Clearwater Beach, FL

Me and Dal just got back from our first trip without Brew, and let me tell you, it was SO nice to sleep in, eat without fighting him to stay in his chair, and not be putting him in a car seat constantly, but man I missed that boy.  I don't know how parents leave their kids very often, cause all we did was say, "Brew would love this" to everything we saw haha. But it really was so nice to go without him and get to relax a little.

So we had flights we needed to use and we did a little research and decided to go to Clearwater Beach outside of Tampa.  Everything I read raved about it and it did not disappoint! We will for sure go back. It was the funnest trip either of us had been on, alone or together.  The water was warm, clear, and the beaches were the whitest, best sand I had ever seen.  A bunch of the locals said it was a pretty unknown vacation spot, which is crazy cause it was seriously so cool.  I kinda expected it to be like California or Mexico but honestly,  SO much better.

We took a red eye flight there and couldn't check into our hotel until 11 so we went straight to the beach and this is what we pulled up to at 6 am. Perfect weather and like no one there.  We were exhausted and ended up sleeping on the beach chairs and it was awesome ha. 

Dal was in the water within minutes of getting there.

This is Pier 60.  Looking off the edge of this there were TONS of sting rays. Like seriously everywhere.  Apparently it's breeding season there since the water is so warm they just come and hang out in the shallows. They tell you to do the "stingray shuffle" to scare them away.  Totally works.

I think this was from St Pete Beach one evening.  This beach was less crowded and more chillaxed.  

Cutest little hotel on the water on the bay side. Totally want to stay there next time.

Selfie it up.  My hair looked like this the entire trip because it was so humid.  A black lady informed me that "this ain't nothin girl" haha.

He wasn't too pumped on the picture taking.

One of my favorite beaches.  We spent most of our days at this beach people watching ha.  It's amazing how confident everyone is, you can be pushing 300 pounds and still be wearing your thong bikini here ha I saw wayyyyy too much of some people lol.

Waiting for our boat to Caladesi Island.  Hands down our favorite place.  We made sure to take the first boat out there (it's an uninhabited private island) and we were the first people on the beach.  Literally alone on miles of white sandy beaches.

First thing I saw when I got off the boat, and Dal talked me out of bringing it home:(

This pic does not do these shells justice.  They are pretty dang big and they were everywhere! We spent hours looking for shells, so fun.  I knew Brew wouldn't give a crap about one so I made sure to get some for Bryir.  

That shows a little better how big they were.

Literally alone on this island, so cool.

Gulf of Mexico 

Red Sox vs Rays at Tropicana Field

Dal has been obsessed with the Red Sox his whole life and has never seen them play.  He was seriously in heaven.  It was a way fun game and I have even been pretty into the Red Sox the last couple years so we had fun, definitely the highlight of his trip. 

This was the flight home.  The little strips of island was where we were.

For picking a random place that no one we knew had ever been to, I was so impressed by it.  There was so much we didn't get to do so we will go back again.  Thanks to Russ and Liz for watching Brew boy for us!