On the beach

Here are some pictures from our trip to Ty.bee (Chas - it is the Ty.bee island you are thinking about):

This is Husband (2nd from left) and me (far right) with the really incredible awesome couple from England that we met our first night there. Before I go into more details, I need to digress and point out that I just, for the first time ever, posted a picture of myself and a picture of Husband. If you are looking at this and feeling excited because you realize you know us, and my once anonymous blog is no longer such, then PLEASE leave me a comment and tell me who you are. I don't care if you keep reading, I just want to know if someone who knows us is reading this. Thanks.

Back to the picture - the first night we arrived, we checked into the condo and then took a 3 hour nap! We woke up around 8 pm and walked down the beach to the bar and grill that we hung out at the whole time we were there before. This bar is really laid-back, has the most amazing Caribbean and seafood menu, and serves cheap drinks. We spent a lot of time there on our honeymoon, and specifically found a condo that was walking distance to the bar for this trip! We sat outside on the deck, and while enjoying our fried plantains, homemade salsa, fish tacos, and beer, we started talking to the group of four English folks at the table next to us. The couple in the picture, "RV" and "Engineer", are about our age and had just started a year-long RV t.our across the United States! They quit their jobs back in England, rented out their house, and headed overseas! They started in Ta.mpa, and then Savanna.h and Ty.bee were their next stops. It was so much fun to hear about everything they had planned. We were a bit jealous of their ability to just take off like that, so it was nice to live vicariously through their plans!

We invited them to come see the Savanna.h Sand G.nats minor league baseball team with us on Friday night, and the picture above is the four of us at the game. RV had never seen a baseball game in person before, so it was fun explaining everything to her. We had a few drinks with them back at their RV after the game, and saw them for dinner/beer another night we were there. They'll be coming through our town in the fall, and so we're looking forward to seeing them again.

Here's RV and I with the Savanna.h Sand G.nat:

One of the other fun parts of our trip was the dolphin tour we went on. I managed to get a few shots of the dolphins, although it was hard to do!

There were about 40 of them swimming all around our boat - it was so neat to watch how they move in sync with each other, and a few of them even did flips and tail splashes!

One of the other big highlights was all the great food we ate on the trip! Husband doesn't eat seafood, but I love it, and fortunately he'll tolerate going to seafood restaurants and eating the one non-seafood option on a menu. We pretty much ate at only two places the whole trip: this unbelievably good breakfast place (the chef was one of two that cooked for JFK JR's wedding - he did all the breakfast, brunch, and lunches). We ate there every morning (actually, more early afternoon, since we usually didn't make it out of the condo until at least 11 or 12!) and the food was amazing. My favorite was the mushroom, jack cheese, and sausage omelet with sliced tomatoes, grits, and toast- they make all their own sausage, use extremely fresh produce, and it was delicious! The grits were also so good - I was so happy to be in the South and have grits (with lots of butter) served without even asking for them! You can only find grits in Missouri if you go to Cracker Barrel.

The second place we ate at was the bar and grill I mentioned earlier - I had this dish called Escovitch, which was fried tilapia, red beans/rice, pineapple, and snap peas. I have never eaten such light, flaky tilapia - it was so good that I ordered it two nights in a row! We also ate a lot of the fried plantains and salsa. the last night we were there, I ordered a white chocolate key lime pie that was heavenly. It really made me regret not ordering dessert every other night! I can still taste the tart lime blending with the cool chocolate.

We did eat at one other restaurant, where I ordered the platter of shellfish. A bunch of crab claws and legs, shrimp, mussels, clams, and crawfish. I was a little disappointed, because I should have just ordered crab legs/claws, since everything else I can find pretty easily in Missouri. But it was still good.

So those are the highlights of the trip. Husband and I also just really enjoyed being together and not thinking about work, J, the dog, the house, the cars, the bills, etc. It was nice to just do what we wanted and be on our own schedule (although we did miss J and called home at least twice every day to talk with him and check in on him). The sleeping until 11 and going out for beer every night was great too!