I’m so thankful for those who voted on my Instagram poll to do a Florida Vacation recap blog post! I truly am excited to share and get to look back later and remember this trip! haha! My husband and I just returned home from a wonderful getaway trip to Sarasota, Florida that we have been doing for a number of years now and I’m already excited to go back!
As any vacation would go, we kind of ate our way around Sarasota, whether it was revisiting favorite locations or finding new ones to try! (I’ll be sharing more of the restaurants and personal “reviews” of each one below!) We also went on some walks (which I love doing!), ate too much ice cream, didn’t get enough sun rays, played games and made so many new amazing memories that I’m so, so thankful for.
We had a lot of cloudy and super breezy days with having to wear jackets to dinner almost every night! But our last day there we were able to enjoy 82 degree sunshine with little to no clouds or breeze and it was amazing! But with a beautiful backyard with a large pond, screened in porch and an in-ground, screened in pool, we really didn’t have anything to complain about haha!
This year was different for us because my husband and I got to spend time with two of my aunt + uncles, a cousin and her family and also my parents all at the same time! (Typically it’s just us two and my parents in the same house!) We often met up together for dinner and then went back to “our house” for games or just some casual family time! My favorite!
But enough talk about our Florida Vacation.. lets get to the fun stuff!
DAY ONE
Of course the best way to start out any vacation is with a chick-fil-a meal shortly after our plane landed! After unpacking and visiting with family, we went out to Joey D’s for dinner with my aunt and uncle and I got their eggplant rollatini and it was delicious! Then we went back to the house and played our favorite family game; shang-hi!
DAY TWO
Went out for breakfast to one of our familiar places; Yoder’s Restaurant & Amish Village.
..which is also right beside one of our favorite fresh fruit and veggie stands! Can’t forget our traditional photo! :)
Also got to try out this *adorable* new cafe (which was previously a post office) and their “bub’s vanilla chai latte” is THE BOMB. like, it’s actually the PERFECT recipe and exactly what I was expecting in my head.
Of course you cannot forget pool time! This is how we spent most of our afternoon between breakfast and dinner! It was the perfect way to relax after running around in the morning and before running around in the evening! I think it was the perfect way to make our days feel longer!
p.s. I am really enjoying this book and had to wait 4 weeks to get it back in my hands from the library (lol yes I could’ve just purchased it) but I do recommend it so far! Definitely an easy read!
The whole family met up for dinner at one of my favorite places: Sharky’s on the Pier! Definitely give yourself time to get a table.. it often gets really busy really quick! They didn’t have my *favorite* dish that I had last year (soo sad! It was a crab and shrimp au gratin dish so I settled for their chicken and shrimp Alfredo which was also delicious!). Anyways, we love this place because it sits RIGHT on the beach and you can walk out really far on the pier (see how far out we were on the left photo below?)
so we did a little fishing off the pier and only got some small fish!
of course, I had to get a photo of them matching *heart eyes*
DAY THREE
We started off our morning with breakfast with my aunt + uncle at a new place that my dad found: Blue Jasper! It was a cute and new place (the photos on their website don’t do justice! haha!) I had their ham and cheese omelet and it was pretty good!
Afterward, we went to the Red Barn Flea Market (which is basically PA’s version of Green Dragon only like 5x bigger!) and only walked out with 3 different kinds of licorice LOL.
For dinner we went to a new place that my cousin heard of and wanted to try out: Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. The food was really good, but their tacos were pretty small. The guys ended up eating 4-5 tacos each LOL. After dinner we all walked around Lido Beach for a little. It was actually really windy that the sand was blowing and cool enough that you really needed a jacket! But the water was warm so it felt good!
Then we took a family walk to the nearest Big Olaf ice cream as our last night together before my aunt/uncle and cousin’s family left for PA!
DAY FOUR
My parents, Zach and I went out to breakfast at another favorite place; First Watch. Again, I struck out with my favorite meal because they took it off the menu which was their acai bowl.. ugh! But it was still pretty good!
