Sandestin for Valentine's Day

We had a really wonderful Valentine's Day because it was spent in my happy place, the beach. We decided to head to Sandestin because they had great rates and they were having a Mardi Gras dog parade. If that's not up Kinley's alley, I'm not sure what is. The weather was wonderful as well. It was a much needed break from our cold and gloomy weather up here.

The dog parade was just the cutest, as expected. We all loved it! 

The kids got soooo many beads and little treats!

Sandestin Wharf is so festive at night. Pictures don't do it justice. We had to go to the arcade every night because naturally that's Dylan's favorite. 

I just love our fun weekends making memories!

I hope we can go back next year. I would love to make it a yearly tradition.

Sanibel Island: Part Two

One of my absolute favorite things I've done in my life so far is renewing our wedding vows. Here's the thing...it was all Chris' idea. Yes, he is the best. He planned every detail and it was magical really. We were originally married on an island in the gulf, so it only made sense to renew our vows 10 years later on an island in the gulf. The weather couldn't have been any prettier. It was perfect. Everything was perfect.

 During the ceremony at sunset the sky turned the most gorgeous shade of pink. The tide rose up to wet our feet and we, for just a moment, were the only ones on the private stretch of beach. I carried a small bouquet of white orchids. Patricia Slater performed the ceremony and she was awesome. She was so genuine and made us feel so special. She has been a part of over 8,000 weddings/vow renewals and it shows. She knows the little details that matter. 

One funny thing I want to remember is while she is reading all these beautiful words a totally legit swimmer swam by about 100 feet off the beach. He was by himself and had to have been swimming for miles. I never saw him get in or out of the water. Afterwards, Patricia told us she just thought it was a porpoise out of the corner of her eye. Haha! Nope, it was pretty much someone training for some kind of water marathon.

After the vow renewal, Chris and I had reservations at the Thistle Lodge. They had delicious food. We had such a great time laughing that I only got one lonely picture of my drink (it was uh-mazing btw). It's called the Sanibel Sunset.

Another place we eat while on our trip was The Island Cow.

It had the longest wait of any place we eat on the island. They did have a fun waiting area though. My crab cake sandwich was tasty, unfortunately, what Chris got (patty melt) was bad. He barely eat any of it. He's not a picky eater either. So, I can't see myself ever going back here. Here was my crab cake sandwich:

Another place that we actually both loved was The Fish House.

It was some of the best Shrimp Tacos I've ever had. We will definitely be going back there.

Of course, we had just rode 8 miles on our bikes before lunch so that could have had something to do with how great it was! ha Cardboard would have tasted yummy too probably. I really think it was truly delish though. Speaking of our bike ride, it was so fun. It was super hot, yes, but there was breeze once we got to cruising speeds. 

We went to see the Lighthouse (the first thing ever on island). There was beautiful scenery on the way there. 

I also witnessed the fastest tortoise alive. Well, I almost ran his hiney over until Chris saw him.

Another yummy lunch spot was in Captiva--almost to the end of the island.

It's called Cantina Captiva.

The cheese dip was a little pricey but oh so good! I mean you're on vacation, everything is more expensive. ;) 

We kayaked one day and that was something I've never done. I usually prefer boats with motors (big motors, not trolling motors) because I'm scared of certain sea life. For some reason, I assume I could escape quickly in large boat. Anyway, I was brave and turned out I really enjoyed it and see why people love it.

Chris did all the work, I just took pics and worked on my tan the whole time! ;)  

We went through the Mangrove forest on Tarpon Bay.

We rented our kayak through Tarpon Bay Explorers. They were great. It was a cheap and fun activity! 

Ok, I saved my favorite restaurant for last, The Sunset Grill. It's in Captiva as well and overlooks the ocean. The food was amazing! It's a smaller, fancier style restaurant and it's a little pricey, but it's worth it. They have a small menu, so I'm sure everything on it is good. We had personalized service, we saw the chef making our food and it was a great experience. I highly recommend this place.

Here was our Key Lime Pie we had for dessert:

Well, as you can imagine, after all this I didn't want to leave. But, oh how I missed my babies. Thanks to Chris' parents for taking good care of them while we were gone. I'm sure they spoiled them. :) 

We are already planning another trip to Sanibel. This time we will take the kids and drive. Eeekk! That long drive scares me, but we drove back from Dallas before so I'm sure we can pull this off too.

Until next year, Sanibel!

Sanibel Island 10th Anniversary Trip: Part One

Let me start by saying this was one of the best vacations of my life. I like to travel and take weekend getaways often so that is saying a lot.

This was our first time to ever go to Sanibel Island/Captiva. My brother and his wife actually honeymooned there and always raved about how much they loved it. Chris surprised me and planned a trip for just me and him for our 10 year wedding anniversary. There was also another little surprise, but I'll save that detail for later. 

We flew into the Fort Myers airport which is the cutest little airport! It's so clean, beachy, and not busy at all. I know a lot of people don't like the smaller airports, but I actually LOVE them. Everyone is so friendly and not rushing say like in Atlanta or Miami. We picked up our rental car (they pretty much force you to get a convertible mustang) and we were on our way! Oh, and we always use Hertz... they're always the best rental company.

The island was only about a 45 min drive from the airport. 

Our first stop was Island Pizza for lunch because frankly it just looked yummy and it said they were rated #1 pizza on the island. We were starved since we had woken up at 3:30 that morning and we never eat much when we fly. The pizza was tasty (a little burned on the bottom though). The marinara that came with it was canned sauce I could tell, so I was obviously disappointed in that. Probably won't be going back there because we found so many other yummy places!

We drove around top down on the car until it was time for us to check in to our condo. We stopped and had some ice cream at Pinocchio's. Why not?! Calories don't count on vacation, remember that friends!! I highly recommend this ice cream parlor. I had the Sanibel Crunch and it was amazing. But really, how can you mess up ice cream?! ;) Answer: You can't.

We got finally got checked into our room at Casa Ybel. This place is gorgeous! Everything is super clean (which I'm pretty particular about) and the views, the room size, the amenities are all great! We had a one bedroom unit of course, but they do have two bedrooms available as well.

This was our room and below is the view from it. I loved the fact that you could be on the beach from our room in about 100 steps, no elevators or long hallways. Actually, no high rise condos are allowed to build on the island and that's a nice change of scenery from where we normally go. 

Our room was one of those units behind Chris. 

Here are a few more pics from the resort. I would totally recommend staying here and might even stay here again when we go back. Next time we'll be bringing the kids though.

There is some great "shelling" and swimming on this area of beach. Which, obviously ,we did both!

Just an FYI, you're going to want to purchase shelling shoes before you go because they are premium price on the island and trust me, you are only going to wear these beauties while shelling! ;) 

We found tons of live sand dollars. 

The water was amazing. No really, it was. Floating in that water was some of my favorite time on the trip.

I'm going to break the post into two parts for the sake of this becoming the longest blog post in history! I'll have a lot more info on restaurants and activities in part two. :)