Forgive the mini-blog hiatus. But as I mentioned in my last post, I was enjoying having my mother in town for the past 12 days. So, instead of blogging, we were …
— Discovering that there are starfish on Daytona Beach! I can’t believe we’ve never seen them there before. My husband grew up across the street from the beach, and he’s never seen one either. We found two!
— Introducing Gigi and DeeDee to our favorite beachside spot — The Ocean Deck.
Best part of this picture? Dee Dee’s pose. Last time he was here, I taught him the Paris Hilton pose — never look head-on into a camera. Turn your head slightly to the side and then turn your eyes toward the camera. It instantly thins your face. Go ahead, go look through nearly every picture of me on the site and you’ll discover the same pose. Now you know all my secrets.
— Stopping by Destination Daytona to get an in-person look at Gigi and Dee Dee’s new toys back in Pennsylvania — his and hers Harleys! The one below is just like the one my mom bought. Hot momma, huh? Don’t worry, E. isn’t allowed on one until at least 21.
— Renovating E’s bathroom! More on this project later.
— Drinking beers bigger than my head at my favorite restaurant in Central Florida. Sorry to be a tease, but more on that later, too! Any guesses? Double Paris poses FTW!
— Getting our culture on.
— Hitting Hollywood Studios on the first day our Disney season passes blackout period ended. It was a rainy night but we were able to hit Star Tours three times and sneak in a quick pic with Lightning McQueen.
— Losing my computer for an entire day thanks to DadJovi’s annual daylong fantasy football draft. Notice he’s rocking two computers and his iPhone? He totally hijacked our computer and my mom’s, too, for the day for this annual event with his friends back in North Carolina. It’s brutal. I love fantasy as much as anyone (in fact, I’m his poker league’s reigning champ! Woot!) but I hate how this one draft takes all damn day (yes, he’s in two leagues). Two years ago, I somehow got him to do it from the beach, but last year, I was his on-call technical support. This year, was progress at least. He handled it all on his own with his command center at home. Next year, I’m going to plan an amazing Mommy-Daughter day for E. and me. Baby’s first spa day?
— Filling our bellies at the Daily City Food Bazaar at Fashion Square Mall. Phew, it was hot out there! In fact, we saw not one, but two vendors succumb to the heat and require medical attention. Hope they’re recovering OK!
I was so excited to bump into Andrea from Run, Eat, Date, Sleep there (and we were wearing the same skirt! Hi Andrea!). She had ordered something from the Wicked Wiches truck. I stood there waiting for a long time to place my order (all the trucks had long lines) but after a really long wait, she still hadn’t gotten her food. Since we had a group, I decided to bail and head over to one of my standbys — The Crooked Spoon. I adore everything they make. And a big win for me — they had the Caribbean Chicken Quesadilla on the menu that I ordered at the Trinity food pod. Score! And DadJovi had a little piece of heaven — Treehouse Truck’s GTL! You got to love a sandwich that pays homage to Jersey Shore. It was on amazing bread and had Italian sausage, marinara, and a lemon-spinach ricotta. Oh my awesome. It was like a deconstructed lasagna, and even though I loved mine, I had serious food envy after I stole a bite (or three).
My parents went with savory crepes from a crepe stand we’ve never tried before and couldn’t stop raving about them. In fact they loved them so much, my mom has ALREADY ordered a crepe maker for home! And they got E. a special treat — a crepe filled with bananas, strawberries and Nutella. Think she liked it?
See why I’ve been neglecting my poor little blog? Who has time to blog with a week like that?
Sadly, it’s back to reality for everyone on Monday. E. heads back to school for her first day of the new year. My mom and Dee Dee have an early flight back to Pa. And we head back to work, and I have a major project launching at work tomorrow.
And to make matters worse, I have to start cooking again, emptying the dishwasher and going to the grocery store. Cue the trombones — the party’s over!
But we’re just so incredibly lucky to have them in our life and even 12 days isn’t enough for all the fun things we want to do. Seriously, even DadJovi said the week before they got here, “They could stay for six weeks and it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”
Their next trip will probably be at Christmastime. Bring on the holidays!
What’s your favorite thing to do when out-of-town guests visit?
Geez, you’re such a slacker 🙂
1. I almost bought L that bathing suit (she wanted blue/green instead – who am I to fight with that?)
2. Dexter’s? That’s my guess. It’s the art on the walls.
3. I run past that Tiffany sign every Sunday (Morse museum is right next to Brandywines – where we start our long runs)
4.Crooked Spoon = Yum
Hope you have a great week back to normal!!
Looks like you’ve had a lot of awesome things going on 🙂 I love having guests in town because it gives me an opportunity to play tour guide and show them around town.
Here in Orlando, I take most of my visitors to Rebounderz (the giant room filled with trampolines). There’s just something about jumping around in a huge room that gets people excited.
And I’m curious as to what restaurant that is!
Dang, you had a busy week! I think that’s a perfectly good excuse not to blog. How lucky to find the starfish — I’m a FL Native and I’ve never found one on the beach — tres cool.
And all the food truck talk is just making me hungry (and my empty bkfst dish is still sitting beside me). Yum-o.
Good luck getting back to reality. Cheers.
So awesome seeing you last night, too! I eventually had to go up to the window to ask if they called my name, and it seems as though they lost my order. So the girl just gave me the very next Mango Bourbon Koda. It was good, but the extra long wait clouded my opinion of it. That quesadilla you had looks amazing though! So nice to meet your husband and daughter last night!
First, your mom is awesome because she rides a Harley. I’m sure you have a larger list. 🙂 I turned my helmet in when I got married out of respect to my wife, who lost a couple of friends to accidents. Plus having lil man has postponed any possible considerations to ride in the future.
Second, you suck for making us wait to find out where you got those awesome giant beers! 🙂
Third, I will be sending you a link on twitter soon to a funny sign that the wifey came across in Pinterest(sp?) about tripping, slipping, falling, etc.
I can’t wait to get back to Disney! It all sounded like an awesome time!
My mom was anti-motorcycles for years. When I was just a wee tot, my parents were in a really bad motorcycle accident. But now that she’s older and wiser, she’s ready to try again, and she said she’ll never be a passenger on anyone else’s cycle again!
When we went to the Harley store my husband loved them all, but we agreed that there will be no cycles until E is old enough to not be an orphan anymore!
We need to get our Harley riding parents together! In fact perhaps they could go somewhere on the East coast with our little ones and we can plan a getaway for us!
I’m a fantasy football widow also. Chad is the commish of his league, and draft day SUCKS. Oh well. As long as I get to do things like go to Tahoe with my sister and high school friends and take cruises with 10 single 20-something girls (bachelorette party where I felt like Mrs. Garrett on the Facts of Life…are you too young to remember that show?) I’ll let him keep his little football thing. 🙂