Walking over the bridge (not sure of the specific name..but we consider it the “Lido Beach” bridge) is one of our favorite things, morning or evening! It has the prettiest view!
There is a spot that once you’re off the bridge, you can walk around under it where there is a small beach and a place to sit and just relax on benches or fish!
While we were down there, we were joined with multiple dogs.. so fun!
I didn’t get any photos, but then we went to one of our favorite places for good lunch meat is Detweiler’s Farm Market. We grabbed a variety of dinner and coffee to go do one of our favorite things: watch airplanes land and take off! You can actually sit right outside of the fence (it’s like a front-row seat! and it’s such a fun thing we love to do! We just sat in the car and ate our chipotle, chick-fil-a and sipped our McDonald’s coffee!
DAY FIVE
A rare sighting of someone cooking in the kitchen during this vacation LOL. Watched church online Sunday morning and then had a pretty lazy day! Zach and I went on a quick bike ride which was fun, although the bike seats were super hard so we didn’t last long haha! In the evening, we went to Longhorn Steakhouse for an early birthday dinner for Zach and afterward we went mini-golfing and *this girl* got a hole-in-one AND won the game overall. BOOYAH.
cuties <3
DAY SIX
Went to the weekly “PA breakfast” at Der Dutchman which is a breakfast for all of the people from PA who want to come! I think there were 160 people this time! My dad led a few songs, we sang happy birthday to people and also the happy birthday tune for anyone with an anniversary! haha!
Truthfully I can’t remember what we did during the day but for dinner we went back to the Daquiri Deck like we did last year! We finished off our evening at one of our other favorite desert places: Yogurtology which is a frozen yogurt place with tons of fun toppings!! Then we went back to the house and played the board game “Clue”, which again, *this girl* won! ohhh yeah.
DAY SEVEN
It’s Zach’s 27th Birthday! Yay! And oh baby, this was my 100% favorite place: Sarasota Breakfast House. It was new to us and certainly a hidden gem. It feels like you’re just in someone’s back yard who loves a lot of colors haha! There were blue tables/chairs, a yellow house, pink napkins and purple coffee cups, etc. but the food was amazing and it was just an all-around adorable little place!! Thankfully the weather was nice that we were able to sit outside! It’s also a running joke with our family because I couldn’t get over how much I LOVED it and how cute it was and how good the food was!
Zach and I got their broccoli and cheddar quiche which was SO so good.. we couldn’t stop raving about it! My dad got their oatmeal (I think) with their biscuits which looks so pretty on the bottom right photo.
For dinner, we tried another completely new place to all of us (The Linger Lodge) and If I’m being honest, we weren’t sure what to expect. It’s about 2 miles back in, winding your way back through the woods and it’s on an RV campground. It’s definitely more of a “redneck”/hunting feeling atmosphere (the owner was a taxidermist so there were a lot of stuffed animals all around haha!!) But we got to sit on the back screened-in porch which was by the creek in the back and had their palm trees wrapped in lights! Their food was pretty good; you can’t go wrong with shrimp Alfredo!
Zach got to celebrate his birthday which was on the 10th, and so we went back to Evie’s Family Golf Center where we mini-golfed which also has a golf driving range. So we were planning to grab some Big Olaf Creamery ice cream there while he did some golfing but upon arrival, they had the field closed for a corn hole tournament and little kids flag football. So we ended up going to our main location for Big Olaf so that Zach could grab a coffee at Postal 98 Cafe :) Then we finished off our last evening playing a great game of Shang-hi again, which I *didn’t* win that time LOL.
And just like that, our time away from home is already over and it’s back to reality! Always so thankful for the opportunity to get away over the winter to rejuvenate and soak in some quality vacation time since wedding season makes it pretty hard to getaway!
A few other places we enjoy but didn’t get to this time:
- Marina Jack: we love going for dinner by the water and then walking around and looking at all of the boats/yachts
- Ginny & Jane E’ Cafe & Coastal Store: again, another fun, unique and little hidden gem. We went for the first time last year and they have massive sticky buns, which are delish! Also, everything in the store is for sale!
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