Snowpocalypse

We are getting very familiar with driving through Florida. We have been to the Midwest and back again since our last blog post. The van just passed 50,000 miles.

On our way to Missouri, we made a pit stop in Knoxville to visit our friend Mary and meet the newest addition to her family – Catherine Alice. We are going to call her Aly Cat.

We left Knoxville and headed to Missouri with a stop in Nashville for some hot chicken at Hattie B’s and a quick stop in STL. As usual, we are bringing the cold weather with us wherever we go! Luckily, neither location was too cold but we did use the electric blanket!

If you are ever in the STL area, we highly recommend a walk through the Laumeier Sculpture Park. It was a unique place to stretch our legs and spend some time outdoors enjoying some interesting art.

Our trip to Missouri was spent hanging out with our youngest nieces while their parents went on a cruise. Our arrival coincided with 12″ of snow the first day we were there. Over the weekend it continued to snow for the next three days and school was canceled for Monday. Playing in the snow was a highlight for us. Our invented game of snow baseball was really fun and we built a snow centipede. The rest of the week was filled by making pancake art, playing Spoons and Nertz, and many other games. Nicole had lots of after school sports and we even got to see her play an exhibition basketball game for Special Olympics.

One World Everybody Eats was hosting their annual conference in New Orleans, so we drove straight from staying with our nieces to visit with other pay-what-you-can cafe operators. Tish and Brad 2.0 were in attendance, as well as our friends from F.A.R.M. Cafe, Table Grace and many others.

Sarah, a former employee of SAME, lives in New Orleans, as well. We got to visit with her last time we were in New Orleans and were so grateful for this additional time with her Matthew and their new pup, Benny. Of course, we ate at Turkey and the Wolf again and even made a stop at the Parkway for Po’ Boys.

After the conference concluded and we had our fill of all our favorite NOLA stops, we headed towards a new pay-what-you-can cafe in Brewton, Alabama. Drexel’s and Honeybee’s has been open for about a year and served us some of the most delicious southern treats we’ve had. Although we arrived after they were done serving for the day, they graciously welcomed us in and we were able to sit down and visit with founder, Lisa and even help her close up the dining room.

Our last stop on this leg of the trip was an impromptu visit to Auburn University to visit our nephew Joey. When we looked at the map, we realized that Drexel and Honeybee’s restaurant was only 2.5 hours away from Auburn. We knew that we probably wouldn’t have another opportunity to visit Joey at school unless we ventured now and what is 2.5 hours in the grand scheme of this crazy adventure. It was awesome to see Joey enjoying this beautiful and historic campus.

Now, back to Florida to get warm!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (a little late)

Upon leaving Texas, we traveled as fast as we could through the cold South and finally arrived in Englewood, Florida at Libby’s parents winter house where we settled in for a couple of days. This is the same place we came to last year to get warm. We did some of our favorites hikes and runs, yoga on the beach, and even caught up with a friend from Colorado. Pat happened to be visiting his mom, who lives nearby so we were able to have lunch with them.

We flew to IL for the holidays with family. Leo & Gemini did great on the plane. They traveled inside their little crates and didn’t bark or make a peep. That’s was a huge relief. We spent most of our time in IL with Brad’s family but did have time for a couple of our favorite local beers at the White Oak Brewery Christmas party. We enjoyed baking and being in a kitchen again with tons of awesome gadgets. It was a busy festive time of food and presents and more food.

We got to spend time with most of our nieces and nephews, including Caelin and Joey who we got to see on our way back down to Florida. Our return trip was by car – or actually a truck. Since the Whalen’s were making their annual drive down, we hopped in the truck to hitch a ride. We stopped at Libby’s sister’s house in KY to break up the drive. It was good to get to see her as we knew she wasn’t going to make it to Florida for New Year’s like we thought. There was a ton of traffic all heading to warmer weather and it took us longer getting back down to Florida than we expected.

Kate and Rich were able to join us for the weekend to celebrate the New Year. We did more yoga on the beach and took a boat ride to see some Holiday lights.

There was many days of golfing for the boys and exploring the area for the gals. Aunt Jane and Uncle Terry just moved to Fort Myers, so we got to spend time with them as well. It was a fun filled weekend minus a couple sisters.

We rang in the New Year by replacing the doors Leo and Gemini ate at Libby’s parents home. Apparently, we left them alone with a lizard who had snuck into the house, and between that and the fireworks they went into a wild rage of door biting fury. A little elbow grease and some paint and the hallway looks normal again! That poor lizard!