Thompson Family-Life

nautical

While away last week, we drove to Apalachicola every day from St. George Island because it was only a 15-20 minute drive and it's just the most charming little town right on the bay. The shops are an eclectic mix, the seafood is fantastic, the historic buildings are beautiful and the view of the bay is so pretty with all of the weathered fishing boats all lined up. You definitely feel the maritime history as you walk through the town. It's astounding to me that we've never visited this treasure of a find only about a 6.5 hour drive from us! Better late than never though, right?

While walking around the city with Cooper (on our geocaching adventures) we checked out this shop called The Tin Shed. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's quite impressive on the inside! I thought it was a junk shop, but soon found out that it was an extravagantly themed nautical shop. I've never really been into nautical themes in decor, because they are usually executed in such an over-the-top sort of way, but I have to admit, there were some really cool treasures in this shop!

The best part is when you walk outside into their courtyard, it's something immediately reminiscent of The Goonies. And as a child of the 80's and a girl that grew up on this movie, I was so giddy with excitement! And WISHING that Ethan could be there to enjoy it with me because I knew he'd understand my Goonie-freakout.

The pirate and skeleton statues were admittedly a bit cheesy (something you'd find greeting you at a seafood restaurant) but they totally made you feel like you were walking right onto a pirate ship. They were surrounded by all of these authentic maritime treasures such as old nautical flags and banners, a gigantic wall covered in pastel colored buoys, tons of beautiful (and huge!) glass ball floats in netting. It was really all something to take in.

The wall of styro buoys was my favorite. It was amazing! The colors really did it for me, all chalk-like and crackled in pastels.

I think the addition of some of these buoys in a boys' room would be so great. I'm not sure they were for sale (trust me, I looked for prices!) but honestly, I'd hate to break up that fabulous wall.

Who knew someone could fall in love with a wall of buoys? : )

Funland: Arcade in Florida

We decided to take a break from the sun one day on our vacation and take a road trip to Panama City Beach. Yes, I know.. the armpit of Florida (that place is hell on Earth especially during Spring Break. Gross.) BUT we knew there would be fun things for the boys to do like putt-putt golf, etc. We passed by an interesting looking arcade when we drove through Panama City Beach last year so we decided to check it out this time around.

I googled it and learned that it originally opened in 1953. I've never been to an old school arcade so I was excited! It had definitely seen it's fair share of action (kinda grungy) and they'd updated it in the 70's and 80's it looks like, but it was still pretty awesome and retro. The boys loved it and I had fun taking photos.

I've got more pics if you'd like to look here. Have you been to any cool old arcades around the States? I'd love to check them out! Link me up! : )

7 days

Did I trick ya with my blog posts last week? We were out of town in Florida for seven days for Spring Break. SEVEN days. That is the most time we've spent at the beach at one time. Usually we do a long weekend. For the past few spring breaks we've spent a few days in Savannah and Tybee Island, Georgia. We decided to try something different this year. We'd heard great things about St. George and it totally lived up to the hype! We really fell in love with the island and neighboring Apalachicola and hope to go again next spring break.

I'm not usually into spending a ton of time at the beach because there's only so much time I can spend sitting on the beach. I get bored! I'm much more into visiting cities and having lots to do. But I'll tell you, this trip totally changed my mind about that. It takes a few days to really relax and then it's time to go if you only go for a long weekend. But 7 days! That is the most relaxed I think we've all been in months. We really needed it. Even the boys. No schedule, no school, no appointments, no sports. Just the ultimate quality family time. It was a dream. Just the four of us.

We road our bikes into town, ate lots of amazing seafood, drank lots of homemade cocktails, cooked, geocached (!!! blog post coming soon!), collected shells, wore glow-stick jewelry at night while crab-hunting on the beach, went vintage treasure hunting, I crafted at night while we watched Game of Thrones (season 1, my 1st time watching, omg!), The Big Bang Theory (season 1, our first time watching!) & An Idiot Abroad (pee-yourself-hilarious ). It was the best time!

Campbell helped me sort Perler beads for this...

A few treasures found...

