Our Florida Vacation- Part 1: Tallahassee

We left on Thursday, August 6th to drive down to Florida for my brother, Eric's, film school graduation. Eric was one of 29 students participating in a 2 year program at Florida State. I personally cannot believe that he is already DONE with his masters degree (but he and his classmates may disagree with how fast time flew by!). We made a quick stop in south Georgia for the night and then woke up Friday morning and finished our route to Tallahassee. We arrived at lunch time, saw Eric for about 30 minutes in between his lectures, and got settled in the hotel. Caroline (Eric's girlfriend) also had her family in town and they had several friends come down to partake in the weekend festivities. We all met for dinner at this country buffet (with 15 people E and C thought a buffet would be quick and easy). It was nice to meet Caroline's family (finally after 4+ years!) and all enjoy a meal together...though it was quite an experience! This restaurant was packed with graduates and their families (there was three graduations that weekend), it was "seafood buffet night", and some of Tallahassee's "finest" came out for dinner. It wasn't the homeless, shirtless man knocking on the back door of the restaurant that was the strangest, or the large bowl of homemade pork rinds on the buffet...but it was the restaurant's birthday song that stood out the most to me. It went something like this...
"Fried chicken. Fat Back. It's your birthday. How 'bout that?" Priceless. Chad also took a picture on his phone of a guy that could be a dead ringer for Cedric the Entertainer.

Saturday was a busy, busy day filled with graduation and two film screenings (about 5 hours of films total). Eric and his friend, Adam, were chosen to "address" the class at the graduation ceremony (unbeknownest to US!), and they did a great job! The ceremony was really nice. Here is a horrible pic of Eric and Adam during their talk.

Then, we took a quick stretch break and settled in for three hours of film screenings. Chad and I swapped back and forth between watching the films (I made him watch all the scary ones!) and keeping Brooklyn entertained with arts and crafts and her own movies in the theater lobby. After the afternoon screenings, we went to the infamous Momo's Pizza for the biggest pizza I have ever seen in my life.

Here are the bro-in-laws getting some love in:

And Brooklyn waiting on her food....she did sooooo well at the graduation and waiting around during the screenings. I have been blessed with such a patient daughter!

This was the pizza box...36 inches!

Here's Brooklyn attempting to eat a slice of pizza bigger than her head...

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to clean up and change clothes, and then headed back to the theater for the evening screenings. That lasted a little over two hours, but again, Chad and I swapped back and forth and Brooklyn was an angel. She fell asleep at the end of the screenings, so we opted out of the "after party" and went back to the hotel.

Sunday, we woke up, packed up our stuff, and headed south to a week in Orlando/Kissimmee. Eric and Caroline would be joining us the next day after their family and friends left Tallahassee.