The Peine Family: 11th Anniversary Trip

For our 11th anniversary, we snuck down to Tampa for a few days. We dropped the kids off with my parents before heading over to the west coast.

We got checked in then got ready for dinner. We basically planned our time away around where we wanted to eat. First stop, the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City.

Ready to head out.

I had roasted pork, black beans and rice, yucca, and sweet plantains. Oh, so good.

Jonathan enjoyed paella.

We opted to eat in the main room so that we could see the flamenco show. It was so good that it was hard to eat my dinner. I kept wanting to just watch the dancing.

We got a few pics on our way out.

The next day, we headed over to Honeymoon Island for a beach day. We got Publix subs on the way then found a good spot to set up.

We spent some time on the beach then had our subs. After we ate, Jonathan decided to take a walk. I pulled out Dear Mr. Knightley to read and settled in my chair by the water.

After two and a half hours, I began to wonder what had happened to Jonathan and eventually went in search of him. Finally, we found each other.

For dinner that night, we stopped in at the Cheesecake Factory. I always get the same thing there, but because we eat there so infrequently, I am okay with that. The last time we ate there was when we were in San Francisco.

That night at the hotel was so bizarre. At 4am, the clock radio came on in the room next to ours and we could hear it. It had to be at the highest volume possible to hear through the walls. We knocked on the wall and called the front desk staff who tried calling the room, but it didn’t turn off for an hour. Not the best sleep ever.

When it was the time we’d planned to get up, we got ready, loaded up the car and headed to Tarpon Springs.

We picked up a few sponges for the kids then headed to Hellas for some Greek gyros.

Once again, an amazing meal.

As we started back to Gainesville, we decided to drive north along the coast and have dinner in Cedar Key.

While at the restaurant, we watched the storm roll in (and out) and a little fishing boat fight the winds.

This salad is one of the strangest combinations of food I have ever had, but it tastes so good. The best place to get it is at the Island Hotel and Restaurant, and we didn’t eat there that night, but it was still delicious. It has hearts of palm, tons of fruit, and an ice cream, peanut butter, and mayonnaise dressing.