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Personal Vacation in Florida

Posted on Feb 14, 2010 by | 0 comments

So back in January, after my conference, my aunt kindly picked me up from St. Pete beach and took me to my grandmother’s house. I really loved visiting my Nanny. She is so chatty; I love hearing stories about my family, especially my mom and her father. I take a lot after my mom and she was really similar to him. I feel really connected to them, personality-wise, so it is great hearing all about them.

Jacob flew down Wednesday night. I was very happy to have him around again, even if we were still in a foriegn situation. We hadn’t been apart since 11 months before when he went to a conference in California.

The next morning we set out for downtown Tampa. We travelled over to Ybor City by street car. It was a fun place, and I could see how people would find it especially attractive at night. But we stopped for lunch at a restaurant that has been around since 1905. We loved their Cuban food. For real. And the waitors wore bowties, Jacob should really avoid places like that as it transforms me into a bowtie fool and I suggest we buy one for several days…

The Columbian, aka house of yummy food.

On our stroll through the streets I kept seeing cute shops filled with pretty jewlery and dresses. I only asked to stop once or twice but Jacob was enjoying the storll I suppose so we didn’t. However, when we came to a store with hats we had to stop. I got to enjoy some jewlery and dress shopping, but he thought they only had girl hats so, soon wanted to leave. Well, I didn’t really know he wanted to buy a hat (we joked about it at Christmas with a top hat but I’m not sure where he would wear a top hat anyway…) but I noticed the boys hats and grabbed the most Indiana one I could find. He fit the role but I don’t think that is what he is looking for in a hat in general, so we picked other hats. The saleslady was really helpful and honest and even gave us some padding because my poor guy in between hat sizes, oh the rough life he lives. Now I am married to a trendy actor type, great. *insert eye roll*

I’m just kidding, doesn’t he look adorable?? (I still like the Indy hat…who wouldn’t want Sean Connery as a father-in-law?)

Yes, I do wrestle alligators with my bare hands.

And throw discus with the best of ’em. My discus isn’t quite that big though…

The Ringling family lived in style for sure. Behind the camera is the a large bay, it is beautiful. And the patio thing we were standing on is over the water. I could just imagine the parties they threw.

Obligatory nose-pick picture. I love my husbands somewhat warped sense of humor and bounteous creativity.

Jacob had never seen the gulf of Mexico. We drove the entire length of 2 different keys before finding this tiny little blue sign next to a sandy rocky service-road-looking driveway that said public beach. I just barely saw it and made Jacob turn around. But we found the prettiest strawberry colored shells and enjoyed a little walk on the beach. Longboat Key is long, and very narrow. I feel like there was only one road in the whole place and we were on it. There were houses and hotels on both sides. We saw the water on both sides of us most of the time we were on the key. It was surreal, but also we noticed there wasn’t any food. This would not be the perfect place to vacation for Jacob for sure!

On the next island there was a whole strip of public beach not infested with condos or hotels. But it was much windier there. So we only went for a short walk before racing back to the car and almost knocking a man off his bike in the process. I apologized for running in front of him (which made me loose the race, of course) but he replied that it was alright since we were having fun.

Jacob and I then shared a yummy banana split:


We did a lot of relaxing our last day of the trip. We checked out a mall then a movie. Here we are waiting on lunch.

We watched a yucky vampire movie, and then watched more college basketball with my Nanny. It was a ton of fun to visit her and I was happy that we were able to make the time to stay with her. She made us yummy food and we got to talk a lot. We talked about everything from cooking to buying houses, from my mother’s artistic skills to my grandfather’s pursuit of nuclear engineering. And Jacob slept a lot.

Happy first year Anniversary, my love!

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