When I think of February, I just think Tatum’s birthday!
Of course there are a few other things that happened first. For starters, we actually went out and celebrated Super Bowl Sunday like adults for once! One of Brian’s bosses has a huge, catered Super Bowl party every year and he’s invited Brian every year and this time we were able to go. Conveniently, he lives 5 minutes from my grandma’s house so we dropped Tatum off for a few hours and got some alone time together with other adults (RARE for us!).
One of my best friends from high school came into town for a few days and I was able to pick her up from the airport and grab lunch. Living far from home really makes these kinds of opportunities so important, and nostalgic.
Our first two Valentine’s Days together, we really went all out for date night. The last two years have been more low key, one was spent waiting for Tatum to make her debut and last year involved a beach dinner picnic with her little self. But this year was my favorite Valentine’s Day yet, and maybe it will be our new tradition. Brian asked if I wanted to go out and he would get reservations, but aside from New Years, I feel it’s the biggest date night of the year which is a bit of a cliche. Restaurants drive up their prices, plus you have to deal with finding a babysitter and I just wanted a stress free evening. So, I made Tatum dinner and we spent the evening with her like usual, and then when she went to bed at 7:30, Brian and I cooked together. I found recipes for filet mignon and honey bacon Brussels sprouts from our favorite restaurant (where we celebrate our anniversary every year) and made Parmesan garlic scallops and mashed potatoes. We sat down to our candlelit dinner (which was DELICIOUS if I do say so myself) and wound up talking for two hours at the table before eating homemade cheesecake and chocolate covered strawberries in bed. It wasn’t special because it was Valentine’s Day but because we took advantage of an opportunity to have a special dinner just the two of us in the comfort of our own home and reconnect, decompress, and focus on each other. Which as parents is sometimes rare and difficult to do.
The next weekend was Presidents Day weekend and Brian had a long weekend off so we planned a Florida bucket list trip! At the beginning of the year we sat down and made a list of all the things we wanted to see/ what we would be disappointed that we missed if we move away and didn’t see them while we live here. The Florida Keys and the Everglades made the list! Back in January, I found a great deal on an AirBnB on the southwest side of Miami and we booked it. We left Saturday morning and drove to our AirBnB, got unpacked and set up Tatum’s pack-n-play, then headed to Everglades National Park.
Everglades was awesome, but there’s definitely some notes I need to make for anyone who wants to travel there. I did a ton of research all week and was grateful for it, but I still don’t think we made the most of the park. For starters, it costs $30/vehicle to get into the park, but the pass is good for a week. You can camp and rent kayaks and canoes in the park, and there are so many “hiking” and nature trails. I would recommend taking a few days and actually camping in the park to get the most out of it. We spent about five hours there, saw a TON of alligators and birds, but there was a lot we didn’t get to explore. I will say, February is a great time of year to go. The weather was warm (80s) but not too humid, and the mosquitoes and bugs were nearly nonexistent.
The next morning, we got up early and headed out. Our AirBnB was about an hour from Key Largo (the top Key) and I found a restaurant on TripAdvisor called Harriette's that had great reviews, so we headed there for breakfast. We got there around 7:30 am, and it turned out to be this super cute mom & pop kind of place, with incredible breakfast and veryyy fast service. I got the sausage gravy and biscuits which is what they’re known for and it didn’t disappoint. Brian got an omelette that he said was great and we got Tatum pancakes that she loved. We were back on the road by 8 am!
The drive from Key Largo to Key West at the bottom is a leisurely 2 hour scenic drive, with cute little beach towns, lots of bright blue water, and the prettiest Caribbean beach feel. I honestly didn’t mind being in the car at all for it and Tatum slept most of the way. We got to Key West around 10:15. I had found the only free place to park on the island that wasn’t on the street and we mapped out the closest trolley stop and walked there. A friend had told me about the trolley and it was worth every penny. It’s a hop on- hop off trolley with 13 stops. You can get on and off whenever you choose, or you can ride all the way through and the tour takes about an hour and a half. We did both so we could see all the major sights without fighting too much of the crowds. There were three cruise ships there the day we went and Duvall street and the landmarks were very busy.
I had a short bucket list for Key West: yummy lunch, Key Lime Pie made from Key Limes from Key West, something that Brian wanted to see, and something for Tatum. Yummy lunch happened at Garbo’s Grill which is the number one moderately priced place to eat on the island and turns out is just a food trunk with outdoor seating and the best Korean beef tacos I’ve ever had in my life. I grabbed some key lime pie and key limeade from Kermit’s, we hit up the Butterfly Museum for Tatum, and the Shipwreck Museum for Brian and I. Tatum loved all the butterflies and how close they would come and land on you, and the Shipwreck Museum had a lookout tower that overlooked the entire island, so that was beautiful. We ended the day at the beach for an hour before starting the trip back around 6 pm. On our drive home, the sun was setting and it felt like it was all around you and so beautiful. Florida has the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. We stopped in Islamorada at Robbies Restaurant for dinner where you can feed huge tarpon right off the dock. I feel like we did a good job of making the most of our day with a toddler and now we can say we’ve been to the southernmost point of the continental United States! We crashed at our AirBnB and headed home the next day! I’m so glad we got our place in a Miami because it really broke up the drive time. It would have been a 7 hour drive home if we had stayed in Key West, plus wayyyy more expensive. This was a fun-filled, bucket list checking, highly affordable trip which was exactly what we wanted, and we made it home by noon to enjoy the rest of Brian's day off!
The next week was insanely busy getting ready for Tatum’s birthday party and a church activity I was in charge of, and the following week Brian and I took turns with some sort of stomach bug and that ended our month! I’ll have to do a separate post for Tatum’s birthday because of all the pictures I have! I can’t believe how fast February flew by. I know the next few months will be just as quick!
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