Welcome, Family (Part 3: Misc. Happenings)

Here are the odds and ends pictures from this trip. 

On our roadtrip we stopped at Cracker Barrel. I was having a chocolate craving and laughed hysterically when I found this chocolate marked especially for me!!! 

Mom and me on the way to St. Augustine! We are so white!

Mom and Nana. These ladies are sweet as pie but tough as nails! :) 

Brothers. Love these two muchly!

Brad and Jenna had an Occupy fest...of the 3rd row seats. No seriously, they had pillows and everything! Lol. :)

Brad and Jenna eating their massive crepe at La Bonne Crepes...this bad boy was stuffed with chicken, gruyere, and bechamel sauce. I piously noshed on fresh fruit and cottage cheese. :) 

1.  Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor. This place serves obscene amounts of food and is FAMOUS! There is always a line out the front door and down the walk. The wait is about 30-45 minutes most nights. I had to stop myself from laughing when I read our server's name tag. "Giancarla"...which I mistakenly thought said "Giantcarla." :)

Quite possible world's largest chili cheese dog. Love the guy in the white shirt totally photo-bombing this pic. 

Dad's sundae! 

This is the smallest sundae you can order at Jaxson's. A "one scoop Oreo sundae." Brad and Jenna shared this massive festival of dessert.

My mom has been spoiling my dog to death. Today he was scared during the storm so she wrapped him up in a "blankie" and held him for a looooong time. It's gonna be rough for him to resume normal status as a pet when she leaves.  

That is all! :)

Welcome, Family (Part 2: Roadtrip)

After the whirlwind of shopping and dining, I was especially looking forward to seeing my amazing brother and meeting his fiancee for the first time. After flying through the night, they arrived Wednesday morning at 6am. I deployed my amazing hubby (who happens to be a morning person!) to pick them up, and I enjoyed my beauty rest until the luxurious hour of 7:45. After breakfast and depositing my pets to their respective boarding locations, We packed six adults into our new-ish SUV and began the six-hour trek to Macclenny. It's just a dot on the map, but a wonderful and special place! 

Jenna expressed her semi-horror at her appearance after a 24-hour period without sleeping, but she definitely walked off the plane looking much better than I would have. :) Thankfully they volunteered to sit in that awkward third row seating. I'm pretty sure that Brad is high on life and love in this picture. 

After our arrival in North Florida, we spent the next couple of days enjoying each others' company. We drove down to St. Augustine to see the famous fort, and went shopping at the St. Augustine Prime Outlets. This is where I found some great deals! I got a $98 dress for $18 and found my favorite tank tops (normally $30.50) for $7. Awesome. With reckless abandon for the limited space in our vehicle,  Rich and I "saved" nearly $300 and spent under $100 for a PILE of clothes and shoes! 

The fort at St. Augustine. 

After shopping and cooking for what seemed like weeks, (really just 2 days) we had Brad and Jenna's engagement party/family reunion. Jenna impressed us all by getting everyone's name correct (and that is a LOT of names...and still not even close to all of our relatives!). We had pulled pork, rotisserie chicken, fried chicken, ham, baked beans, potato salad, macaroni salad, green salad, mac-n-cheese, deviled eggs, rolls, and multiple desserts from chocolate delight to banana split cake. Since you never know how many people will show up to these family get-togethers, I think we could have easily fed 100. We had so much food leftover...thankfully we parceled it out to some local sick families and a homeless shelter...lol. My Mom sure knows how to cook! 

Combs family

Hoover family

Lyons family 

 Milton Family

Our Nana 

Yarbrough family 

 My family :) 

Zachary family 

We have been blessed with such great relatives. My family can get together and pick up like we just saw each other yesterday. We were missing quite a few but had such a great time with the ones we did get to see! 

On Sunday, we raced to beat the small-town-after-church traffic jam that is inevitable in Macclenny. We went to Pier 6, where I have been eating Southern Seafood since I was a kid. I'm pretty sure I will have to put in 100 hours of yoga to undo the damage I did that day.... :) We offered to order up frog legs and gator tail for Jenna, but she wasn't feelin' it. :) 

 Fried Gator Tail... $6.59

Frog Legs... $10.99. Frogs are slimy 'n quick, 'n harder to find...so they cost more than gator tail. Haha!

