Florida Family Visit

At the beginning of January we took a trip to visit Lex's grandparents. It was my first time ever meeting them and they were so wonderful! So full of stories and were hilarious. Even after his grandma broke her foot while we were there, she still managed to get us all to laugh. 

In between running some errands and helping out around their apartment, we ate A LOT of good food. Some of the best food we had was at the Mucky Duck which was a an hour drive to get to. If you are ever in the area of Captiva Island, GO. Its amazing. And totally not what you expect. You imagine this to be your typical beach shack food but it was so not. The atmosphere feels like a good place to hang out but the food was not bar food by any means. I had the most amazing crab cakes and I think John might have had steak with lobster on top. SO GOOD.

This was only my second time in Florida and of course we happened to go during the bad winter storm they were dealing with. Did you see the articles about iguanas falling out of trees because it was so cold? Thankfully none fell on my head ;) It was warmer for us while it was in the 40's-50's since we were coming from -16 degrees in Chicago but everyone there seemed to be freezing. Okay, I was also freezing but I sometimes wear sweaters in 80 degree weather. 

While we were out and about, we had the chance to drive by the Boll's old house. The neighborhood was full of houses with screened in porches which is a dream of mine! Who does;t love sitting outside without getting attacked by bugs?? Not sure if I want to live in Florida but I wouldn't mind bringing a few of those houses home with me. I also loved seeing how different the neighborhood was from ones around us. They had palm trees, channels, and huge manitee mailboxes. That may be getting added to a Christmas list someday.

This was a pretty quick trip but we managed to fit a lot in! We said our goodbyes to Allie who flew home to Maryland and then found out our flight home to Chicago was cancelled due to a bad snow storm. We managed to still fly to St. Louis and then drove the 5 hours home. Well Lex and John drove the 5 hours while I tried reallllly hard not to fall asleep. I am just adding this to the list of crazy adventures I have had in the last few years traveling! If someone doesn't break their foot or have their flight cancelled, did the trip really even happen?

Looking forward to the next time we adventure in Florida :)