Beer and a Smoothie at Sweetwater Bar and Grill

Since we had a fair amount of time in the airport we went on the search for some food.  Alisha was starting to feel pretty miserable (typical Wednesday for her   ) so we went on the hunt for some food for her.  She was wanting a smoothie so we looked around for a while… not much luck.  We found a Ben and Jerry’s that made some smoothies so we picked one up and headed for my establishment of choice:  Sweetwater Bar and Grill!

We I had a few beers and we headed back towads our plane and got ready for take off.  We ended up landing at nealy 1:00 and then an hour ride home back to Alisha’s mom’s house.  Long day but we have a lot in store for the next few days… its going to be a blast!

On Sunday morning we debated about what to do and finally decided to head back down to Pittsburgh to check out the zoo.  We had a great time checking out all of the animals and fish.  The zoo in Pittsburgh is quite nice for being so much older than the Atlanta zoo.  The cages were a little smaller for many of the animals than Atlanta, but all in all it was great.  One of the great attractions was the woman that is supposed to be in a cage – but was at the zoo on house arrest… way to go you model citizen you!!  Below is a video of the seal feeding.

Classy Broad!

After visiting the zoo we headed back to Alisha’s grandparent’s house.  Her grandfather wanted to know if I wanted to go to Red Star with him and as you know, I dont turn down a chance to drink great brew pub beer!  I had been dying to get out there the whole trip so without a doubt, I said yes!  I asked Alisha to come along with us, and I am glad I did LOL… a few delicious beers later I was too drunk to drive LOL.  Red Star is a brew pub (bar that brews their own beer) in Greensburg that has taken over the old train station in the city.  It has some great beers that are rated quite well.  I ordered the sampler to start out with which included 8 5oz beers and then a pint of their American Pale Ale.  It was delicious!  It is poured on a nitrogen tap to give it the same creamy head that Guinness has on draft… perfect!

Red Star Sampler

After drinking our beers, we headed back to Alisha’s grandparent’s house to pick up her mom and grandmother for dinner at Primanti Brothers.  Primanti Brothers is a well know restaurant that serves their sandwiches with fries and coleslaw ON the sandwich.  As you would guess, I chose to remove the coleslaw from mine.  They were rated the number 7 best place to pig out by the Discovery Channel on one of their episodes. 

Dinner was excellent and the day was over… unfortunately the next day we had to leave, so I had to drink my growler of East End Brewing Big Hop IPA and we had to pack for our flight on Monday back to Atlanta.

Growler (1/2 gallon) of Big Hop IPA

Time wore thin and we headed down to Pittsburgh to make way to the airport.  We went shopping at a nearby Ikea, bought Alisha some new sunglasses and then headed off to the airport.  Our time in PA was great and memorable for sure…. we had a great time as always!  We spent a lot of quality time with family and seeing the sights of Pittsburgh.

I am hoping to have them posted tonight… but no promises.

We are excited about heading back up to PA.  We always have a great time! – plus there is Jioio’s pizza and Red Star Brewery!!

We woke up early today and headed down to the beach to enjoy some more time out in the sun.  Because AJ was dying to skim board, I took him back to Pompano Joes to rent a real skim board.  These are made of fiber glass instead of wood and are supposed to be much better.

According to him and Dan it was much better.  I couldnt tell a damn difference because I was falling off the damn thing either way.  Alisha had a great time recording me on our camera so hopefully you enjoy them as much as she did…. and trust me … falling hurts way more than it looks like it does.  I still have cuts all up my leg from busting ass so many times.

After ruining my body from falling so much, we headed back to the condo and changed for dinner at Meguires again.

After seeing a drink on the menu late the previous night, we decided that I needed to come back for beers again and Dan was in dire need or an Irish Wake.  This was a drink that was composed of a ton of different alcohols including 151 and put into a 32 oz mason jar.  They actually will not serve you more than 2 of these because of how potent they are.  Needless to say he was pretty drunk after one.

After getting Dan hammered, we headed back to the condo to get some much needed sleep. 

Today we headed out in the morning to go rent a wave runner by Pompano Joes on Mirimar Beach.  It was a short walk but was worth every second of it.  We rented two wave runners for Dan, Zach, AJ, Chris, Dad, and me.  I paired up with AJ for the first run and Dan paired up with Zach.  We had a total blast.  We were hauling ass all over the place and really pushing that wave runner to its limits.

I came back in to let somone else ride and my dad made Alisha go out with me.  What a mistake that was :crackup:  Alisha taught me how to ride a wave runner and she was by far the biggest baby out there.  I could not go remotely fast nor turn without her freaking out.  She was screaming like she was going to die.  It was pretty funny… for me at least!  We spent some more time on the beach and then headed back up to the condo to change for the evening.

Later on Alisha, Dan, and I went out to a pub near the Fort Walton Bridge called Meguires Pub.  I found out about it when I searched Google for a local brewery and decided that we had to go try out their beers.  This place was 10000 times better than I had even imagined. 

