I am blessed enough to be able to have so many great friends and family that make a huge effort to come and visit me no matter where I am. One of those is my best friend since we were eight, Miranda. She was able to make it down this past weekend for a quick visit. As always, we made the best of it an had an awesome time. It is always amazing to me how easy it is to just pick up where we left off and just enjoy each other's company and have a great time. This was the first time that Josh was able to join us for all of our shenanigans and he kept up pretty well!
After picking Miranda up on Friday night at Tampa Airport, we drove back to Dunedin and went to one of our favorite places for dinner, Clear Sky Draught Haus. It had been a long day of travel so we went home for some visiting and an early night.
We started out Saturday with some mimosas with fresh squeezed orange juice from my orange tree in the back yard. Delicious!
Our next stop was my nail place for a spa pedicure. We both were disgusted by the condition of our feet so it was much needed and so lovely. Can't go on the beach with awful feet.
After a relaxing morning, we drove down on to the Causeway and stopped at Treasure Island. We were hungry by this time so we went to Sloppy Joes, an outdoor island style restaurant that Josh and I had first seen in Key West and had wanted to try since. I got an amazing shrimp, blue cheese and walnut salad in a tortilla bowl. So good! We of course got some fruity drinks with the cliche take home glasses, one of my favorite things.
It wouldn't be a trip to Florida without a trip to the beach everyday, so after lunch we walked the few feet out to the Treasure Island beach for some sun and sand.
This guy looked exactly like my brother!
There was a sand sculpture competition on the beach as well. It blows my mind how these are done.
Watership Down:
After some time on the beach, we drove up the causeway a bit to John's Pass. I wasn't totally sure what John's Pass was, but they have been following me on Instagram for months, so I thought we should stop. Turns out it is a very Key West style little bunch of shops, restaurants and bars with a boardwalk on the water. We did a wine tasting, and of course, bough some wine. They also had boozy ice cream (could there be anything better?) so I got a scoop of Key Lime Margarita with strawberry Margarita.
It was getting later in the day, and so we decided to grab a drink right out on the water at one of the boardwalk bars. I wasn't able to get any pictures because it was getting dark but we saw a ton of dolphins jumping and feeding just a few feet away.
We headed back toDunedin and stopped for some delicious sushi at the Blue Saki. So yummy! As hard as we tried, it was one of those long days that require an early night. We relaxed at home for a little while and hit the hay.
Sunday morning started out again with Champagne. No Mimosas this time, I was too lazy to go pick more oranges. Just thought this was a cool picture.
We hung out and took it easy then headed to one of my favorite places, Clearwater Beach. We went for lunch right away to another favorite of ours, Frenchy's. I have talked about this place before, mostly because of their awesome drinks. This is the special Christmas "Peppermint Pattie" omg!
After our first picture in the chair on Friday night, we decided to get a picture in every giant chair we saw. The afternoon was actually spent different than I had planned, watching football in one of the awesome sports bars just off the beach, The Brown Boxer. A lot of beer was involved, and a lot of anger since the Bears lost. Anyway, it was a great time.
We went out to the beach for a few minutes of relaxing before dinner. The sunset was breathtaking!
We wrote our names in the sand while Josh swam. Awww how sweet!
We went to the delicious Palm Pavilion right beside the hotel we stayed in when we came down here in the spring. The Grouper there is the best of life. We headed home and played some cards and visited for the rest of the night.
Monday morning was a little bit slower. We were out of Champagne so we just slept in and then made our way to Honeymoon Island State Park, just a couple minutes from our rental house. We found this cute little snowman (sandman?) on the beach as we were walking to the water. So cute. It was a little early and chilly but we collected some shells and dug some holes and relaxed. It was really nice.
We went into downtown Dunedin for dinner and decided to first stop for a drink and the sunset at the Old Bay Cafe, right on the water at the Dunedin Marina. Again, another unbelievable sunset.
This guy pulled up in his old Mercedes just to take a picture of his car with the sunset in the background. Can't say I blame him!
We then walked up the street to the downtown area. This is one of the street decorations.
Our last giant chair :(
I had to stop in at Kelly's Chicaboom Room for one of their amazing martinis. Okay, two martinis. Miranda got my favorite, the Key Lime Pie and I got the Frozen hot Chocolate. Yum!
My second one I was really iffy about. It was called the Elvis and comes with a peanut butter rimmer, Peanut Butter and Jelly Vodka and a slice of bacon. I just had to try it though and it was amazing. Funny how I don't like peanut butter at all, but this really worked!
We really needed some food (mostly me) so we walked up to the Dunedin Brewery for some tater tot poutine, wings and pretzel bites. There also happened to be an open mic comedian night, so we stayed to watch some of them. Some were pretty good, some were not so much, but didn't matter, the beer was good and that is what I remember the most (well things get foggy eventually). We walked back to the marina and headed home. On the way the town tree was lit up, pretty!
That's it, a whirlwind weekend, but I hope it was worth it for Miranda, I know it was for me! Thanks for the visit beautiful!
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