Free Day in Tampa

Brandon and I spent the day after the wedding in Tampa.  James and Carrie were living there (they'd had their apartment for less than a week at that point) and had the day off, Sam and Tony weren't leaving until the following day, John was still around and the girls were playing happily at Gigi's house.  After cleaning up the house where we'd spent the weekend, it was a lazy day.  There was a lot of this:

And quite a bit of this:

We ended up heading over to James and Carrie's new place, then more or less repeated the process.  We spent a few hours there, just chillin'.  It felt really very good to do nothing for a while, after the traveling and the chaos.

I did get some pictures of Sam, Tony, James and John in the shirts that we'd made for them, which was really cool.  Carrie and I went for a walk, too.

There's a small lake in their new community, with a path leading to it.  She hadn't walked out there yet, so we were exploring.  The lake is quite pretty, with a playground and picnic area nearby.

That night, we went to a Greek restaurant called the Acropolis for appetizers and drinks.  As we were walking in, Brandon took the camera from me and took about a zillion pictures all at once.  He does that from time to time, because I sometimes complain about never being in any of the photos.  It's kind of a joke with us, at this point.  James's photo bomb made it even better.  :)

There was a German place a few doors down from the Acropolis, and the plan was to move down there for the main meal, but the food was so good, and we were having such a good time that we never left the Acropolis.  We discovered that they had hookahs, moved out to the porch, and camped.  We got there around 5, and didn't leave until after 10.  If it felt good to do nothing for a while, it felt even better to go out with my friends and be an adult.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mother---but it was fantastic that I didn't have to be a mother for the night. I got quite tipsy, cursed a blue streak, and freely discussed things not suitable for a child's ears, safe in the knowledge that my children were well taken care of for the night.  Oh, it was wonderful.  We all had a good time that night, even if the guys (except for John, who was driving) did get a little obnoxious later.  

Everyone left the next day.  John went back to Gainesville, Sam and Tony went back to San Francisco, and Brandon and I drove back to Titusville.  All in all, it was a great weekend.