In May, Theo and I celebrated 10 years of marriage! We knew we wanted to have a big trip to celebrate, so we have been planning this since last year! We weren’t sure where we wanted to go, but we wanted it to be a step away from our normal life, affordable, and preferably in the same time or just one time zone away from our kiddos. We found a great price on a home near Ft. Myers, FL and decided to go ahead and book it! We booked our flights shortly thereafter and then completely lucked out by having the most generous brother in law and sister in law who let us borrow their car and electric scooters for the whole week!
We have never been on a trip like this in our 10 years of marriage, so we were just so excited to be getting away just the two of us. It was wonderful!
A HUGE shout-out to my parents and Theo’s parents, who tag teamed to take care of the kids while we were gone. The kids had an absolute blast and both sets of grandparents outdid themselves with activities and fun for the kids!
Other than our lodging, our flights and our transportation, we planned NOTHING else for this trip and literally took it one day at a time.
Day 1// Monday – Travel Day
We left our house at 2am to drive to the airport. When we got the airport and got our boarding passes, we realized that we had a layover in Chicago. Ha. That’s how little we planned- we didn’t even know our flight wasn’t a direct flight.
All of our flights were fine and took off/got in on time. There were no dramatic passengers, although our flights were FULL. I mean, they were putting standby people (pretty sure they must have worked for the airline) in the jumpseats- that’s how full it was! Theo and I were also separated for all but one of our flights, and always got stuck in the middle seat.
Titus and Marissa picked us up from the airport, took us out to lunch at one of their favorite local spots, and then took us to their house to visit all their animals and fruit trees. Haha.
We hit the road for the hour drive to our rental and crashed for a nap so hard as soon as we got there. I didn’t even take any pictures of the place before! We ordered some Chinese takeout for dinner and ate out on the lanai and watched some TV. After dinner we went for an electric scooter ride on the bike path that was near the house.
Day 2 // Tuesday
We set no alarms and woke up around 8. Glorious! We set out for a run and ended up going about 4 miles. It was TOASTY ha. Theo even found a coop on the curb and seriously debated how to get it back to Ohio. Hey, free is free!
Speaking of free- I finished one book I was reading, so I looked for Little Free Libraries on my LFR app. I fully intended to just drop OFF my book….what am I supposed to do when there are FREE books in the library that are on my TBR? Why, take them home, of course!
We made our way to the beach and learned that we were under-equipped to handle beach weather on that day, so only stayed for about an hour.
We made a stop on the way home at the grocery store and stocked up on some basics- breakfasts and snacks, mostly. I am SO thankful that someone had given us a gift card a few weeks back and it covered almost exactly our grocery haul for the week. We tried to save a lot of money by only eating out one meal a day. But we got creative and would make that meal a brunch or late lunch/early dinner so that we didn’t have to cook anything at all.
Day 3 // Wednesday
Wednesday was our intentional travel day. We drove the 1.5 hours to spend the day with….my Grandpa! He is 97 years young, and misses my Grandma with every part of him. Still, he continues to diligently live each day- and is working on writing his 3rd book! We ate lunch at Grandpa’s house and then headed over to visit with my aunt at her house for a bit.
After visiting with our relatives, we headed to a shopping area called Fisherman’s Wharf. They had so many cute/clever/way overpriced (ha!) shops. It was so lovely walking around with the beach breeze blowing. We also found a cute little place to eat. We really wanted the outside atmosphere, and everything was great until the waitress brought us our food. And then BAM we were literally SWARMED by flies. I mean….it was AWFUL. It was so bad we asked to go inside, and then it was MUCH better.
After dinner, we walked around the beach town admiring the houses and even looking some up on Realtor- all homes were in the millions!
Day 4 // Thursday
We really needed a chill day, so that is exactly what we did! Morning run, breakfast by the pool, a trip to the beach, and more time at home by the pool, followed by a scooter ride on the bike path in the evening!
Day 5 // Friday
On this day we decided to drive to a beach a little farther away and spent a longer amount of time there. It was HOT so we didn’t end up lasting as long as we had planned. At this point in the trip, we were finally willing to admit to ourselves that we actually just aren’t beach people.
On our way back, I wanted to check out all the Little Free Library’s within driving distance, so that was a fun activity! We got a late lunch at a super fancy Italian place, but we didn’t realize it was super fancy and basically showed up STARVING in our beach clothes. Oops. Haha.
We headed back to the house and spent several houses just bumming on the couch watching TV and I worked on a puzzle or did some cross-stitching.
Day 6 // Saturday
At this point in our trip, we were honestly starting to feel a little homesick. We were refreshed, rejuvenated and bored out of our minds. HAHA. We weren’t in a bad mood, but were just ready to go home, I think. We decided to go rent jet skis or go parasailing, but when we showed up at the rental place they said they thought a storm was coming in and they wouldn’t let us go out. I didn’t want to parasail in windy/choppy wave weather anyways, so we decided to go for a hike.
WHY did we decide to go for a hike at 2pm in the afternoon in FLORIDA? I do not know. It was not a wise choice.
I was so hot and sweaty and grumpy and we hadn’t had a drop of rain from the supposed storm, so we decided to head back to the jet ski place and see if they would let us go out. But first…ice cream.
And then we ended up finding a jet ski place that was cheaper and weren’t concerned about the weather. They were a tad bit sketchy, but at least we saved some money! Ha. We went down a channel and into the gulf, but the waves were SO CHOPPY I immediately started shouting to GO BACK. I do not appreciate ocean waves. I literally felt like we were going up and falling down into each wave and I was not about that life, so we went back to the channel and drove around in calm waters for a bit.
We then decided to go see a lighthouse nearby. Turns out we parked a ways away from it and walked along the beach to find it. It was not as impressive as we expected, but we still really enjoyed our walk on the beach!
We headed back to the house and got cleaned up for dinner, and then went out to find somewhere to eat. We picked a really fun restaurant with live music and great food. The only problem was that it was extremely busy and the waitstaff seemed overwhelmed. When they brought me my food, I took a few bites, but the food was completely lukewarm. That made me nervous because nobody wants to eat lukewarm chicken! I told our waiter and he said “Just give me a minute” and went off to help a couple other tables before he took my plate to the kitchen, apparently microwaved it, and brought it back out in less than 5 minutes. Then when they brought our receipt, Theo pointed out a price discrepancy (we were being charged for something that we didn’t get) and the waiter cussed very loudly. It was just poor manners to me. I wonder if we went on a different night that wasn’t a Saturday if we would have a much better experience!
Day 7 // Sunday
Our last day was spent just eating up the food in the fridge, finishing a book or two, cleaning up the house and watching a TON of TV. Haha. We didn’t feel like leaving the house and so we didn’t! We had to leave for the airport at 2am again so we got everything packed and cleaned and went to bed at a decent hour to wake up and head home to our babies! Our flights back were the same story as our flights there- no cancellations and only about a 10 minute delay on the second one. But again- the flights were SO FULL and we didn’t get to sit next to each other #cheapseats
We had such a wonderful time together and were so refreshed to be home and ready to jump back into life things! This trip will go down fondly as a huge building block of our marriage, and we do not take this time that we had away for granted!!! What an immense blessing that we know we were given. We are already planning our trip for our 20th wedding anniversary š
You two are so cute! Thanks for sharing. I kept waiting for a word about the SNAKE! I love reading your blog and the instagram accounts of your “homesteading” and sweet kiddos! I don’t think you were in Africa the same times we were, but we have been there with both sets of your parents.
So glad you were able to get some much-deserved childfree time together! Also, I had no idea there was a LFL app and now I need to go investigate immediately š