This year, we finally got to take a trip over spring break. In years past, Danny and I have split up spring break week - he covers a couple of days, I take a couple of days. Sometimes my parents or Danny's parents stay with the kids while they're out of school. We have tried to do fun things during the week (Franklin Park Conservatory, Super Games, go out to eat, etc.), but we normally don't go anywhere outside of Columbus. Last year, we were planning on going to Florida, but with COVID (we were still referring to it as coronavirus at the time) still being really new, we didn't know what to expect. At that point, restaurants were beginning to only offer drive through service, some businesses were closing all together, and even toilet paper was hard to come by. I had this thought, that if we went to Florida and stayed at my Auntie Darlene's place, we wouldn't be able to find any toilet paper when we got there! With so many unknowns, and not wanting to risk getting sick traveling by plane, we decided to cancel our trip. It really sucked telling the kids, but they understood.
Spring break 2021 seemed like the perfect opportunity to make up for lost time. We knew things were opening back up, we felt safe flying with masks, and we could keep our distance from others if we wanted. Uncle Tommy and his buddy were going to be leaving the condo the day we were arriving, so the timing worked out perfectly. Their condo is in Bradenton - we got to know the area pretty well while we were there. We got in around dinner time and Danny had a driver ready to pick us up from the airport to bring us to the condo. Danny even placed a to-go order for us at Panera so we could pick up dinner on the way and we'd have some bagels to eat in the morning. He also arranged an Uber ride to pick up the rental car in the morning. He did a great job planning a lot of our trip! Here's a run-down of the things we did:
Here's a picture (from the lanai) of the sunset over the pond in the complex
After we spent some time at the beach on the first day, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then walked around the riverwalk - it was a nice little area!
The kids really wanted to collect some sea shells. We decided to hit the beach early one morning (before breakfast) so there would be less people. It was quite a foggy morning. We had fun finding shells and broken pieces of sand dollars.
Every sit down restaurant had a long wait, so we grabbed breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts and got to the pier just in time to ride jet skis! I think this was the highlight of our trip. We all had so much fun (even though the kids were a little squeamish when we went too fast). We had a tour guide, but really he was just there in case we got lost or had a question. He stayed close by and let us go wherever we wanted. We saw lots of dolphins, so that was really cool! He also led us to a sandbar where we got off the jet skis and found a ton of whole, living sand dollars! Each kid took one home. Let me tell you, after we found broken pieces all morning, finding whole sand dollars was quite the experience!
We went to Manatee Beach every day. It was easy to get to (even though we had to sit in some traffic each morning), there were bathrooms and showers close by, and it wasn't too crowded. There was also a little shop and a spot to grab food if you wanted. The kids liked the beach, but by the end of our trip, they were kind of over it. They weren't huge fans of the sand. I don't blame them. I think if there were friends or cousins with us, they would've had more fun. As parents, we did the best we could taking walks on the beach, tossing the football, or building sandcastles.
We went back to the riverwalk and had dinner at Oak & Stone - it was on the rooftop of the Springhill Suites. We're lucky the view made up for the long wait and less than enjoyable dining experience. We were told we'd have to wait about an hour to sit on the rooftop and we were okay with that since there were plenty of places to check out around there. When we were finally sat at a table, it was against the wall (not a good view), so they allowed us to move. We then waited FOREVER to be greeted by wait staff. Beer orders took ages. Water refills never came. Food was pretty good, but we were all so tired and aggravated by that point that it was difficult to enjoy. We did have a good time being silly and making the best of it (Barbie hands and "Find it at Firkins" will be inside jokes that I'll never forget).
Every day after the beach, we had a little routine of swimming in the pool at the condo complex and we'd play some ping pong. Every night after dinner we'd grab some frozen custard (Cadence would get a brownie) at Sweetberries. They'd be crowded each night, but the small wait was well worth it.
We had BEAUTIFUL weather the entire trip. I found it amusing that we had a storm roll through as soon as it was time to pack up the car and head to the airport! Thanks, Auntie & Uncle, for letting us stay at your place. The condo is super nice and we had a great time!
