A Day of Missions with Ben and Ashley

Yesterday was a LONG day. Trust me, it was a fun day, but definitely a long one. 😉

My little brother and his girlfriend, Ashley, headed to Orlando for the day and joined Derek and I for some fun adventures in the Chevy Traverse.

Aren’t they cute? 😉

Our first adventure involved a trip to the Winter Park Art Festival in downtown Winter Park.

The Winter Park Art Festival is a HUGE event where they shut down Park Ave. and have hundreds of local artists from around Florida come and display all of their beautiful artwork.

We saw paintings, photography, sculptures, jewelry, crafts, and just about every other form of art you can think of.

I LOVED these paintings of food. Too bad they were asking more than a couple months worth of rent for each of them. 🙁

We put our name in for a table at one of the restaurants with outdoor seating and decided to hit up our favorite wine bar down the road for pre-lunch drink.

The WIne Bar off of Park Ave allows you to load up a card with a pre-set amount and gives you the option to select which wine you would like to try and use the card to pay by the ounce.

I had an ounce of Shiraz and sipped it slowly while chatting and exploring.

On the way out of the wine bar I grabbed a sample of toffee trail mix and shared with the group.

When we got the call our table was ready we headed to Bosphorous Lounge for lunch.

The weather was just too perfect to eat inside. The 40 minute wait for a table on the sidewalk was 100% worth it!

You can not go to Bosphorus without ordering Lavas (hollow bread)!

The four of us split the lavas and the babaganoush.

I love their babaganoush. You can tell it’s made fresh because the eggplant is still stringy and chewy. Love it!

My little brother was in Germany last summer and had his fair share of Turkish food after nights full of drinking a bars. When he saw Doner Lamb on the menu a big smile spread on his face. He could not stop talking about how great it was when he was in Germany and I think he was impressed with the version he ordered for lunch.

I had a bite and it was very tasty.

I knew I would be filling up on bread, so I ordered the house salad as my main meal.

It was quite possible one of the prettiest house salads I have ever ordered.

The salad was packed in that bowl. I ate all of the yummy toppings, but there was so much lettuce that by the time I was stuffed it looked like I had barely touched it!

Before I was too full, I did manage of few bites from Ashley’s chicken. It was very flavorful and moist. Yum.

After lunch we headed back to Traverse and headed off to Adventure #2 all the way across town.

Menchie’s!

My little brother and his girlfriend had yet to experience the phenomenon known as self serve frozen yogurt. I was happy to introduce them to the concept.

I think they were impressed! 🙂

I had a little bit of everything and loaded up with fruit for my toppings.

We still had one more mission up our sleeves!

Mission # 3 = Universal!!

Derek and I ALWAYS forget where we park our cars in theme park parking lots. Ashley thought of this brillant idea to take a photo of the location of our car.

Genius! We were able to find our car with out a problem when we made it back to the garage later that night. I always knew this girl was a keeper!

Islands of Adventure in Universal is just a month away from unveiling the new Harry Potter themed portion of the park. They recently removed all the construction scaffolding from the area and were able to get a sneak peak.

For the duration of March and April, Universal Studios is celebrating Mardi Gras every Saturday night. The park has been transformed to represent New Orleans and there are plenty of fun characters roaming the streets and creating a fun, festive mood.

Derek and I had fun prepping for own trip to New Orleans in just a couple of weeks.

One of the main draws for the Mardi Gras Celebration is the concert series that is included with admission to the park (or in our case is included with the annual pass).

I am a BIG fan of Miranda Lambert was excited to see her on the schedule for tonight!! 🙂

We enjoyed the rest of our day in the park by taking in some rides and the sights. We did a make a detour so the boys could get a beer.

I had a few sips of Derek’s Shock Top, but was perfectly satisfied with the water I had been guzzling all day. 🙂

For dinner were all decided to taste test the Cajun food Universal has set up in honor of Mardi Gras.

I ate the $8.00 Jamalaya and was disappointed but how small the serving was.

I should have took a photo of my hand next to the serving. I think my hand was larger. It was tasty, just not very filling. 🙁

After dinner we headed to the Mardi Gras parade and fought over all the beads.

Apparently I am an awful bead catcher. 🙁 The only ones I were able to claim were the ones that fell on the floor. I’m going to blame my inability to catch beads on a mix of my lack of height and how forceful and bead crazy everyone around me was.

At 8:30 Miranda Lambert took the stage just as the parade ended.

The set up for the concert was very well organized. We were able to find a decent spot in the back and never had to worry about anyone squishing us into the crowd.

Miranda Lamber is an awesome live performer. She is cute, always had a story to tell, and can really belt it out! It was a great concert to end our day with.

When we made it back home I had a piece of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.

And promptly passed out. 🙂

I’ll be back later with my morning adventures. I thought this post was getting a tad long! 😉