Blacked fish, lima beans, cheese grits, and the best hushpuppies anywhere.

It was also our cousin Layton's 37th birthday on Sunday. He has spent about 35 of those years in a body that won't be perfect until we all get to heaven. He is a special part of our family and he loved all the attention he got for his birthday! He had big smiles all around as we sang happy birthday to him and Mom "helped" him blow out his candles. I wish I had gotten a better picture but I was sitting so far away! We had 16 people at one table....typical for our family!

There's nothing like the beauty and charm of the South! The kids in our family have always loved our Macclenny roots, and my husband has fallen in love with the sleepy little town, too. It's dry on Sundays (although my cousin Jana was quick to point out that you can always get moonshine in the swamp!), there's a traffic jam around 12:15 every Sunday, and it takes an hour to pick up two things at Wal-Mart because you have to stop in every aisle to talk to someone you know. We have the best extended family anyone could ask for! 

Yes, there is a part 3 of this blog series... :) next post! 

Welcome, Family!

I took two weeks off work to spend time with my family during their vacation to Florida this month! My younger brother Brad is engaged (the wedding is September 1!) and it was time for the family reunion that would be held in honor of the happy couple. I thought that Rich and I would take the proverbial cake for "speed to wedding" (16 months from first date to wedding!) but Brad has trademarked speed. I believe he and his fiancee will have been together about 14 months on their wedding day. I suppose when you know, you just know. 

My parents arrived on Saturday the 7th, and the next few days was a whirlwind of shopping, dining, and the beach. I hadn't seen my Dad in over two years, and my Mom in just over a year. Of course Sunday was church. Monday we spent shopping at Sawgrass Mills and in Aventura. Mom and I had a lovely time shopping for dresses at Nordstrom. :) We hit Macy's just after, and I had a minor love affair with Michael Kors most recent collection. This is also when I discovered that I have finally reached a new size in clothing. After all the sweating and rejection of most delicious foods that I have been doing, I was pretty jazzed about that. :) 

Who doesn't love this leather-accented pencil skirt? Because I really, really do. 

This sleeveless top had leather cinching at the top, which I found really cute. 

After shopping, we headed to the beach and walked down the Hollywood Beach broadwalk. We had plans to make dinner, but ended up crashing for dinner at Pei Wei. On Tuesday, Dad wanted to go out to a "nice meal" while it was still just the four of us, so we chose Prime 112 on South Beach as our dinner destination. Who doesn't love a fancy dinner with more waiters than patrons? 

 We began the meal with a delightful salad. Rich's enjoyment of the bacon on the salad led to Dad ordering him a "bacon bouquet." I am fairly certain that between the fat and sodium Rich consumed I should have considered giving him an entire bottle of Aspirin. 

Trying to be vigilant about my health, I opted for an entree of local blackened swordfish with papaya salsa, served on a bed of arugula that was lightly dressed with lemon and olive oil. It was outstanding. Tropical simplicity. 

Mom and Rich shared a 48-oz Porterhouse steak. This obscene piece of meat was served with a head of roasted garlic and house steak sauce -- a tamarind chutney.

Dad's entree was a filet of flounder with a mounded crab cake baked onto the top and served with a cream sauce. I tried it...too decadent for my taste, but delicious nonetheless.

Dad's dessert was bananas foster cheesecake. Superb. Everyone at the table agreed that it was the best dessert presented.

Mom's dessert was a bit strange. She ordered the creme brulee, which was served with glazed fruit and peppermint fudge. Although it was a very strange trio, each component was delicious.

I ordered a fallen dark chocolate souffle with "sweet cream" and Amerena cherries. It was much too rich  after the first few perfect bites, so most of it was left... however, it satiated my chocolate craving for at least the next 7 days. :) Amerena cherries are small, dark, slightly sour cherries grown mostly in Bologna and Modena. Italians preserve them in sugar. The syrup is used to pour over cakes or ice cream. As with most things in life that I adore, Amerena cherries are expensive and imported. Perfection. 

Read the next post for a continuation of our vacation!