And is it sad that I was excited to get to use my Target sale find? $12! Yes it's technically for "mini" girls, but so what. : )

On a side note, I borrowed Ethan's iphone and took a few of these pics. I have a Droid and I have to say.. omg, the quality of iphone photos are pretty amazing. I know, I've been living under a rock. And I won't evangelize about having a Droid and how it's just as good. Because omg, mine is a P.O.S. There I said it.

So have your kids had Spring Break yet? Any fun plans or trips? Do you realize school will be out in a month in a half? Summer! Whoa!!

Palm Springs Vacation: Mid-Century Modern Architecture

I've been thinking a lot about my trip out West last summer to visit the incredible city of Palm Springs, California and to see my friends Heather and Holly. It was a trip to remember! I had planned on going back this year, but tickets kept getting more and more expensive (yeesh, I could fly to Europe for that!) so I decided to put it off til next year in February when they have their annual Modernism Week (eek!). Heather and Holly are going as well and I'm already counting down the months.

The weather should be really nice then (it got up to 110+ while we were there in July, HOT HOT HOT!) and attending all of the tours and events during Modernism Week will make the cost of the airfare worth it.

I featured a ton of photos from that trip in these posts, but I actually have many that I never blogged! I'm sharing those with you here and I also have another pretty fun post up my sleeve.

Sadly Holly had to go back  home a day early, but Heather and I took some time to just drive around Palm Springs, checking out as many neighborhoods as we could. And of course, these gorgeous Mid-Century Modern homes were the perfect backdrop to take photos of our Blythes (and my Licca doll)! So, yeh, we did a little bit of trespassing all in the name of awesome pictures. ; )

Heather made that fabulous dress for my platinum blonde there. SO CUTE. Luckily, Palm Springs residents are probably used to tourists taking photos of their homes, so we didn't get any angry people running us off.

It was so much fun taking in all of the details of the pristinely preserved architecture, from the beautiful cut-out shapes in the partitions, to the colors of the front doors. There was lots of ocean blue, red orange and lemon yellow we noticed over and over again.

We even got to poke our heads over the fence to one of Frank Sinatra's old homes.

We visited the Parker Hotel while we were there and I remember Holly kept saying how it's her "Happy Place". I think the entire city is my Happy Place and I can't wait to go back.

P.S. Be sure to check out Holly's husband's amazing website and design work.

Have you been to Palm Springs? Do you love it?

Travel: Furnish Me Vintage in St. Petersburg, FL

While in Tampa last weekend, we drove across Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg, this cute little artsy city with lots of great antique malls, vintage shops and boutiques. Most of the vintage shops are fun to look through, but kind of pricey. The last antique mall we went to before we drove back to Atlanta was Gas Plant Antiques, home of Furnish Me Vintage (which I found while researching Tampa online).

Gas Plant is HUGE. I browsed around the first two floors first and there were a few things here and there that I liked. It's kind of set up like your typical antique mall with a hodge podge of furniture and decor items from many decades. There's really no focus. But once I got to the third floor, my jaw was to the floor! I knew that Furnish Me Vintage had mostly Mid-Century Modern Stuff, but I didn't realize that they take up the entire third floor, all 7,000 square feet!

 The displays are gorgeous and the pieces are just incredible. I've never seen a collection this large of pristine Mid-Century pieces all in one place. I was pleased to see that the mark-up on price was not unreasonable. Especially if you are in driving distance. We came home with a small hutch for a great price, not much more than what you'd pay on Craigslist. Of course, the super unique and pristine pieces are a bit more, but still totally reasonable. I saw Mid-Century styles that I've never ever seen out and about. It was pretty cool to see these designs in person. Drool-worthy! 

Luckily, the shop sells about 80% of these pieces in their online shop! They have been shipping pieces all over the country. You can request a shipping quote and one of the owners told me they try to find the most economical way to ship depending on your location and purchased item.

Be sure to follow them on Twitter and Facebook and if you're ever in the Tampa area, Furnish Me Vintage is a must see. And if you tell them you found them through my blog, they'll give you 10% off! Very cool!