The Kentucky Bourbon Trail

For Lydia's birthday, we decided to drive down to Lexington and take her on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this hidden gem in Kentucky (like I was), this is a series of 7 bourbon distilleries all within a 70 mile radius in the heart of Kentucky.  We've been planning this trip since before I knew I was pregnant, so I went along as the PDD (pregnant designated driver;).hehe  I didn't mind at all because the drive is through some of the most beautiful horse farm territory I've ever seen.  We had a blast.  We decided to take it easy this trip, so we took a day and went to our first two distilleries: Four Roses and Woodford Reserve.  The tours were fun; full of cool engineering and mouth-watering smells...

Four Roses

Hank and Lydia excited to start our first bourbon trail tour!

Here we go!

Cheers!

And... Gift Shop:)

 Woodford Reserve

The Woodford Reserve's 17 year old cat:)

The smell in this place...

Wow..... Best smell ever.

Such a fun start to our Kentucky Bourbon Trail tour.  I'll post about the rest of the trail as we check off some more distilleries in the future.  Until then, go check it out! :)

Florida Kayaking

We went to beautiful, sunny Florida for Thanksgiving this year.  It was a great break from the cold, grey start to our Indiana winter.  Our first stop was to visit my favorite hotel in Florida: the Don Cesar in St.Petersburg. 

I grew up coming here every few years, and it holds some awesome memories of a kid in paradise:)  I loved exploring the different ballrooms and restaurants, shops and balconies.  I loved sitting in the hot tub, sipping on a virgin strawberry daiquiri... ah, paradise... 

It also has an awesome old fashioned ice cream shop.  Of course, my dad and I had to get some chocolate ice cream;)

Pardon my pale face in these pictures... I'm actually pregnant and going through a bad case of "morning sickness".  But nothing like the Florida sunshine and a little ice cream to make you feel better!

Go Gators!!

As a Thanksgiving treat, Dad and Sandy took us kayaking in the mangrove tunnels of Bradenton.  We went with a group called Shan-T Native Kayak Tours, and they were great!  It was so beautiful...

There was awesome bird watching.

I highly recommend this group for kayaking.  They were super friendly and really knowledgeable about everything we were seeing.  It made for a fun Thanksgiving!  You can see more of our pictures on Shan-T's facebook page.  I hope you all had a peaceful and blessed Thanksgiving!