Part V- This is it- I promise!!

So on Monday, we all hung out again. In the evening, we went to Doug's for a cookout. Here is a random pic of Doug walking back into his house. Doug has a really nice house - and he is quite the chef!

We then watched a movie with Nadyne and Tim, who had to work the next morning :(

We had to be at the airport early on Tuesday morning. Tim & Nadyne dropped us off and Tim went to work. Nadyne headed home, hopefully to catch up on some rest from the crazy week!

We had a great time and hope to be back soon (or see everyone here if they want to "come home.") We definitely miss our Florida Family and can't wait to see everyone again. So to Tim, Nadyne, Doug, Jeff, Mama J & fam, Blue, and anyone I missed, thanks for the BEST spring break ever!! :) Love you guys!!!

Vacation Part IV - Yes, there's more!!

So, on Sunday, we all slept in, attempting to recover from Saturday night. Later in he evening, we joined Nadyne's family (many of her relatives were also "home" that weekend, including her brother from Texas and her Dad from Iraq!). We had dinner at a really nice place called Shepard's, which was right on the beach. We had a great time! I tried crab legs for the first time (I normally don't like the taste of fish). They tasted sweet, so I liked them. They are pretty good, but a lot of work. However, they were no match for the dessert bar ;)

After dinner, we all went outside to the beach. We were able to get some really good pics! Here's one of Nadyne's family..they are a pretty cool bunch!




Here is one of Tim & Nadyne. This is my favorite picture of them!! Don't they look great!






Later that night, we went to visit Mama J. It was great to see her again. We also got to see her the next week when she came to IL to see her new grand baby, Evan. He's a cutie!

Part III - It's never-ending!!

On Saturday, we met up with one of Dan's best friends, also named Tim, at Gators for lunch. Tim now lives in St. Pete with his wife, Holli. (Do all "Tims" from L-town move to Florida?? Maybe!) Dan and I both worked with Tim at Main Street Pizza in high school (that's a whole 'nother blog!! :) It was great to see Tim and I know Dan enjoyed spending time with him.

We then went to Candy Kitchen by the beach and bought candy and ice cream (are you seeing a theme here?!? :) Eating ice cream on the beach is fun, yet difficult. I failed miserbly and ended up getting more on my clothes and in the sand than in my mouth (as anyone who knows me well will tell you, it isn't uncommon for me to share food with my clothes!).

We went to a club called Howl at the Moon on Saturday night. There are dualing-piano guys who sing and play. If you've never been and like music, go! You'll have a blast! Everyone from our group agreed their favorite song of the night was when one of the guys played and sang the Soulja Boy song "Crank That" (I think that is the name of it, it's the one where they say "youuu" a lot). They played everything from Snoop Dog to Neil Diamond to Vanilla Ice. It was incredible and fun. Vianney, Nadyne's sister-in-law, got up on stage at one point. She's the one closest on the left in the purple shirt. She rocks!

(A HUGE "Thank you" to Doug, who not only let me borrow his camera since I forgot mine, but also sent us the pictures. Doug, you're awesome!! :)

We then went back to Tim & Nadyne's where we all crashed. But not before a 1:57am run to Burger King. I say 1:57am because they close at 2:00am. I'm sure they were not happy with us, but no one found any strange things in our food, so I guess it was all good!!

Vacation - Part II

On Friday, we met Nadyne's brother, sister-in-law, nephew and mom at the Florida aquarium. They have lots of neat stuff there. Here we are (thanks to Tim for sharing the pics!) and here are some other random shots..

Gators!!

On Friday night, we went to the Tampa Bay Lightning/St. Louis Blues game. We had a blast! The Blues were leading up until the last few minutes, then a rookie for the Lightning tied the game with less than 20 seconds to go, so the game went into overtime. Unfortunately, the Blues scored in just a few seconds, so the game was over and the Lightning lost. We will get to a game where the Lightning win one of these times!!

Vacation - Part I

I know, it took me long enough :) So here are some details from our vacation. I'm probably going to have to use multiple posts as I have a ton to share.

We arrived on Tuesday. Tim picked us up at the airport, then we went to Biff Burger, one of our favorite St. Pete hangouts. Yum! They have the best burgers ever and serve tater tots instead of fries. Pretty cool! That night, we picked up wings and had them for dinner. We also met Nadyne, She rocks!! Our L-town friend Doug, who also lives in Florida now, came over to see us that night too. Doug also rocks! We then met up with another friend, Jeff, and we all went bowling that night and had a great time!

Wednesday, we went fishing. We fished with shrimp!! ALIVE ONES!! Someone had to split mine in half for me. Yuck! I think Tim was the only one who caught a fish, but we all had a great time and the weather was gorgeous. I also got to see a dolphin swimming pretty close to where we were. That was cool! Later that night, we went to a really good pizza place for dinner, then stopped by Wal-Mart to grab some stuff I needed. In the process, we noticed they were putting Easter candy out on the shelves. You can probably guess what happened next. We bought a ton of candy, ice cream and junk food, then stayed up late eating candy and playing cards.

Thursday, we slept in, trying to recover from the candy-and-cards bender the night before. Tim and Nadyne cooked us chili (yum!) that day. Tim had his pool league that night, so we hung out with Blue and Nadyne. Here's a pic of Blue. He is my favorite dog-nephew!

Vacation!!

We just got back from spending a week in Florida. It was so nice to see the Florida fam and the sun again. It's been a pretty brutal winter here. It's been a long time since we have been on vacation. With Lucky's medical needs and everything else, it had been tough to get away even overnight. It was a much needed vacation!!

We had a great time, hung out with some of our favorite peeps and met lots of cool new people as well.

Since I'm exhausted right now, I promise to write all about it next time. Hopefully, I will have some pics to share with everyone.

Goodnight ;)