anywhere else, and so we stayed, and she cooled down. I believe she might just have been having a bad day, and so we said we were sorry, and we cleaned the place ourselves and settled into it. We bought stuff to freshen up the place, and are leaving some behind for her. Now that is the Christian thing to do. I’m not bragging, and I’m not being proud or stuck-up, but I want to point this out. When someone is rude to you, return evil with good. She was unkind, and threatened us, and said we should move if we didn’t like it. Instead, we cleaned it ourselves, without any fighting or snapback, and we are leaving air fresheners, storage containers, towels, and other useful cleaning and household supplies that would benefit the house. That is the Christian thing to do, and so that was what we did.

Our trip is to show love and Christ to others through our actions, not to suit ourselves or to fight and be nasty when people are to us. We as Christians need to show love in the little ways, and this was one of those ways we could be kind, in return for someone being unkind towards us. As I said, I’m not bragging, I’m giving a piece of advice, for those who need it, and I’m giving you some information about our stay at this place, so there 😉

Anyway, back to the unpacking. We parked the trailer in the one-car garage and unpacked it from there. Of course, our trailer was very heavy and full of boxes, so it took us a little while to unpack, but when we got done, we were happy to be done! We cleaned up a bit around the house, for the reasons I listed above, and we made sure that we had our rooms decided upon.

Now there was a problem. We came to this condo thinking that the kids were going to sleep in the room with bunk beds and a futon, but then we learned that it was on the first floor, and the main bedroom was on the third floor, where the adults would be sleeping. That didn’t sit well with us, because the bunkbed had a sliding door that led out into the open pool and condo area, where someone could easily get out, or get in. We wanted to be safe, and have the kids sleep closer to the adults, so Miranda and I sacrificed our bedroom upstairs for the one with the bunk beds on the first floor. It wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if it had only been two levels, but this condo has three levels, the first floor, the main level, and the upper level, which has the adult’s bedroom and the “was supposed to be” Teenagers bedroom. We all agreed that it would be safer for the children to sleep on the third level with the parents, and have us teenagers sleep on the bottom level. It was decided, our sleeping arrangements were final, and all of us went to bed as soon as we were done packing.

Our first night in Navarre! We all slept pretty well, considering it was a new place. As he usually does, daddy made an amazing breakfast, which was a delicious egg with cheese and toasted bread. Absolutely delicious! Our first day was major clean, and finishing unpacking. We unpacked all of our food, dishes, but we had a problem. Miranda and I didn’t have dresser drawers in our bedroom, and some things were missing in the house that we needed.

On our first day here, and we decided we had to visit the beach, which was right across the road from us! Packing a few drinks and our chairs, we headed off for a morning at the beach!

The water here is absolutely amazing! The water is so clear, and so clean, that you can snorkel and shell hunt, it has been a blast! Just the other day, we went crab hunting on the beach during the night, and that was such an amazing experience! We were able to see all sorts of crabs and hermit crabs! I can’t give all the details now on the more recent adventures, because I still need material for more posts later on. Right now I just need to catch you all up on what we were up to, and some of our best adventures during our first few days here!

We were able to swim in the ocean, and after being in Tennessee, away from the ocean, I didn’t realize how much I was going to miss it! I missed the saltwater, the ocean waves, the sun, the sand, I missed everything about living on the ocean. When we first came to Florida, I didn’t know how much I was going to like the ocean. When I lived in Michigan, I never was able to swim in the ocean, so I didn’t know what saltwater felt like, or just the general vibe of the beach life. When I came here, I realized what people meant by falling in love with the ocean, and falling in love with the beach life, and the culture. You don’t realize how much of a culture difference there is between people who live on the ocean, and with people who live in the northern parts of America. Each part of the States have their own characteristics and culture, but Florida has such a unique culture. It is mixed in ethnic and cultural traditions. It is a large Hispanic population, and a lot of the Caribbean and Spanish culture is in Florida. When you turn on your radio, you get a lot of Spanish stations, or you turn on the TV, and you get Spanish stations, and you go in public, and street signs and billboards can be in Spanish. I absolutely LOVE experiencing all these new cultures and experiencing life as a Floridian!

We’ve also noticed since we’ve been here is that everyone is so nice here! I know it sounds weird, or that we are putting a stereotype on people in Florida, but here it seems everyone is open, nice, respectful, chill, and are always ready for a good time! I love that! The people here are also very hospitable! We have some amazing neighbors, who we introduced ourselves to. They are an older couple, but they have family that comes over every weekend, and they have grandchildren that the kids can play with, and a teenage boy and his friend that Miranda and I hang out with. It is nice to live close to other people and to be able to do things with friends without having to drive an hour to do so. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the seclusion of the woods and the serenity of country life, but I also love the city. I love the movement, the excitement, something is always going on, and people are having a good time. I like that I can walk over to my neighbors, or walk over to the ocean and go crab hunting last minute. It’s a fun change of pace, and even though I might not want to live forever in a city, I thoroughly enjoy the city life while traveling!

I’m getting sidetracked, let’s get back to the main topic, catching you all up on what we’ve been up to. As I said, the beaches here in Navarre are AMAZING. The waves are a nice size, not too big, but big enough to have fun splashing and body surfing on. The sand is white, and the beaches are clean, not covered in seaweed or algae, they are white and clear. As is the water, the water on the gulf where we are is clear, clean, and full of shells and interesting fish to look at. We went to the peer the other day, walked out, and saw some amazing sights! We were able to see people catching fish off the pier, and we saw sea turtles, dolphins, and huge fish! It was so much fun to see the sea turtles though, they would come to the surface, lift their heads and look at you, then they would sink back into the water, and out of sight. Some people were catching some pretty large fish, while others just caught little ones, and set them free after catching them.

We then explored the town a little, but a more recent exploring trip I will save for another post 😉 Exploring Navarre has been such a great experience, we have been able to go to a few stores, visit the church we attended in January of this year, and visit with new friends we met there!

Well, that’s all for now! I’m going to elaborate more in my next post, but for now, I’m gonna leave it as it is! We’ve enjoyed our time so much so far! I love Florida so much, and I’m going to talk more about what we are doing next post. Thanks so much for reading, and have an amazing day! Love you all! -Sadie