Anniversary Weekend

The hubs and I decided to do an extended weekend get-a-way for our 1 year anniversary. We went to the B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L city of St. Augustine, FL.

We left on Friday afternoon (the Hubs left work a bit early) and made the 3 hour trek to St. Augustine. 

We stayed at a GORGEOUS bed & breakfast.

St. Augustine is really known for their B&B's. They aren't necessarily cheaper there, but WAY nice. We stayed downtown and within walking distance to anything cool.

Our room looked like this

 

With an ahhhhmazing 2 person Jacuzzi tub

Day 1: Friday Night
We arrived in St. Augustine ~5pm. Right in time for crazy downtown traffic. With St. Augustine being founded almost 450 years ago, the streets are very tiny... which means REALLY bad parking. It took us like 1/2 hour to find parking. Our B&B had happy hour from 5-7pm, which means we arrived just in time to indulge in appetizers and delicious cake. After we settled in, we ventured out for dinner.

We ate here.

We also got the most amazing HUGE chocolate cake, which we didn't eat till later.

Day 2: Saturday

We woke up to an amazing breakfast of poached eggs. The inn doesn't really have a "choice" in the breakfast entree, but you can have as many side items as you want (i.e., pastries, muffins, bagels, fruit, etc). We got a lot of side items and split them. You fill out a sheet the night before with a number next to each side item. Also the items changed daily. For instance, the first day was a apple muffin, the next day it was a blueberry muffin. So you never knew what you were going to get, so we always got like 1 of everything and then split it. One of us always ate it.


After breakfast, we bought tickets for the old town trolley, which just happened to be good for 3 days (the whole time we were there). We rode the trolley all the way through the first time so that we could figure out where everything was and decide where all we wanted to go.

We first did the history museum

Reuben thought maybe he'd trade in his new mountain bike for this one :)

This is an example of one of the first RV's. Sleeping bags were  in the back and the kitchen was off of the back end.

Then we visited the old jail house.

There was a rope attached at the top of this cage that they said they used to use hang the cage in the trees

We then walked down through all the little shops and got some lunch. Then we made our way to the new pirate museum they have in St. Augustine. I believe it is the largest in the world. They have over 600 authentic pirate artifacts including 1 of 2 (in the world) authentic pirate flags and the only in the world authentic pirate chest. It was pretty neat. They also had some hands on activities for kids. And Disney helped them build the exhibits so there is a section with pirate movies. They have the sword that Johnny Depp used in the Pirates movies there. They didn't allow any pictures in the museum, so I don't have any to share.

It rained everyday we were there from about 5-6 pm. Just in time for us to head back to the B&B and enjoy some happy hour.

Saturday night we did a moonlight sailboat cruise on the Schooner Freedom.

 It went from 8:45 to 10:15 pm (it gets dark early in Florida... even in the summer). It was really peaceful and romantic.

Us on the boat :)

After that, it was late, but we still hadn't eaten, so we made our way to some food. They had really cool seating outside at this restaurant.

Day 3: Sunday

Happy 1st Anniversary to us!!!!

We woke up to (again ahhhmazing) breakfast casserole and a bunch of side items (as we did everyday).

Doesn't this look delicious???

We started off at the fort. We wanted to do it early because it gets so hot in the afternoon and the fort has ABSOLUTELY no shade. It was still hot. And I got a little sunburned, but it was GORGEOUS.

All I have to say is - Back off ladies - he's mine!!! :)

View from on top of the fort looking in

On top of the fort

We went to an authentic Greek restaurant for lunch. The hummus was absolutely delicious and my Greek salad was yummy. All in all, a good choice.

We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon. Took a mini-nap. Then did the whole happy hour thing and ate some more. Are you catching the theme from this trip.... FOOD and EATING! We took a quick stroll across the bridge of lions before dinner. Sadly I forgot the camera, so no pictures  :(.

We got a recommendation for the a restaurant for dinner called the Raintree. It was really nice. We had reservations for 8:30.

Us before dinner

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Our Margarita pizza. It had tomatoes and pesto and cheese. It was the most delicious thing that we ate in St. Augustine.

