St. Petersburg Vacation

I mentioned that we spent over a week in St. Petersburg prior to E.J.'s birthday party, and we really had a great time! With Eric really not working, it really had a vacation feel to it and we enjoyed ourselves very much.

Of course, we were greeted by an insane storm literally the moment we crossed the bridge from Tampa into St. Petersburg. The streets flooded quickly and it was pretty sketchy driving the rest of the way, but we made it to my dad's house in one piece!

Ominous.

This is not my picture, but was found on social media the day we drove in. This is in Eric's old neighborhood, where we met! It wasn't quite this bad by my dad's house but it was pretty bad.

For the remainder of our stay, we kept ourselves very busy!

Ellie and Eric went to church with Kelley and Cathy, and then all of us (plus my dad) went downtown to the St. Pete Pride festival.

St. Pete Pride

Silly faces with my girl

The kids had some fun with my dad's new french horn and my old flute!

Is this not right?

Little flutist to be, perhaps?

Ellie got to help Papa make brownies, and all the perks that come along with that:

Yum.

We spent a lot of time playing in the backyard and especially swimming in my dad's pool!

My dad picked up this little slide so the kids could slide right into the pool!

Cutie

Happy swimmers

E.J. gets it.

We also had Aunt Debbie, Molly, Santiago and Milena over for a swim after E.J.'s birthday party!

Poor, sleepy Milena!

Santiago and Ellie, back at it again

And, Eric and I became accustomed to evening swims with cocktails after the kids were in bed. See? I told you—vacation!

Glorious.

We also went to visit Toni and Gramz's gravesite, and were able to see the headstone for the first time. They are buried in such a nice, peaceful spot and we brought flowers for the kids to leave for them. Afterwards, we went back to where Eric and I first met, and let the kids play on the (remodeled since we were there) playground where we first actually talked to each other!

The kids playing where we first met

I used to watch a 15-year-old Eric play basketball on this court. Now I yell at his son not to throw sticks here.

By the pool where we met 18 years ago!

We also had dinner with various family members, Ellie had a sleepover at Grammy's house, and we did tons of running around in preparation for E.J.'s party. It was a full and very nice visit!