New Years In Florida

December 30th - January 3rd

It didn't take us long before we hit the road after our trip to Shreveport. Since the game was so early, we were able to make plans for New Years. We decided to head to warmer weather for the holiday and drove down to Orlando.

We made it into Orlando on New Years Eve and quickly meet up with Jimmy & Evan for lunch at 4 Rivers Smokehouse. Those guys always find the best places to eat while we are down there!

After lunch, we had some time before the evening festivities so Jimmy gave us a tour of the UCF campus and sports facilities.

Florida was practicing at the UCF facilities while we were there.

I always enjoy checking out other schools, their campus & facilities and hearing stories. Jimmy was a great "tour guide".

It wasn't long before get were picking up Kim, getting out stuff together and heading down to Epcot to enjoy all the New Years Eve entertainment.

Every country had a different way to celebrate and we had a great time partaking in each one. Each country also counted down to New Years when it was happening there so if felt like we toasted 10 different times during the evening. We also picked up new friends as we made it through different countries.

It was such a fun and different way to celebrate New Years.

On the first we didn't waste a lot of time sleeping in. We were back out and about to see if we could get cheap tickets to the Citrus Bowl in downtown Orlando. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in our plan but it was still fun to head down to the stadium and enjoy all the events happening outside the stadium before the game.

As close as we could get to watch the game.

We spent the rest of the day at Jimmy & Kim's place watching other Bowl Games before heading out to dinner with a group of friends and ending the night being introduced to Jeremiah's Italian Ice. SO GOOD!

In the morning, we said good bye to friends and headed cross town to spend time with Jackie & Evan.

We had a fantastic time catching up and hanging out with them. Jackie introduced me to adult coloring books and they introduced us to new traveling shows on Netflex. Thank you for feeding our obsession!

Our days with Jackie and Evan went by really, really quick and as we hopped back into our car to start the drive home, we promised to make the trip down again as soon as we could.

It is so great to have such great friends all over the country.

Orlando or Bust!

February 27th- March 1st

It has been a really cold and snowy February. Too cold to even go out and go sledding so we did the next best thing. We got in the car and just drove south to Florida. By Friday at lunch, we had made it to Amelia Island to grab some lunch and check out the town.

We found this fantastic little Cuban Restaurant, Hola!, had some time to walk around and find a unique ice cream shoppe, DeNucci's, before continuing our drive south.

We made it to our final destination for the evening, in Orlando around dinner time. We meet up with our friends, Jackie & Evan for the night. We had a great time catching up with them and just hanging out.

On Saturday morning, we had to say good bye to Jackie & Evan and headed over to meet up with Jimmy & Kim. We spent the afternoon at the UCF basketball game.

They gave us a driving tour of campus since it was a rainy day before we headed to a late lunch at Jimmy Hula's. This place was really good!

We spent the late afternoon headed to Blue Springs State Park to check out manatee's in the wild.

Oh my gosh, they are soo cool!! I think I could have sat and watched for hours. They are fascinating to me.

That evening we headed to dinner at Black Hammock Restaurant before calling it a night.

It was a super quick trip to Florida and on Sunday morning it was time to start the drive home. The trip home was pretty uneventful. We made one stop in Columbia, SC at a coffee shoppe called Cool Beans to hang out and catch up with one last friend, Sam.

It was a blur of a trip but we were so excited to get out and on the road again. We will definitely have to head back down to FL again this summer and spent more time with everyone and maybe see a beach or two. 

A Trip to the Keys- Part 2

June 1st & 2nd

Saturday morning we slept in and enjoyed the hotel breakfast around the pool that was just outside our door. We took this time to plan out our strategy for the day.

First up: The Southernmost Point of the Continental US.

It was crazy hot but we didn't care, we had to see it, two southern points of two different continents in two months.

Second: The Original Margaritaville.

After walking around in the heat, we decided to cool off with drinks & lunch at Margaritaville. We couldn't come all the way to Key West and not stop here!

Then: Mallory Square.

We didn't get to enjoy the sunset from here but we have to at least go over and check it out before we headed north.

Next: Key West Key Lime Pie Co.

There was no way we were going a day without Key Lime Pie especially if we were in the Capital of Key Lime Pies! This place has been featured on tons of tv shows, won many awards and was really good.

Finally: Mile Marker "0"

One more place that you can't leave Key West without seeing. This area was a lot quieter then I had expected except for all the roosters.

We ended our adventure that day in Key Largo and found a super fun local bar/restaurant, Sharkey's, for some good food and fun live music and finished the evening in the hot tub. What a perfect way to end the night.

After all the touring around the Key's, it was time to finish our drive up the coast. But before we got on the road, we stopped at Midway Cafe for a great breakfast.

We had a fantastic time drive with the top down, hanging out, laughing and just talking. Once we made it to Homestead, FL, we took Terri on yet another random, weird Castro find, Coral Castle.

This place is absolutely worth it! It is just amazing. This tiny little dude built all of this for his finace that stood him up the day before there wedding. He never won her back but what he was able to create was truly amazing. I loved this place.

Our final stop on our drive today was South Beach. It started to rain off and on but we weren't going to let that stop us. We walked around, people watched, did a little shopping, checked out Wet Willy's, and the Art Deco area.

We have a super early morning so we had a great last meal at Larios On The Beach, and took one last troll down Ocean Dr.

Sunday morning, we were up so early that the valet & hotel front desk employees were both still sleeping. We made it to the Ft Lauderdale airport with plenty of time before our flight and landed at BWI with no issue.

Since we had the entire day, we decided to explore the local area a little. First order of business, breakfast! We found some really fantastic places to try but continued to strike out. We settled on Sofi's Crepes in Annapolis.

They were good and it was great to be able to sit outside and relax and eat but we definitely regretted our crepe decision when we happened upon at the Greek Festival. We were too full to get all the fantastic looking and smelling food they were serving for lunch, but we powered through and tried a few of there pastries. SO GOOD!

After the Greek Festival, we dropped Terri off at her car and we took off separate ways (heading to the same final destination). Jed and I had to drive through Fredericksburg for Carl's ice cream and La Pizzera pizza before we finished our drive home.

It was such a fantastic trip and I hope we didn't wear out Terri too much. There are plenty of other places that we need to explore together.