Family Day Trip
Sometimes you just need a family day. I get caught up in life. A lot. I get caught up in work and chores and pleasing every human around me, but things have just changed for the better in the Schmidt house so I wanted to celebrate us. Kyle started his new teaching job + is feeling great about it, loving his students. The biggest outing we usually do is Chipotle and maybe ice cream, but I LOVE to go places and explore. Kyle is more of the home body so he takes some convincing most of the time, but this time he was all in. I asked if we could do a family day trip and he said YES! He didn't say yes with apprehension or yes just to please me, but actually seemed excited about the idea too. My adventurous dream had come true. ( for that hour anyways) So the three Schmidt amigos started planning their day...
...
Stop one
We decided to go to Tampa. Ha! Real exciting I know, but it isn't Fort Myers so there has to be something to interest us for the day. We thought about St. Pete, but someone told me there was a lot of construction, so we will have to do that soon. Anyway, I was thinking about Tampa and DUHHH! There are already two of our favorite places in Tampa. One, of course is IKEA. We were starting our day at IKEA. Now, I am guessing that IKEA is one of those places that Kyle could do without, but he goes to make me happy + he even acts like he's excited for a little while. So we're just walking around and I'm designing my future house. [Like, seriously you don't need any other store, IKEA can hook you up.] Kyle is picking out stuff and Roman is just people watching. (his mothers boy, truly) It was great. It was fun and we even got some really cute stuff. Most of the time I'm overwhelmed and I just rush through because my head just can wrap around all the stuff I want, but we got a few things.. mostly for the babe. Totally okay with that.
Click the pics below to find some for yourself!
Stop two
Portillo's was our second stop for lunch. Can I tell y'all about some good food? My husband has brought many joys to me over the years, but one of the best is Portillo's. Kyle's family is from Chicago and that is where Portillo's came to be as just a little hot dog stand. Now the restaurant is popping up different places in the US and Tampa just happens to be one of those places. Lucky us! They have hot dogs, ribs, and BEEFS. We get the beefs, with a perfectly crispy hoagie roll and yummy roast beef, cheese and peppers + deliciousness. Oh my goodness...my mouth is watering. Add some onion rings and a pop and you are GOOD TO GO. (yes, I say pop...we'll address that later for those of you that have adopted the term soda down here in the south) Roman looovvved him some beef, bread and cheese. Don't worry, I know my Florida friends are heading to Portillo's the next chance they get so there is one in Tampa & Brandon. Enjoy!
Stop THREE
Henry B. Plant Museum was our final stop for the day. Kyle and I love History and old things, so we found a Groupon for this museum on the University of Tampa's campus. We set out to find parking and I was a little nervous. I always get nervous about parking on the street or our car getting towed for some reason, but we found a parking garage down the street from the museum. We had passed it while circling around trying to find somewhere to park and I saw it said $10. No biggie, we circled around and went right in, but there was no ticket or anything... We continued and there were only spaces for faculty and students. This is weird right?! I said to Kyle "surely, they don't charge staff and students so where can we park for the ten dollars?" We are frustrated and Kyle is driving 2 mph which really is grinding my gears. We go to every level, no parking for normal people! Fine, we leave.. the address of the parking deck is 810 not $10 for parking. I guess I need glasses and Kyle needs to double check everything I say. He told me he didn't see where it said $10 parking and I said something like "You never listen to me, what? you think I'm just making it up?!" We laughed and found a parking spot five feet from the museum. Ha.
Henry B. Plant was the founder of the Plant Rainroads and Steamship lines. He basically brought the railroad to Florida and the building we visited was his hotel. He wanted somewhere for people to vacation where it was warm and sunny so he set out to create a resort. You can tour the rooms that patrons would stay in and they had most of the original furniture and fixtures. A better explanation from the museum website below.
During the 1880’s, Henry Bradley Plant was building an empire of railroads, steamships and hotels. He wanted that empire to have a palace and that palace was the Tampa Bay Hotel. The hotel was built by Plant personally, not investors, at a cost of $2,500,000 and an additional $500,000 for furnishings. It took two years to build, covered 6 acres and was 1/4 mile long. Its 511 rooms were among the first in Florida to be completely electric. Advertised as completely fire proof, the building contained poured concrete reinforced with rails and cables in between floors. The building had all of the latest luxuries including a billiard room, barbershop, shoeshine service, beauty shop, flower shop, telegraph office, formal dining room, Grand Salon, Music Room with orchestra, and telephones in all guest rooms.
If we would have had more time + it was 100 degrees I would have loved to tour the gardens and walked around campus a little, but we will have to do that next time!
It was a day to enjoy family. It was a day to only speak positively and have fun with our baby boy. We laughed + we didn't think about work. Enjoy every day, but make tomorrow even better. Leave a spark.
xo, Tess
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