Our Weekend Vacation in Florida

This weekend Sam and I took a trip to Florida. I know, it's kind of far to go just for the weekend, but we took Thursday and Friday off work and made it a 4 day weekend. We flew down to Tampa early Thursday morning. We had to get up by 3:30am to get ready and make it to the airport. We were in Tampa by around 12:30. It was sunny and about 68 degrees by then. It was a really nice afternoon. We stayed with Sam's Aunt Pat and Uncle Don, but there wasn't going to be anyone home for awhile, so we drove down to the Showmen's Club. Sam's Aunt Suzy and her family were down there for the trade show. She got us passes and we walked around with her and saw all the cool rides and merch. We even got to try some snow cones and mini donuts. After a couple of hours we headed over to Aunt Pat's. It was so nice to spend time with them. Their granddaughters were there for the night and we all went out to the Chinese buffet with them. They are sweet kids and we all hung out together when we got home. Friday morning we picked up Aunt Suzy and cruised over to Waffle House for breakfast. Then we ran back over to the Showmen's club to drop her off before we headed out to the State Fair. It was packed. Kids in that area had the day off school so they could go to the fair! What? It was a beautiful day. When the sun went down it got chilly, but we'd go inside where the vendors were to warm up. We ate a bunch of fair food. Fiske fries with vinegar and tried something new - fried Resees Peanut Butter Cups. They were pretty yummy. Sam and I spent a great deal of our time over at the World of Wonders. He got some autographs and met and talked to Ward Hall over dinner. Sam was in heaven. He was so into all the sideshows. We saw WOW twice...so we could get good pictures! We got home late and went to bed. Saturday we headed out to the flea markets. On the way, we ate our Cubans that Aunt Pat had bought for us the day before. I don't know what it is, but those Cuban sandwiches rule. We went to two different flea markets. It was a little colder and windy in the afternoon, but still sunny until about 3:00 when it started sprinkling. So we figured we had bought enough loot for the kids and we headed home. We later went to dinner with Pat and Don and Sam's cousin and his girlfriend. We had a nice time together and it was delicious! The next day, we drove past Giant's Camp Restaurant, around some residential areas where we assume a bunch of carnies live. Trailers and rides are either set up or stored on their lots. It's really kind of strange. Later on we went down to Tampa Electric Company and saw the manatees. It was freezing and really windy on Saturday and not the kind of weather when it's fun to be outside, so we visited the gift shop and headed back to the house to pack and have a wonderful spaghetti dinner that Aunt Pat made. We finished it off with strawberry shortcake, the first strawberries of the season, and just one more slice of the lemon pound cake that Aunt Pat made for us. Finding our car rental place from where we were was crazy. We drove all over Tampa trying to follow the stupid directions that were printed on the sheet. The directions were probably right, if you were returning from those 4 locations, but it was confusing trying to figure it all out. So we got there and we were a bit irritated, but we got to the airport and through security and had a nice sit down dinner at the airport before we left. We slept a lot on the way home. We reached our house about 2:00am and went right to sleep. Today we both got up and went to work. So we are dragging a bit, I'd say. I don't know why I am still up. I should be sleeping, I am tired enough for sure. But I want to get this posted. So anyway, yeah, it was a fast trip, but really it was just long enough. We had so much fun being free to do what we want and go where we want, it was a nice break. We really missed the kids but they were in good hands. Jasmin stayed with them all weekend and they had a blast. This morning was fun waking them up and giving them all their prizes before we left for work.