Parents Visit!

WARNING: the following series of posts may cause envy.

Thursday evening, my Mom and Dad arrived from Texas! I had planned a fabulous itinerary and we began it Friday morning. As my family enjoys our food, meals were a large part of the plan and we began Friday with fresh blueberry scones (berries picked the day before!) and farm fresh eggs. While Rob went to work, the parents and I began our driving tour of the area. We went first to the base where we visited Rob's office, the 95th Fighter Squadron, old base housing, new base housing, and lunched outdoors on famous fish sandwiches at the Marina on base.

The afternoon had us stop by a few farmers' markets where we picked up peaches, plums, cantaloupe, mangoes, zucchini, tomatoes, jalapenos, tupelo honey, figs, and eggs. My old farmer friend was still at the large market and I met a new guy who has especially cheap prices - nice!

We picked up Rob and continued our driving tour through Panama City Beach down to Pier Park. We returned to the house in the late afternoon and commenced snacking on our fabulous produce. We made salsa, mixed up watermelon chiller drinks, and cut up our fruit, eating every other piece. Eventually, we cooked hamburgers, but the Florida spread was the true highlight of the meal!

Saturday morning started EARLY! We were up by 4:30 and out at the marina at 5:30 for a fishing trip. It was beautiful to see the sunrise over the bay. The weather was cool, the salt air refreshing, and the fishing exciting! We saw plenty of dolphins (they tried to steal our catches before we reeled them in!) and even a hammerhead shark! With the early hours of the fishing trip, we were back to the house around 10 and we decided to cook up some of our fresh catches. This spread was INCREDIBLE! Plums, the BEST mangoes we'd had since Africa, and fresh blueberries, along with other fruit. And grilled bluefish (pretty sure that's the name) fresh bakery bread, and creamy fresh eggs. YUMMY!

After showers and a nice nap, we headed to Seaside, Watercolor, and Rosemary Beach to look at the pretty little resort towns. We all decided that despite Seaside's peppiness and Watercolor's quaintness, we would prefer to stay in Rosemary Beach with its European feel and quieter ambiance. We supped at Cafe 30A and again enjoyed ourselves immensely! Our evening couldn't have been more perfect as we followed our dinner with a sunset walk on the beach.