Anna Maria - definitely a great place to live a quiet, slow-paced life.

Although Chinchillas  tend to disagree and use a brief family vacation for running around by ocean-side, scream (especially when refusing to go too close to the ocean) and enjoying the pool. The latter though, seems to have been their favourite pastime: splashing in the pool completely naked and running around the pool with one toy or another, also... aerating their bottoms. Ocean, beach buckets and towels, sea shells - we're just like a real family on a beach vacation now.
And 3 hour flight feels like a piece of cake now after almost 24 total hours spent in International traveling each way this summer!

As for Von Zobel and I, we finally tried bicycles with child chariots - and they did turn out to be a fun and convenient way to get around the island with kids. Apart from all the loading and unloading the kids, and buckling them up, of course - Chinchillas did not enjoy this either. Should we buy a couple in Colorado though, we would stick to riding mountain bikes with hand-brakes (yes, our bicycles in FL were old-fashioned!), but the little "honking" parrots on the wheel were a good idea and made Chinchillas laugh.