 

We split our entree. Lemon chicken with a buttery sauce and angel hair pasta. It was pretty good. I would have ordered something different, but the Hubs picked that entree and frankly I wasn't too hungry. Can you imagine why?

After dinner, we (of course) had to order dessert. We requested a dessert menu and the waitress came out with an Ipad. It had a video showing all the desserts on it - pretty cool huh? So this restaurant is known for their desserts. EVERYTHING looked good. But we ended up getting peanut butter dessert thing.

The best way I can describe it is ice cream surrounded by a cookie that is topped with crumbled peanut butter cups and then topped with fudge. Here is the picture. Trust me... it was to die for!!!!

Quick picture of us after dinner

Day 4: Monday

Checkout was at 11 am, so we still had time for one last breakfast - waffles.



View from our table - how beautiful is that?



A friend decided to join us for breakfast. He sat above the inn on top of the trees.



After checking out, we decided to head to the beach. It was something I wanted to do while we were in town, but we just never had time. We didn't swim, but we walked the shore for about an hour and a half.

We also stopped at the light house. We considered climbing 200 and something steps to the top, but they wanted 9.50 a person and I really didn't want to pay $19 for us to do it. So maybe next time.

After we left the beach we headed here

And shopped and shopped and then shopped some more. We didn't buy much. But it was a great end to a fabulous weekend.


We arrived back in Tallahassee about 9 pm.... Already thinking of planning our next trip to St. Augustine. We didn't get a chance to look at everything, so we saved some things for our next trip.

Month Catchup....

So I've been busy.... to say the least. So this is my month catchup!

• We celebrated Bella's 1st birthday on June 22nd! Can't believe she is already a year old! She was the 2nd puppy of a litter of 9. Here they all are!

A close- up of her only a few days old :)

My little sister took care of her her when we were on our honeymoon. She was sooo cute when she was little (still is, of course).

This is what she looks like now! All grown up.... *sniff sniff*



Bella's birthday sundae!



 

• I started a huge experiment at work.... It had me in the lab for exactly 3 weeks and 5 days! Wowowow! I was exhausted after that. And unfortunately, the data did not turn out as I had planned and I lost a few animals.... so I started another batch this past weekend, so yup... I'll be in lab everyday again for the next 3 or so weeks. But you know what, as exhausting as work can be when I have experiments like this, I LOVE IT. I love the feeling of accomplishment and productivity.
• My paper was officially accepted as a manuscript and is on pubmed. YAHHHH... here's the link.
• My labmate and I (plus a few people from our collaborating lab) went to the National Neurotrauma conference in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. It was the best conference!!!! The talks were good, the food was delicious AND free, the hotel was nice!

We stayed here!

The Westin Diplomat

The VIEW from our room!!!

They had a fancy dinner one of the nights. Which was A BLAST. It was a beautiful, formal sit down dinner. Everything was lab themed. The decor on the tables were test tubes and glass beakers. The also had rodent stuffed animals on each tables. It was pretty neat. The waitors wore lab coats. I was impressed to say the least.

Picture of my salad

DESSERT!!!!!

Just in case you can't tell (phone = terrible picture quality) - the dessert was served in petri dishes (or as we call them cell culture dishes) and the brownie had a picture of a NEURON on it. How cool is that!!!????

After dinner there was an "after party." They had a DJ (who had all his DJ stuff in a hummer) and a photo booth.

Me and my labmate dressed up for the photo booth!

DJ with his hummer (he's the one in the lab coat) and the dance floor

All in all... A good time :)

• The conference had its own professional photographer, so when the pictures are up on the website, I will post a few of them. They will be MUCH better quality. Plus, I know she got a picture of me and my labmate with our BEAUTIFUL poster. And no, I am not being conceited.... it really is that beautiful.  :)
• This past weekend I went to a bachelorette party for a friend of mine. I had so much fun. :) We went to "the garden where I guess they grow the olives" *heck yes, I just pulled out some old school DC TALK!* for dinner. Then we went back to her place so she could open all her gifts. We also made her try on every single gift lol. All in all = great time :)