Two weeks ago, in early August, we traveled to Tampa to spend some time with the Daigneault family. Here’s what we did:
Saturday, August 4, 2018:
We picked up Melissa’s Nana and her boyfriend, Jerry, and went to Tampa’s famous La Teresita for a Cuban breakfast. We sat in the cafeteria, and made sure to get our cafe con leche with buttered and pressed Cuban bread. The best part about this is dipping your bread in your coffee!
Next, we went and saw Joey’s parents at the new Pach’s Place location inside the Tahitian Inn. Pach’s original location recently closed, and it was a favorite of The Neeley Family. Everything here looked great, but we were too full from our first breakfast, so we just got more coffee.
Next, we hit the road to Madeira Beach! Our condo wasn’t quite ready, so we killed some time at John’s Pass. We were still full from breakfast, but Melissa’s parents wanted lunch, so we stopped in Beach Bites Cafe, where they ordered specialty hot dogs.
After lunch, the condo was ready. We found a great one on AirBnb. Check it out here. This was our view from our balcony:
From there, we got a few nice hours on the beach before Melissa’s sister, Andrea, and her boyfriend, Jordan, arrived. We wrapped up our beach outing, and headed for dinner. For dinner, we went to Angry Pepper, where we both got fried shrimp baskets.
After dinner, we all went onto the balcony, where enjoyed our first sunset.
Melissa Side Note: Here’s a fun one of Joey making a face while I was using him as a subject to show my mom how to use the portrait feature on her iPhone:
Sunday, August 5, 2018:
On Sunday, we spent as much time at the beach as we could. We may have gotten a little burnt, but it was worth being able to soak up all that sun.
For dinner, we tried to go to VIP Lounge & Mexican Restaurant, which is a restaurant Melissa’s parents recently found on their last beach trip. However, Mother Nature decided it wasn’t the right night. The wait was an hour, and it started to storm. We tried to wait it out in our car, but VIP ended up losing power. We decided to leave and eat at the condo. We’re glad we did, because VIP’s power didn’t come back on for 2.5 hours.
There was no sunset this night, but we stayed up playing Yahtzee and Rummy, while drinking my mom’s famous slush recipe, which you can find here.
Monday, August 6, 2018:
For breakfast, we decided we wanted to go to the Daigneault’s favorite breakfast place, The Frog Pond. Every summer, Melissa’s family would vacation at the beach. After checking out, they would walk on over to The Frog Pond. They’re known for their incredible omelettes.
After The Frog Pond, we spent a lot of time on the beach. We headed up a bit earlier than our family to work on some laundry. That way, we didn’t have to take home sandy clothes and wet bathing suits. Although our skin probably needed the break!
Next, we tried VIP Lounge & Mexican Restaurant again, and we made it inside!
It was delicious, even for us Texans who eat Mexican food on the reg! We went home to play more Yahtzee, and called it a night early. We had to wake up to catch a 6:25 a.m. flight on Tuesday morning.
Life, Eats, & Dog Treats 