Family Day

Today could be best defined as a family day. Early in the morning, I suggested we check out a little breakfast spot down the street from our new house. I’ve driven past this place hundreds of times, but have never stopped in to try it.

It’s probably just a little less than a mile away from our house so we decided to walk there. Cloudy skies helped keep the heat away – so did the fact that we were there pretty early, probably by 7:30am!

We took a look at the menu and declared it “our kind of place.” Not quite a greasy spoon diner, but not fancy either.

Nate decided to go with the two egg breakfast and loved it.

I chose the blueberry shortstack…

Delicious. They were MUCH bigger than I expected them to be and I just couldn’t finish my two pancakes. Next time I’ll just order one!

We were most impressed by the service. We couldn’t believe how quickly our breakfast came out! Always appreciated when you’re dining with a one year old. It’s the type of place where the “regulars” seem to all know each other – and I have a feeling we’ll be a regular visitor of this place in the future!

Since the sun hadn’t really come out and the heat hadn’t settled in, we decided to take our walk a little further on to the Island. My parents live on the Island, about two miles away from our house. We decided to head there – but we did call ahead to make sure they could drive us back to our house! I didn’t think I was quite up for a four mile walk.

I love being able to walk to “downtown”. The Island is separated from the mainland by this small intercoastal…

See the wide sidewalks on each side? Those are bike trails and I’m looking forward to the day I can get out on them!

As we walked up Venice Ave, we ran into these two!

They had just finished eating breakfast on the Ave and we walked together back to there house. One of the reasons we wanted to walk to the Island yesterday? To see the Venice YMCA Triathlon! This is the first (and only) sprint triathlon I’ve done and I CANNOT wait to do it again next year. Most of the competitors had already passed but we still cheered our hearts out for the athletes still on the course!

The bike course goes right down our beautiful mainstreet. Love these guys…aren’t they the cutest?

These are the moments I realize just how lucky we are to be living here. Of course tonight reminded me of that too. We had my in-laws and my extended family on my mom’s side over for a cookout – the first time we’ve hosted in our new house!

We had quite a spread of food…please excuse the photo bomb by my (older) sister. The fact that she teaches middle school isn’t apparent in this photo at all. Hehe.

There, that’s better.

I’m happy to say that our house passed the test as a great party house! I definitely overdid it today in terms of my hips and am dealing with a lot of soreness, but I have to say it was worth it. You all know how important family is to me…today has just been a perfect example of that!

How close do you live to your family? I love being just two miles away from mine!