Florida Vacation 2013 part III

The next morning, we slept in. Our lack of sleep finally caught up with us and it was glorious to not have to be up so early! We took our time getting ready and packed up because we would be checking into our resort that afternoon. 

I had heard great hints about the farmers market in downtown St. Pete by several different people, including one of my coworkers who used to live there. We ventured out to see what the hype was about. We loaded mr Milers in the BOB and headed to the park. 

Unfortunately we only had 20 minutes to browse, as our leisurely morning lead to closing time at the market! We wanted to check out the food trucks but unfortunately they had already packed up. We walked a couple of blocks and stumbled across an absolute GEM of a restaurant! Dooners is a fairly fast Greek place (think chipotle, only Greek!) and we had the best lunch of our vacation! I had the vegetarian hummus wrap and Jayson had the dooner sandwich. I have been raving about this meal ever since!! 

We devoured our meal so fast I couldn't even snap a pic! 

Our next stop was our resort. I called earlier that morning to request early check in since the normal time was 4pm. The desk staff said they would try their best. After Lunch, we headed to the resort, and upon arrival we found out that our room would not be ready for a few more hours. I was not a happy mama at this point! My baby needed a nap and we wanted to be settled in already!! They took my cell number and said they would call as soon as it became ready. To kill the time, we drove around and explored some more...we discovered our absolute FAVORITE spot of the trip...The Shake Shop!!!!! 

This photo doesn't even need words...

HOLY YUM!!!! The hilarious thing was, Jayson was waiting in line and I was sitting in the car reading yelp reviews of the place...and I texted him THIS with the caption "get me this"!!! 

After hitting send I heard his text alert go off and realized he had left his phone in the car. I shrugged it off....but then busted out laughing when he got back to the car holding that very dessert!!! :) you can say he knows me well!! 

We still haven't heard by the resort at this point so we went over to publix to grab some groceries for our stay. He waited in the car with baby miles as I ran in...I swear it seemed like blackfriday in there!! Lines were outrageous!! I waited 30 minutes JUST to check out!!! 

My phone STILL hadnt rang (now its 6:30)so we headed back to our hotel so I could TRY to hurry them along! After all, we were now at 21/2 hours PAST the check in time. Our room was finally ready around 7. We grouchily got ready for supper and asked the security officer in the guard shack for a recommendation. His choice was PHENOMENAL!!!!! 

MadFish looked like an old 50's diner from the outside, but inside it was really upscale and elegant! We shared oysters Rockefeller and decadent Cuban bread with an olive tamponade. I ordered the tzatziki triggerfish and J had a house special, fillet with a crab stuffed lobster tail. BOTH were OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!! 

Next up, Miles first beach experience!!! 

Florida Vacation 2013 part II

Where did I leave off!? Oh yes...steak n shake. After we ate lunch, our drive down was quite long. 

MUCH longer than anticipated. There was a wreck on I-75 so we ended up taking back roads all the way to Drew's house in Abbeville. For those of you who are unfamiliar with South Georgia, it's wayyyyyy down there. We had originally planned on staying the night there to help break up the ride from Atlanta to St. Petersburg, but it didn't end up working out. Long story short, after cooking out with Drew and his family we made the trip down to St. Pete from South Ga in about 7 more hours. 

For those of you who don't know Jayson and I, we are Starbucks addicts. Him more so than me. We stopped for coffee TWICE on the way down that night. Remember we were running off 3 hours of sleep the night before and Jayson ran a 10K that morning! Not even the coffee helped me; I started dozing off right as we hit Ocala. 

We finally arrived at Dustin and Zee's house around 1am. Or poor baby had been asleep for the last 4 hours and we just knew his hips had to be SO sore from riding in the car seat that long. We were so excited to finally be at our destination and see Dustin and Zee, but we were so exhausted that we ended up going to bed within about 30 minutes from unloading the car. 

Their house in St. Petersburg is the epitome of a precious beach house. The bed in our room was a fab little fold away bed that came out of the wall. It took up the whole floor in the room. The only downfall was that we had no where to put Miles' pack n play! He has NEVER once slept in the bed with us, as we have been strict on the no co-sleeping since he was born. We figured one night would be fine, but boy were we wrong! He tossed and turned and took up the majority of the room in the bed! Just as quickly as J and I would fall asleep, Miles would kick us or punch us in the face! It was quite comical (looking back on it)...the baby never once woke up! I'm glad someone was able to sleep that night! Here are some of the only pics I took of Miles in his Fourth of July shirt!!! 

The next morning, a visit to our green mermaid friend was definitely needed!!

We spent the day exploring the area. We drove to check out the beach area where our resort was and my lovely GPS took us SEVERAL miles out of the way. We made sure to park and check out the beautiful beach view! 

We were absolutely FAMISHED by this time so we decided to make our way back towards Dustin and Zee's house. The live 5 minutes from the Tampa Bay Rays stadium! I have ever seen an indoor baseball stadium before! It would have been awesome to see a game there!! Definitely next time! 

We decided to grab lunch right by their house, which happened to be one of our favorites! 

Our munchkin got so good sitting in the high chair at restaurants. Everyone always comments on how well behaved he is! 

After lunch we headed back to the house because the 3 of us desperately needed naps. We were able to rest for a little while before our awesome hosts got off work and it was time to get ready for supper!!

Dinner that night was a cute little place that sat over the ocean called Salty Rim. Their slogan was "everything from cancun to key west". 

The food was good, the music was great, and our company was out of this world! Dustin is Jayson's baby brother and Zee is his FABULOUS girlfriend. We haven't seen them in a long while and they have never met Miles so it was so awesome to be able to catch up! 

The live music that night was a local country artist called the Caribbean Cowboy. He sounded JUST like Randy Travis!! Someone requested a RT song and the crowd went wild! J and I love country so he was right up our alley! 

Here are some more pics from dinner! 

AMAZING rum punch! It had every flavor of Malibu!!

 After dinner, we returned to D & Z's to relax and put baby to bed. This time, we made him a giant pallate on the floor by the side of the bed and he was able to sleep SO much more comfortably (and so were we!). J and I stayed up late with Dustin and Zee watching a couple of episodes of Tanked! I had never seen the show but I soon became hooked!

I think this post is long enough, so ill end here! Tune in for part III!