Winter Park, Florida is a wonderful little city filled with history, lakes and parks, and my parents. Nestled among the Winter Park Chain of Lakes, Winter Park has more park space than any other city in Florida... essentially, lakes and parks everywhere!

In addition to shopping and the typical moving objects of beauty around the house, we lunched at a fun local joint in College Park, White Wolf Cafe, featured on Rachel Ray's $40 a day...

It used to be an antique store that sold sandwiches. At some point, the food became more popular than the antiques resulting in a restaurant that sells antiques.

There are antiques all over - mostly fixtures - for sale.

Beautiful stained glass window...

If you missed my post where I announced the surprise visit for my mom's birthday, you can catch up here.

My parents just moved back to Florida after a 35 year stint in St. Louis. They've only been back for 10 months, but seem to have acclimated themselves to the year round, often extreme heat, quite nicely. Let me give you an example. My mom literally said, "It's getting chilly out here, I need to get my sweater..." It was 85 degrees and the sun was burning my skin. Basically, I was sweating bullets and about to pass out... Another example, my dad wore a winter hat when he took the dogs for their morning walk... after all, it was 68 degrees... you get the idea.

Anyway, their yard looks like a park... perfectly manicured 24/7!

Beautiful magnolia tree in the front yard!

This is standing in the street in front of their house... The brick streets and the moss are enchanting and magical!

Looking the other way... If you squint, you can see the lake at the end of the street... (remember, lakes and parks are everywhere!)

I finally figured out I had a smudge on my lens and deleted several photos as a result... However, I love this side of the house with that gorgeous gate and the archway of green lushness, even with the smudge...

This was taken out the car window while driving to dinner, a few houses away... look at that tree with the vines and moss!

At a stop sign... another park.

At a red light...

And this is downtown Winter Park... on our way to Park Ave.

The infamous Park Ave. .. shopping and dining galore... and total charm! Brick streets, flowers and moss... totally pristine and quite lovely. I crossed the street to a park and took the following photos...

Remarkably beautiful!

PS You might want to brush up on your parallel parking skills before visiting!

Our favorite restaurant, the best in Winter Park, hands down, is Luma. It's almost worth a trip to Winter Park... In fact, I often think my parents moved to Winter Park because of Luma. It's that good.

We had the most delicious appetizer of Squid ink Pasta with Lobster and Crab.... oh dear Lord. For dinner, I couldn't decide between the flat bread pizza which is a favorite, and the House Casarecce Bolognese... I ended up with the pasta and couldn't have been happier. (Yes, I realize I had pasta for an appetizer and for dinner... It was vacation people, give me a break please.)