Florida Part One: A Very Happy Vacation

Hi everyone.

Today is my 32nd birthday…and I feel really, really happy. After a long period of time where things felt up in the air and a little unsettled, I feel grounded and perfectly content with exactly where I am right now. It’s a good way to feel.

I arrived home around 9:30 last night from Florida. It was so wonderful to spend a week with my parents and I was grateful that my fiance could join me for the last few days. We both left the trip feeling very rested, connected and ready for a busy but exciting summer ahead.

I have so many photos to share with you from my trip. I just uploaded 36 of them! I think I’ll have to break this into a couple posts so as not to overwhelm you with photos or write a novel.

We were so blessed with incredible weather for the trip. The first two days it rained in the morning but cleared up in the afternoon and for the last three days, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I spent as much time outdoors as possible. I worked outside in the morning, ran outside, spent hours on the beach and we ate on the balcony or outdoors at restaurants in the evenings.

The first night I was there we had grilled shrimp salads. My dad grilled the onions, corn and shrimp and I assembled the salad. It featured mixed greens, tomatoes, black beans and avocado along with the grilled stuff. It was dressed with a really light but delicious citrus vinaigrette that my dad made.

Smoothies and coffee every morning. This was the only morning I went out for Starbucks because I was out anyway at BodyPump.

I packed lunch to eat on the beach every day. My dad and I decided it’s a 100% true fact that sandwiches taste better on the beach. This was a wrap with pastrami, avocado, muenster, mayo, dijon and tomatoes.

And this was a sandwich on sourdough with Duke’s mayo (the best!), avocado, chicken, muenster and tomatoes.

I ate as much of my dad’s homemade bread as possible while I was visiting! 🙂

The night before my fiance arrived, my parents and I went out for dinner. We tried to go to two different restaurants in Destin but the wait times were over an hour so starving we headed back and tried out a new spot (to us) in Fort Walton, The Original Crab Shack. It was super casual and on the water. I was happy to sit outside.

My mom and dad got this blackened redfish.

And I got a crab stuffed grouper with grilled asparagus, cole slaw and hush puppies. Can we take a moment of silence for hush puppies please? SO GOOD!

My nights ended like this…I love, love, love Publix Cookies & Cream and had a scoop every night with some hot tea. (That is until the carrot cake came along…next post!)

I’ll be back with part two later today! Off to practice and teach yoga! 🙂