When you walk in you are simply astounded by the rediculous number of $1 bills ALL OVER THE PLACE.  The ceiling was completely covered, the walls, the fans, everything!  We got seated at the bar and before long we noticed the awesome beer tits taps which consisted of a figure of a woman and her boobs were the beer taps.  Perfect in my opinion.

Becuase of my love for beer, I ordered the sampler and tried out all of the flavors that they had on tap.  The gallery has a picture that you can read the flavors and types of beer that they served.  They were delicious!  Their stout was to die for!  Alisha ordered an 18 cent soup and a rootbeer float.  I then ordered the Stout float which was basically the rootbeer float but with their stout instead of rootbeer.  MMMMMMM! 

After reading about their dollar bill hanging ritual we decided to add to the decor by adding a Natic bill to their collection.  Alisha wrote on the bill and asked for the stapler to hang it.  She choose a spot right beside the moose as you walk in the front door.

After eating we headed back to the brewing room and then to the gift shop.  We each picked up a shirt for memories and went back to the condo to get some sleep.

On the fourth day we headed out to the beach in the morning to enjoy the gorgeous day.  I got out there and went out straight into building my moden sand castle.  I started out by buiding a wall to break the waves coming in and then build the castle behind it with Zach.  Dan began making his as well and thought it was better.  He was wrong.  Not only was mine bigger and better, it had boobs in it. 

After building our sandcastles we headed into the water for a while and I tried skim boarding for the first time.  Yeah, not so good.  I busted my ass time and time again.

These are videos of my first couple of attempts.  Let me tell you, it got no better from there!

Later that day i busted again and cut my hand.  It was a small cut but just in a bad spot and bothered the crap out of me for the rest of the day.  After getting injured we played football for a little while before heading out to the pool.  We swam there for a little while and then headed up for some much needed lunch. 

After lunch we headed up to the shopping area by the mid bay bridge and bought some capri’s for Alisha, a necklace for Chris, and some chocolate from a candy making store.  We then headed back to the house for some dinner which was steak and pasta with alfredo sauce :drool:

After dinner, we went back down to the beach to watch AJ skim board some more.  While he was doing that, we threw the football around for a while and Alisha went picture happy.  Like Kate from John and Kate plus Eight, she HATES our camera and can’t wait to pick up a new one.  She had to delete many more pics than we were able to keep.  So frustrating.  The Nikon D90 cant come out fast enough!   We then headed back up to get ready for bed.

Day two in Destin was hit and miss.  The weather had been pretty bad and made for some strong storms.  There was a break in the weather and we took the opportunity to make it out to the beach for some volleyball and sun. 

We spent some time playing and then headed down to the water to cool off.  Before long the sky turned completely black and the beach was clearing out.  Dan, Zach, AJ, my dad, and I all stayed to see if it would pass.

We eventually got out of the water just in time for the rain to let loose.  It was coming down so hard that it felt like needles hitting you.  We ran up the beach to the condo to get away from the pain. 

When we got back to the condo my mom had Lady in a diaper because she was in heat.  She had gone out to get the disposable ones and they looked so funny on her :crackup:  She was waddling around and walking funny.  It turned out that these were too small (as you can see above) and she had to go back to the regular diaper.

Envy’s stomach was a mess and she would not eat so my mom started giving her a raw diet like Lady eats.  She LOVED it.  She was eating up raw chicken and steak and was in heaven.  We are strongly considering feeding her raw from now on.  It is better for her, but we need to see what it costs and how to do so while maintaining the right nutrient contents.

On Saturday morning we headed out to Destin.  My parents took the van and Alisha, Dan, Envy and I all went in my dad’s TL. 

I am not a fan of driving and have a strong appreciation for airplanes… and let me tell you that this trip certainly confirmed this.  I was dying in that car.  I just cannot take being cramped up in a car for so long.  I go insane!

On our way we had to stop for food and gas.  As we looked for a place to stop we came across a Whataburger.  Since none of us had ever eaten there we decided to give it a shot.  Not impressed.  It was okay but i would have definitely preferred a Chick-fil-a for sure.  Ohh well.  It was an experience. 

We got to Destin around 7:00 or so and went straight to the condo to unpack and get ready to go to dinner.  Dan wanted to go to a place he went to during Spring Break, so we took his advise and headed out to AJ’s which is on the bay.  It was actually pretty nice.  They had a great beach themed atmosphere with outdoor covered seating.  While we waited for a table, we walked around back and saw all of their boat trips for fishing and dolphin sightings.  They also had a yacht sales center there as well where they had 2.5 million dollar yachts for sale.  They were beautiful!

Afterwards, we went to Walmart to buy some groceries for the condo as it was about 11:00 PM.  I have NEVER seen a Walmart so busy in my life.  It was so busy that you could not walk down the isles and the stockers could not keep product on the shelves.  The place was a total wreck.

We then headed back to the condo and got ready for bed.  While we were getting ready we noticed that the lock on the bathroom was not working properly.  Zach had asked that we have a note on the doory to let others know that it was in use.  Alisha got creative and placed a thong liner on the door and wrote in use on it.  :crackup: