Sunday, May 20, 2012

Day #2 - New Port Richey

Sunday, May 20, 2012 - New Port Richey


This morning, Jacob woke up bright and early at 6:10 am.  Unfortunately, I was already awake around 5 am... finally went back to sleep and slept until 7:30 am when Jackson woke up.  I was greeted by birthday hugs from my sweet boys. We took our time and went down to breakfast around 8:15 am.  We are at the Homewood Suites in Port Richey.  The make your own waffles are the best part, but they did have a egg & cheese english muffin that wasn't too bad after being heated up a little more.  They had nearly fresh blueberries for the waffles.  Jackson & I love blueberries. :)

After breakfast, John & Kat came to our hotel and then we all went over to Sugar & Papa's around 10 am.    I must say, I think my grandparents are doing okay for being almost 90 and 79.  They have had some health issues which have slowed them down considerably, but overall, they are doing okay. We visited with them for about 2 hours and then headed to lunch.  Jeff suggested Sweet Tomatoes, which we have at home and found here on our last trip.  Bonus!  I had a BOGO coupon I got in my email for my birthday.  You do have to by $5 in drinks to save $9 on your meal, but it still helps!  John & Kat don't have Sweet Tomatoes in Texas, so they were first timers.  We all had a good lunch and enjoyed ice cream for dessert. Hey!  We are on vacation!  Why not have ice cream dessert after lunch!  :)  The service was actually really exceptional at this Sweet Tomatoes. In fact, our "server," or rather, "tray & plate collector" was really good.  She brought us a bowl of chocolate chips cookie bars to sample. I think they may be a new item.  She chatted with us and found out it was John & Kat's first ST's visit ever.  As we were leaving, she brought them each a small bag of chocolate chip cookies. She was very sweet.

We decided to head back to our hotel and then everyone except Jackson and I would go to the Congo Mini-Golf nearby.  Jacob loves some mini-golf!  By the time we got back here, we decided just to let John & Kat take our car to take Jacob to mini-golf and Jeff and I would try to get Jackson to nap.  Well, they headed out, and despite trying for over an hour, Jackson just would not nap.  We finally got him to at least wind down by watching some SuperWhy, but he would not go to sleep. We gave up.  Around 3 pm, we heard from John & Kat that they were heading to their condo to get Jacob some moleskin - apparently, he had some blisters from his sandals.  They made it back to our hotel around 4 pm, and we ordered up quite a bit of Cracker Barrel.  Cracker Barrel is a great place to get take out from.  The portion sizes are good, and they have something for everyone.  In years' past, we would take my grandparents out to dinner, but they now prefer not to leave the house, so we bring dinner to them. We had planned to get back over to their house around 4:30 pm, so timing wise we were doing well.  John & Kat had to run back to their condo, so we headed to pick up the Cracker Barrel order. Jacob AND Jackson fell asleep in the car. After we picked up the food, we tried to drive around a little extra to give them a few more minutes to sleep.  Once we got to my grandparents, Jackson was not too happy, but we finally got him settled.  After a little while, we all sat down for dinner.  My Papa gave a beautiful blessing that brought tears to my eyes. We enjoyed our food and then cleaned up.  We took a bunch of pictures with Sugar & Papa.  They gave me a lovely birthday card and gift that again, brought tears to my eyes.  Completely unexpected. We visited a little longer, catching up on old times.   We finally left around 6:30 pm so we could get the boys to bed at a decent hour.

We repeated last night.  I bathed the boys while Jeff readied our bedroom.  We are in a one bedroom suite, so the boys are in the "living room/kitchen" side and we are in the bedroom.  We like to have everything in the bedroom so that we don't have to go to the kitchen.  So Jeff got ice, wine, beer, snacks, etc. ready for us.

Tomorrow, we will head back to Sugar & Papa's for another visit and then mid-morning leave for Kissimmee.  We hope to meet my dad & Nancy by lunchtime at the pool home we've rented. Tuesday will be our first park day - Animal Kingdom!

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