Florida Fun

We had a great time in Florida with some of our friends. Here's a recap of the week....

Friday: The drive begins. Jonathon and I loaded up the Tacoma and we were on the road at 8:30p.m. I hadn't been on a drive this long since college and I was afraid it was going to be awful but it went by pretty quickly.


Saturday: We arrived in Venice, Florida around 1:30. We joined up with the Dohertys and Gillespies on the front lawn of our vacation rental for a yard picnic. We couldn't enter until 3:00p.m. We were excited to get in there and get settled. After everyone else arrived we chose our bedroom assignments, unpacked, and ordered pizza. We roomed with the Ledbetters.


Sunday: We hit the beach and enjoyed the 80 degree weather. I used a spray sunscreen for the first time and totally created a zigzag design on Jonathon's back. Poor thing. He had a very unique sunburn. I'm still feeling bad about that. We never got a picture so I'll have to wait and see if anyone else did but it was pretty funny. That night we hit a local fish place called Pop's for dinner. We were able to catch the end of the UofL game too.



Monday: We all got up, got dressed and headed out to Sarasota for a lunch cruise. It was nice and relaxing but the food was just okay. It was neat to see some of the beautiful houses along the bay. It's hard to believe that some of those homes are just "summer" homes for those people. I can't imagine what the wealth is like. Jonathon and I walked along a shopping strip back in Venice later that afternoon. We found an Olive Oil company and bought a fancy bottle for when Jonathon makes Italian food. I promised him I would sneak the good stuff into my cooking. I bought a Venice Beach hoodie sweatshirt and we found an "old time" ice cream place called, The Soda Fountain. The soda jerks were dressed in aprons and jersey hats. They made everything there and I've never seen someone take so much pride in crafting a banana split. We came home that night and headed back to the beach to watch the sunset. Beautiful...

Tuesday: We decided to leave our private beach and head up to a public beach to scout out some shark's teeth. After being there for thirty minutes we all said, "What were we thinking?" and headed back to our private beach near the rental house. We didn't realize how lucky we were to have access to that beach! That night we all bought food and had a cookout. I love brats!! Jonathon and I were no on the p90x diet this week although we did get up and workout almost every day so we had a balance. After dinner, we all headed back tot he beach to watch the sunset again. Then we went to see a movie with Jesse and BD. BD is almost as big of a movie buff as Jonathon.

Wednesday: Jonathon and I went kayaking in Sarasota. It was so much fun. The mangrove tunnels we paddled through were so narrow and low that we had to duck to get through them. It was so neat and I can definitely see us doing that again if we return to the area. We stopped for Cold Stone Creamery on the way back home. Oh how we love some ice cream! When we got home we said goodbye to Jesse and BD. They were heading back home that night. I got hit with tiredness so bad that I fell asleep super early. I don't even remember Jonathon coming to bed that night.

Thursday: The day of sickness. I noticed some sun poisoning spots on my arms the day before and I think that made me start running a fever on this day. At the same time, Jonathon must have gotten hit with some kind of stomach bug because he was sick all day. All the other couples headed to the beach or to do some shopping. We stayed in and slept all day long. Ugh... I started feeling better by late afternoon and decided to tag along to the Reds training game with the other couples. Jonathon stayed behind and continued to recover.

Friday/Saturday: We woke up, packed up, and hit the road. The trip home seemed way longer than the trip down there. I think it's because we drove during the day this time. We finally made it home at six in the morning on Saturday and ran straight to the bed. Oh how I missed my own bed. We've been laying around all day long.....still not feeling 100% great....We need a vacation to recover from our vacation!

All-in-all we had a great time. I'm so glad we were able to take a vacation. Jonathon's "busy season" begins on April 1 and lasts until September 30. He won't be able to take any time off in all that time so the next few days will be the calm before his storm....