Red Letter Day

Location: Grayton State Beach, FL

I knew it was going to be a special day, cuz it's our 11th Anniversary and dad's birthday. The extra bonus is that my great-niece was born today too! Ned and I are blessed with 7 very adorable great-nephews that we just love oodles. Today, was our first great-niece. Welcome to the world Isabel Nicole Santos. Here's my baby brother holding his first grandchild. So magical. Congrats to my niece Dani.

 

 

After the excitement of the baby being born, we jumped on our bikes and headed to the beach. Yes, we learned our lesson from yesterday and rode with a LOT less beach supplies. The wind had picked up and the red flag was flying. Ned did his best to plant our beach umbrella, but it was pretty much futile.

 

We did try and swim, but the undertow, huge waves and incredibly strong current were impossible, if not downright scary. I understand there's a huge storm hitting Texas and Oklahoma. I think we're getting the tail ends of it here. No rain, but dang was it windy and HOT! Here's Ned getting pummeled by the waves.

 

 

Unable to swim, and not having any shade from lack of an umbrella, we finally called it quits at the beach and decided a day at the campsite was really what we wanted to do. Our big event was getting spruced up (beach style) and riding our bikes to the tiny town of Grayton for an Anniversary Dinner Date.

This little beach side town was quite the scene on Memorial Weekend. We ate at Shorty's, a popular bar and restaurant and had so much fun watching the steady stream of people, cars, bikes and surfboards cruising the one block main drag. Here's one of my favorite pics. I almost felt like we were in Calif. It was a hoot watching the girls and guys checking each other out.

 

 

We had a fun dinner with peach margaritas, crab cakes, hush puppies and arugula salad. Love this picture of my honey.

Notice my margarita is empty and Ned's is still full. What can I say, it was a hot day and I was thirsty.

To continue celebrating our anniversary we rode our bikes thru this little town looking for an ice cream parlor. No luck. After our too many peach margaritas I didn't have it in me to ride our bikes to the next town, so we went exploring in the local little grocery store. Ned spotted this gem and we had to try it out.

Basically, it's just a micro-wave that zaps your frozen ice cream to make it a milk shake consistency. Oh Ned, you romantic you.

We enjoyed our ice cream al fresco sitting on the outside picnic tables. Only the finest dining for our anniversary dinner!

 

 

 

 

We ended up this special day by taking a walk on the beach at sunset. (Sounds like an internet dating sight, doesn't it? Oh wait, that's how we met!) A local couple snapped this shot of us. Nice end to a great day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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