Family Vacay: 2014

 

 

This is how my son wants to watch his shows on my iphone.  Bless him.  It was so early!!

 

Waiting for the rental car like a champ.  That rental car ended up being a sweet mini van!

So let me tell you about our little adventure.  It took FOREVER and a day to get this sweet swagger wagon.  Then we accidentally went on a toll road which immediately sent Patrick into convulsions and exclaiming that we would have to pay $786,897,989 in fees because we didn't sign up for a toll tag.  They don't have automatic tolls yet in Florida (come on Florida) so we have to MAIL the .75 in.  Immediately.  We didn't bring a check book (when will these go away??) so we had to get a money order from our bank.  Which we had to find a branch of.  So we ask Siri and she of course takes us to a Bank of America corporate office.  So we ask again and we finally get a walk in bank.  That does not have stamps.  Now we have to go to a drugstore and gets stamps and find a mail drop off.  I took this picture, above, when we were waiting for Patrick to mail our .75 money order.  Right before this shot, Eliot told me he wasn't sleepy at all and ready for the hotel pool. Bless. 

 

Oh, it's not over my friend.  We then decide on Chic Fil A for lunch because I mean..why not? Every person living and breathing in Tampa, FL is in this Chic Fil A. We sit outside at the only table available and as we are enjoying our scrumptious fried chicken deliciousness, Patrick gets a phone call from the airport saying we picked up the wrong suitcase.  And that the person is waiting.  So we SHOVEL our remaining food in our mouths and speed back to the airport to switch bags.  After all of this, there was nothing sweeter than seeing our Holiday Inn Express off the highway.  

 



Leaving said Holiday Inn after swimming, having a pizza party, watching (the first three minutes of) Kung Fu Panda II, jumping from bed to bed, and sleeping like the dead.

 

We can't check into our condo in Pass A Grille until three so we moseyed around St. Pete and found a beach front restaurant called Crabby Bills.  How could you not eat at a Crabby Bills?

 

I have said it once and I will say it again.  All the single ladies...find a man who cooks.  This man tirelessly played with Eliot on the beach before and after naps, would haul everything in from the beach, and then prepare an AMAZING dinner.  Every night.  And we are not talking spaghetti or scrambled eggs every night.  He meal planned and prepared an awesome menu and made sure everyone was well fed and happy.  He is seriously incredible.

Don't you love that kids today can love Mr. Rogers as much as I did and as much as my mom did? I just love him.

Eliot's first virgin pina colada!  And I just realized he preferred it naked.  All the power to him.

 



And of course he loved it.  

 

Eliot's fake smile after a complete meltdown.  He got chocolate ice cream and I ordered it in a cup with a cone on top because even an adult cannot eat ice cream fast enough on a FL summer day.  It's really pointless.  He cried during the whole thing and then drank the rest.  This is the face I got afterwards.  I guess he decided it was worth it after all. 

And then out of nowhere, he spiked a 103 fever on the first full day.  We are no strangers around here to Eliot being sick.  It happens quite often, sadly, but for some reason he is NOT a fever baby.  We have been to the ER twice and he has never had a fever either time so this was scary to us to say the least. 

Next day...felt fantastic! 

 

I just love those feet so much.

 

Let me tell you something about Pass A Grille.  It is a twenty minute drive from the Tampa airport.  It has beach one side of the town (which is one block wide) and bay on the other side.  There are a handful of restaurants and maybe two bars.  There are zero high rise condos.  The tallest building in this lovely town is six stories high.  There is no put put, no airbrush t-shirts, no spring breakers, no jet skis.  Makes us sound like fuddy duds but I'm telling you it is so peaceful and really MAKES you spend all of your time on a gorgeous beach that is one of the best in the US.  That's not my opinion that is based on votes!  We will go as long as they have us. 

This picture, above, shows one of the restaurants where people gather on the second floor patio and watch the sunset.  You can hear them clapping and cheering when it goes down.  Two or three doors down is our condo. 

 

Almost ten years, y'all!

 

So it got to where in the afternoons it was storming (which I miss so much about living in FL!) and then just decided to rain all day the last full day we had.  We took it upon ourselves to enjoy this tiny town and its history.  This is at the museum which is in an old church.  For it being so small, it actually had a ton of artifacts and books upon books of pictures.  I LOVE stuff like that so it was cool to see pictures of what it used to look like and since the town is so small there are like three families of note and a few crazy characters. 

 

My heart outside of my body.

 

And at the end of the trip, as we are waiting patiently for our flight, our child asks to be put on his head.  I actually knew exactly what he meant and kind of felt the same.  We have a great, patient traveler on our hands which is great because we are prepping him for many world adventures to come.

 

Until next June!