As many times as I have visited Florida, this has to be my favorite trip. Despite the heavy amounts of rain, I had a wonderful time and saw so many beautiful things. I am really thankful that the Lord allowed us to take this vacation, and so I thought I’d share some highlights with you today.

We flew into West Palm Beach on Saturday, August 27th. We arrived around noon, grabbed a quick lunch at Great Wraps and checked into our hotel. We stayed at Wyndham Hotel in Boca Raton, and I LOVED it! I feel like we got a lot for what we paid. My favorite feature of the hotel was the pool/spa area. Our room overlooked the pool, hot tub, fountain and restaurant. I probably could have spent the entire trip there.

After spending a couple hours at the pool, we got ready and spent the evening with a few friends of ours at the Marlins game in Miami.

On Sunday afternoon, we ventured to Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. You guys, this place is incredible! I felt like I was in another country…somewhere in Europe…and I did NOT want to leave. Although the shops were not in my budget, the architecture was gorgeous. I took so many pictures.

It rained pretty much every day in Florida, but most days it wasn’t for long. Since the forecast looked pretty good for Monday, we headed to Delray Beach for the afternoon.

We finished off the day with dinner at Latitudes Ocean Grill inside Delray Sands Resort. It was a bit of a splurge, but the view was gorgeous and the food was delicious!

After dinner, we drove to the shops in Delray and got dessert at Popbar. I had never heard of it before, but my husband found it on Yelp and we decided to give it a try! You basically pick your flavor of ice cream bar (some are made from yogurt, some sorbet and some gelato) and then you choose a type of chocolate to have it dipped in. After that, there are also toppings you can choose from. I don’t consume much dairy these days, and I was planning on getting a sorbet pop, but then I saw the coconut flavored gelato bar and I was DONE. I had it drizzled with dark chocolate and covered in coconut. And I do not regret it. Not one bit.

Unfortunately it rained almost all day on Tuesday, but that didn’t stop us from having fun. In fact, some of the things we did on Tuesday were my favorite of the whole trip! We slept in, worked out a the gym inside our hotel and had lunch at Farmer’s Table (the restaurant inside our hotel). After that, we went back to Palm Beach and perused the gardens at The Society of the Four Arts. I am obsessed.

After we finished walking the gardens, it started pouring, so we decided to go to the movies and finally see The Secret Life of Pets. Cute movie!

On Wednesday, we headed to the west side of the state to meet up with my family (my parents, sister, brother-in-law and two nephews). We all rented a house together so we could visit with my grandma and other family who live in the area (Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte). My pictures don’t do this house a justice; it was amazing! It’s a recently built home, about 2,000 sq. ft., three bedrooms, two bathrooms, open floor plan, in-ground pool, cathedral ceilings and so much more. If you are ever in need of someplace to stay in the area, you have to check this place out!

After settling into the house and eating some dinner, we headed to downtown Punta Gorda to get some ice cream and walk along the bridge.

Thanks to the tropical storm moving through the state, this latter part of our trip was the rainiest. On Thursday, we tried to take a trip to the beach on Sanibel Island, but the coast was completely flooded. We found one little area that wasn’t flooded, took some pictures, collected some seashells and went on our way.

Friday was another rainy day, so we declared it a lazy, stay-at-the-house day. I ventured out once with my husband and my mom to get some PSL at Starbucks, but that was about it. In the afternoon, the sun came out for about an hour, so we swam in the pool for a while until some of our local family came over for dinner.

Saturday, September 3rd was our last full day in Florida, although the rest of my family left that day to head back to Michigan. Matt and I weren’t flying home until Sunday, so we took our time getting back over to the east side of the state, where we would be flying back out of. Before we drove back over to the WPB area, we stopped at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers. It was so beautiful!

We wrapped up our trip with dinner at Captain Charlie’s in Juno Beach and stayed the night with family friends who live in Jupiter. After church on Sunday, we flew home.

We were honestly so blessed to have been able to take this trip. With buying our house and having so many bumps along the road, there were so many moments I thought we couldn’t afford it. But God provided us with beautiful, affordable places to stay and lots of fun, inexpensive things to do. I hope you enjoyed this little peak into our trip!

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