sent with love.

While on one of the brewery stops for #pedaltothepubs2015 I took a minute to write my postcards out! I love these bright colored Florida postcards. 

Dropping my postcards off in the letter drop box! 

historic open air post office.

While we were in St. Petersburg, FL last week visiting my brother-in-law I made sure to stop by and visit the historic Open Air Post Office. What a great concept! The building has served residents and visitors since being dedicated in 1916. I was so excited to check it out!

The Mediterranean revival style building displays Italian renaissance influences and contains many intricate exterior details. The building's open style was extensively promoted in the 1920's as proof of St. Petersburg's balmy climate. 

In 1969, portions of the building were enclosed to allow for indoor service counters, air conditioning and heating, and additional postal boxes. On April 4, 1975, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. 

Inside the Post Office is also a very tiny postal museum in the back that contains an old leather mail bag, typewriters, and old postcards showing the historic Post Office. The employee that I purchased postcard stamps from was very nice and told me that they used to have a special postmark, but sadly are no longer allowed use it. 

If you are ever in St. Petersburg, FL, I suggest making a stop to see this historic Post Office. Be sure to drop a few postcards off in the letter drop while there too. 

Open Air Post Office

400 First Avenue N

St. Petersburg, FL

received with love. christmas, fl edition.

I received two cards in the mail from Christmas, FL! I was very excited to get a few pieces with the special postmark on them since I was so excited sending them out!

A close up of the fun Holiday postmark from Christmas, FL! It was worth the trip down there to add that special little touch to my Christmas cards this year!

christmas, fl.

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Florida with my fantastic in-laws and while we were down there visiting I decided to send my Christmas cards from a little town called Christmas, Florida! After being in the car for 13 hours, the next morning we got up and drove another hour or so to Christmas.

I was so excited! We arrive at the post office and I jump out of the car with all of my Christmas cards in hand. It is a small little post office which just adds to its charm. 

Just inside the post office they have a Christmas Tree and a cute white mailbox for "Letters to Santa". From what I have read, it stays decorated like this year-round! I snapped a few photos with my mom and all of our cards. A man was checking is P.O. Box and was like "oh, no it's starting." We all got a laugh out of that.

We were so excited, we were next in line and I tell Gary, the man behind the counter, that we drove 13 hours and are so excited to have our Christmas cards postmarked from Christmas, FL this year. We then become defeated when he tells us that they don't start putting the special postmark on envelopes until December 1st! NOOO! My mom and I step out of line to discuss what we should do. I call Zach (he stayed in the car) to see if we could come back on Monday on our way back home. We decide thats a bad idea, as it is an hour out of our way. I ask Gary if they can hold the mail until Monday explaining how far we had driven and he told us that they were not allowed to do that. We decided to just leave the mail and suck it up as a loss. At least the cards would have their standard Christmas, FL postmark which was better than nothing.

Gary stamped a postcard for me with their standard postmark to keep.

Me, my Mom and my Mother In-Law standing outside of the Christmas, FL post office!

P.S.- This story does have a very exciting ending... On the way back to Mount Dora I decided to call the post office. Gary answered the phone, and I asked him just to verify that the postmark our cards would get was not going to be the Christmas one. (Everyone in the car is laughing so hard at this point!)  Gary said that the postmaster had just come in after we left and because we had traveled so far they would postmark our cards with the special Christmas, FL postmark!!! I was BEYOND excited! I thanked Gary a million times and let him know that he had made our day!

THANK YOU AGAIN GARY!