i love to say, "treat yo self." because one, i love aziz ansari and two, because its funny to say after i get a manicure or do something really ridiculous like buy fiji water. either way, sometimes its fun to do that very thing. this past week i traveled to florida to photograph my niece's first glamor shots in this world. (newborn.) and when i was figuring out the trip i remembered my friend amanda lives literally down the road. and so i did the obvious thing, decided to take a vacation.
i think some people might think that working for yourself is like a perpetual vacation but let me be the first to tell you, it is not. don't get me wrong, i love every minute of owning my own business but sometimes i forget to take a chill pill and thats exactly what i got to do with mandy. we had THE BEST time. we giggled so much, talked about high school, ate amazing food, netflix, explored, drank coffee, went to church and i even got to fall asleep on the beach for a day. it was all around wonderful.
after church on sunday we ate at the fish house which is a must i've been told my two sources. grits a yaya (shrimp and grits) is the thing to eat and let me just tell you, it doesn't even matter if you don't like grits! (sinners) its that good. i could eat it every meal. yes and amen. after lunch we walked around the pier and downtown where we stopped at foskos for coffee. i can't remember what i had but it was iced and it was delicious.
the next day we explored all around at the bluffs and i got to climb trees and jump around like a crazy person. we drove through a tree canopy and met up with amanda's friend for lunch. i should note here that we had way to much fun snap chatting all our adventures. i'm slightly ashamed.
we also took a great nap that day.
that night we dressed up and went on a lady date to dinner at hemmingways and got to explore fort pickens. i feel the need to tell you we ate our dinner way to fast, (it was amazing.) and the photos of me balancing on the wall are not dangerous at all because there was another wall on the other side of it. (of which i dropped my sunglasses onto and had to jump down and get them. never fear.)
i wore the wrong exploring shoes that day.
the next day i fell asleep on the beach and there are no photos because i was getting a terrible sunburn for fun. i also spent half the day in a hammock, i count this a great success.
our last morning together we went out to grab breakfast before i had to leave. i tried really hard not to be sad. its a funny thing, because most of the time when i'm leaving a place i'm just consumed with the next adventure. but this time i really was sad to be leaving. it was so nice being unplugged from work, and planning and emails. not to mention mandy and i kept laughing that we grew up to be the same person. she is such a gem that one.
i drove home so refreshed and oh so thankful for a couple days of complete freedom. hey florida, you're not so bad.