St. Augustine Trip, part 1

(Today's the day I finish a blog post about our Florida vacation.  I can feel it!)

The Way Down

We tried to cram as much awesomeness into this trip as possible.  Which means that we stopped to see everyone we knew that lived somewhere south of us.

Stop #1 - Winston-Salem, NC

We have some old Cincinnati friends who moved to Winston-Salem for residency.  Our kids would play together all the time, but that was 6 years ago, so they mostly don't remember each other.  No matter, they were instantly friends again and had a great time playing together.  I'm pretty sure that Elijah thought their second daughter, Emma, was the best thing ever.  She can keep up with his energy and is more athletic than he is.  Which means she's perfect.

It was nice to reconnect with them.

Stop #2 - Augusta, GA

Rob had business in Augusta, so we stayed two days in a hotel while he ran seminars and such at the university.  You'd think we'd be bored, but no: there was a hotel pool (which was salt water - a different experience, but a good one.  I think I now prefer salt water pools).  The kids were happy to swim or watch cartoons for most of the time, and I read a book.  It was awesome.  

We also had dinner both nights with Rob's old co-worker and his family (so nice of them), and the kids spent a few hours at a Bounce-Around place.  We're such awesome parents: the kids even got an icee/slurpee thing while at the Bounce-Around.  To share.  Because no one needs an entire slurpee to themselves.

St. Augustine

We stayed at a friend's beach house.  For free.  Isn't that amazing?!  They were so generous to offer, and then they paid for a bunch of stuff while we were down there, too.  I was blown away by how nice and attentive and accommodating they were.  And I thought, "Some day I want to pay that forward."

We went to the beach about as soon as we arrived and were there for the sunset.  Which isn't over the ocean, disappointingly.  I immediately decided we should go to watch a sunrise.  Even Teancom said, "I want to watch the sun set over the ocean."  We showed him the sun setting over the land.  He said, "But I want it over the ocean."  Yeah, me too, my friend.  

July 4th

Beach Day!

The kids and Rob LOVED the water.  The Deans, our hosts, were amazed at how much the kids were into the water.  They were not amazed by how much I wasn't.

They had a surf board, body boards, and other such stuff.  These people are beach prepared.  We didn't bring so much as a shovel and bucket!

Hours spent this way.  Hours.  They were all so happy.  See that face?  Pure joy.

We all got too much sun that day, which isn't too surprising, because we're from Ohio, and we spent 7 hours on a Florida beach.  The kids were exhausted for about 2 days afterward, and I've already told you about me and Rob and our sunburns.  My goal for the day was to avoid painful sunburns for the kids, because we'd never hear the end of it.  So, goal accomplished.

Fireworks

I feel like this was the first year ever we were hyper American.  BBQ on the beach all day, fireworks downtown at night.

As we walked across the bridge, we saw this pirate ship.  Hurray for fake pirate ships!

And this night was my one regret of the vacation.  The Dean's sister and her family also live in St. Augustine.  They had a house guest - a previous sister missionary in their ward.  She said earlier in the day that she was going to a party with lots of deaf people.  I so, so badly wanted to say, "Can I tag along?"  But I didn't, for reasons you can probably imagine.  I thought, then, that this house guest would not be able to attend the fireworks display that night.  But she did!  She made it to both!  When she showed up again, I knew I had missed my moment.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, is the lesson I'm supposed to learn from this, I guess.

Tank with a blanket on his head, for whatever reason (picture taken by Miciah):

...  to be continued.