Day 18 Part 1 - St. Augustine

After taking a day to recover from sickness we jammed two days into one to see Fort Matanzas in St. Augustine and the MOSH Museum in Jacksonville. 

 

Here is the history of the fort:

 

 

We took a ferry boat to get across to the fort, almost as exciting as seeing the fort itself.  :)

 

 

 

 

The fort is on Rattlesnake Island.  Our guide gave us the speech on the way over to stay on the trails and watch for snakes.  As we were standing right next to the steps to climb up onto the fort Abby noticed a snake under the first step.  The guide was shocked.  She told us later that she gives that speech over and over every day, but she has never actually seen a snake.  The snake moved away from the steps and we all hurried up onto the fort.  We are not sure if it was a rattlesnake or not, but they had us stay up on top of the fort and didn't bring anyone else over until they had some park officials come over to hunt down the snake.  They still hadn't found it by the time we left.  We had a long time to explore everything up on the fort since we were stuck up there all alone until they made sure the coast was clear for us to come down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Days 16 and 17 - Sick Days

Tuesday was one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong.  After our day at LEGOLAND, we drove a couple of hours to visit Brett’s uncle and have lunch with him.  We met up with him in a Sam’s Club parking lot and decided on a place to go have lunch.  Two minutes later, as soon as we pulled onto the freeway, Bennett started puking.  Lunch was cancelled as we cleaned up at a gas station.  :(

Then, while pulling out of a gas station later in the day, we got a bit stuck.  The back corner of the camper hit a cement pole.  After a lot of backing up, pulling forward, backing up again, and wiggling the camper around, we finally got out of there. 
 

Thankfully, Ben didn't get sick again.  One other child came down with a tummy ache, but that was it.  God gave us the perfect campground to recover at just outside of St. Augustine, FL.  It was beautiful and so peaceful. 

Sweet little Josie in one of the beautiful dresses my sister made for my two littlest girls.

 

Feeding bread to the fish in the river.

 

 

Resting and watching Kipper.

 

Day 15 - Legoland

Getting way behind on these posts!

That must mean that we are having too much fun.  :)

We went to LEGOLAND a little over 2 weeks ago now.   For the sake of trying to catch up, here are a lot of photos and very few words.

 

 

 

Love this photo of Brett and Graham driving a boat together.  :)

 

Under the Banyan tree.

 

A wonderful lady that leads a women's group I am in (and is one of the girls' AWANA teachers) blessed us with a Dairy Queen treat.  :)  Thank you!!!


Days 12, 13, and 14 - Our 10th Anniversary!

Friday was our 10^th wedding anniversary!  We celebrated by having chocolate dipped strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast.  Why not, right?  The kids thought it was the best breakfast they have ever had.  Might need to make it a tradition. 

 

After that, we headed to Sugar Sand Park in Boca Raton with my sister and her boys.  There is a huge science playground here and the kids took off running and climbing for a couple of hours.  There is only one entrance/exit so it is relaxing for the parents too without having to worry where everyone is every second.

 

 Everyone had a ride on the carrousel.

 Then, we headed in to the Science Explorium.  The air conditioning felt soooo good after running around in the 88 degree weather here. 

Graham would giggle every time the ball went down the hole.

We went out to Chick-fil-A for lunch and then spent the rest of the day relaxing back at the campground.

 

We spent Saturday relaxing.  After running a few errands (we need to shop every few days with the small fridge in the camper) we went over to my sister's home to do about 20 loads of laundry. 

 

The kids (and Brett) enjoyed watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Sunday we attended church with my sister and her family and then headed out to lunch together (It's a good thing they don't have Steak 'n Shakes in MN.  Yum!) before saying goodbye.  

Days 10 and 11 – Family Reunion

On Wednesday afternoon we finally made it to my sister’s home.  The kids made quick friends with their cousins and played late into the night. 

Thursday we headed to the beach. 

Everyone finally got to swim in the ocean.  This beach had showers to rinse off some of the sand, so we didn’t have quite as much to clean out of the van this time!