Playing Tourist

What a weekend! This weekend (including Friday, which was work related), I got to visit three tourist attractions in my county.

The first was a lunch meeting at Bok Tower Gardens. I will start off by saying Blue Palmetto Cafe was one of the best restaurant lunches I have had anywhere around here. I ordered the vegan fruit salad. Yes they actually had a meal on the menu that was vegan & labled as such! It had a variety of greens that were actually not from a bag but cut in house. The president likes his mixed greens (& micro brew!). Needless to say I was a fan from the beginning. My salad had apples, a variety of berries, a variety of dried fruit, and pecans. I had it with the balsamic dressing on the side. I will also admit that I had an order of sweet potato fries. No micro beer, this was a work meeting after all.

You must visit Bok Tower's website because they have a 360 degree tour of the gardens. I have been in the spring & now late summer and it is beautiful. They are having a "boktoberfest" in a few weeks that includes music, food, & a plant sale. I really am hoping to attend.

Friday late afternoon, my second stop was Fantasy of Flight which I mentioned here.  I love this place because of the history and the airplanes but now I have one more reason to want to go: Wing Walk Air. Wing Walk Air is a confidence course that towers over 40 feet in the air with 33 challenges including a zip line!

The course hadn't opened yet but trust me we will be going back very soon to try it out. I have never zip lined or done anything like it but I have always wanted to. Even Momma Green Bean has!



In Hawaii. Not fair.

The third attraction we attended this weekend was Legoland Florida! This past weekend was their sneak peak weekend/soft opening for contractors and since the company I work for worked at the park we got to go. I have been lucky enough to visit the park and see progress but I was still so impressed when I got to see the park in action.

We were given a family pack of tickets and well since we only have animals we got to bring a few friends.

Me, Geoff, Geoff's Sister & her Husband

Geoff's brother in law won his wife sponge bob... not long after he gave it away to a little boy who was crying. I thought the mother was going to die when her son got a stuffed toy larger than him... 

Lego pig. Of course we had to pose with it!

Geoff was not thrilled with getting on a wooden roller coasted designed for 10 year olds. My legs fit perfectly :)

Our group. I am in the front about to have a heart attack. Not a fan of roller coasters.... I wish I was but I never really rode them growing up and my belly does that weird jumping thing whenever I go down a dip.

Someday I will have to introduce everyone to one of Geoff's hobbies, little cars. He has a few that go extremely fast and scare the dog. These guys were made for children to play with.

Cypress Gardens was the original park that was bought a few times and now turned into Legoland. Cypress Gardens was known for their sky show. It is a nice tribute to Cypress Gardens to keep the show but with their own Legoland twist of course. Towards the back of the picture you can see boats that are parked behind the rocks. How fun would that be?

Another famous aspect of Cypress Gardens was the Gardens. In my opinion, Legoland did a great job preserving the gardens and making them a nice feature of the park. They were beautiful and peaceful. They almost made you forget you were in the middle of a park designed for young children.

There were so many spots in the gardens that were perfect locations for pictures. I only lucked out with one but that is ok :)

Want to guess what my favorite part of the park was? Mini Land!!! I have always been a lego fan. When I was young I would build castles, when I babysat we always played with Lego's, and when I taught preschool, legos were my go to "free time" toy.

 Mini Land included everything from Vegas, to the White House, to the Golden Gate Bridge. Cars and boats moved, and the space ship made smoke! This was Geoff's favorite part as well. We could have stayed here for a while but productivity called our name back home.

Speaking of productivity, guess what we did Sunday?

Hint # 1:

Hint # 2:

Hint # 3:

Hint # 4:

If your guess was gather the uncles, dads, cousins, and fiance and plant citrus trees, you are right. Well I didn't plant trees, I just drove the tractor (thank goodness, planting trees is equivalent to doing burpees in the mud & power walking however many feet to the next tree).

The plus side to all of this was the weather finally felt like fall. It was cool enough out that I forgot to wear sunscreen & have the farmers tan to prove it.

I hope everyone had a fun weekend and maybe played tourist in their own towns.

PS. Its my birthday week :)

.live creatively well.

-nicole.