Sunday, June 28, 2009

This morning we had waffels for breakfast! Yum! Hotel breakfasts are getting better than they use to be. We got tickets for the Ripley's Red Train tour. This was a great way to see the city. Ryan loved it...what boy doesn't love trains? Aiden even slept on the train. Yeah! And Daddy and I got to hear and see the history of the city. What a remarkable thing...to see and walk and touch the same places Ponce de Leon discovered. Well, the Native Americans discovered it, but Ponce de Leon claimed it for Spain. We saw Castillo de San Marcos, the Spanish Fort. It's the largest still in America. We heard and saw the canons fire. Did I mention we heard them? wow loud! The Spanish soldiers yelled "Cover your ears!" and they weren't kidding. I got a great pic though of the moment it fired. The only price I paid was just a little hearing loss. I tried to cover one ear on my shoulder and the other with my hand, but then trying to snap the photo was a little difficult. But I got it! Ryan enjoyed crawling through one of the rooms that had a pint sized door. Scott had to crawl in after him. I wasn't about to go in. Some of the others on tour were talking about how they felt ghosts present. They were getting all creaped out and acting like they just felt the spirits of the dead crawling all around. Some people...

We hopped back on the train and saw other neat things like the Winery (they use muscadine grapes native to the Southeast), the oldest wooden school house, Flagler College, downtown St. Augustine...everything is old there: increadible houses, monuments, and gardens. I just love that sort of thing. And of course the train tour was narrated with cool historical stories. Well worth the $15 to tour for 3 days! We all had a great time. The only thing was I was wearing a sleeveless shirt...and no sunscreen on my arms. I put some on my face, but my arms rarely get burned. This was a rare day to say the least!

We ate lunch at a great place called Pizalleys. Great pizza! Great atmoshpere! Great air conditioning on a HOT day! After getting refreshed we walked the cobblestone streets in the old city and saw a Greek Orthodox shrine, did a lot of shopping and picture taking. We found our Christmas ornament! Actually three. Every year we get a Christmas ornament on vacation or of something that characterized that year. One shop had some hand carved wooden ornaments of things around St. Augustine. They were so neat we got three.

After all that fun in the sun, we had to go back to the hotel and rest a bit. Did I mention I love cold, dark hotel rooms? While Scott and the boys napped I would catch up on facebook and email. We decided to go light on supper and ate at McDonalds...can you believe it? I never eat McDonalds. Well, I guess never, say never huh! We drove out to St. Augustine Beach to find a location of a place our last night's waitress told us about. We actually drove straight to it by mistake. It was great! And it was beautiful. The coquina (shell that has turned to rock and used in all the buildings down there) was plentiful on the white sandy beach and the sand dunes were paradise. SO...I had a crazy idea of trying to get that perfect family picture again. Well.....a storm was brewing and we had to work fast. Again, the boys wanted to play more than pose for a picture. The sand ended up blowing in our faces and it looked like snow. We never got that perfect shot, but we made lots of memories. The clouds and lightening were crashing all around us and the photos did not do justice, but it was amazing! We let Ryan play a little, but the rain came and we had to go. We ended up driving around the town at night seeing the sights, the lighthouse was gorgeous at night too, and we rode the antique carousel. Another great day!

The old city gates from the inside. The only thing left standing from the original city wall.

The Old sugar mill. They use to mill cane sugar. Now this was our first train stop where we parked the van.

Palm trees everywhere!

Presbyterian church.

Oldest working Drugstore in America.

Saturday, June 27, 2009 ~ Happy Anniversary!

Its hard to believe that its been 11 years! In many ways it seems like yesterday that I met that red head from Georgia at seminary. He was the cutest little library worker I had ever seen. He seemed so studious (ha!) Later, he would become my Sunday School teacher, best friend, and soul mate. We have shared so many laughs, tears, and dreams together. In fact, he has made all my dreams come true. As a child, me and my gal pals would pretend we were grown ups, married with kids. All these years later, I'm still playing house with the greatest father, husband and friend on earth. It really is a dream come true.
Reality set in when we ate lunch at Shoney's in St. Augustine. It was not the grand tea parties of my childhood. We only wanted a quick, cheap lunch that wasn't fast food. We thought we could get a little salad bar or something. I should have walked out the moment we walked in and it smelled like a bathroom had exploded. But we were seated so fast I didn't want to seem rude. I looked at the menu and even a stinkin' club sandwich was $8.99. What happened to a cheap lunch? I decided to only get a baked potato for $1.69. (Now that's cheap) I also just wanted to get out as quickly as possible. Happy Anniversary honey :) At least Ryan enjoyed his spaghetti. Oh well....things got better. We checked into the hotel and it was great. Don't you just love walking into a dark, cool hotel room? That smell...that unique hotel smell hits you as you open the door. Ahh! I love it. Ryan is going to take after me I think. That was the first thing he said. "Mama, it smells like a hotel." We hadn't even unzipped the first bag, though, and he was asking if we could go to the pool. We have a pool at home, but there is just something about a hotel pool. But the pool would have to wait.

After unpacking and recuperating from the drive we got our things together to go to dinner and the beach. We ate at a wonderful restaurant right on the water called The Reef. Great view, great shrimp, and wonderful Chicken Alfredo! Much better than Shoney's...duh! We enjoyed talking to the waitress. She was born and raised there. She gave us some good tips on beach areas that we would eventually check out. Ryan just had to tell her that we were going to go the Fountain of Youth and she told him to be sure to drink from it because her grandmother drank from it as a girl and she is still alive at 103! I think there is just something about living next to the beach that gives you life! What do you think?

We spent some time trying to get a good picture of us as a family there on Vilano Beach after we ate at The Reef. We never could get a great shot. We would eventually try again on another day. It was hot and kids just wanted to play. How do all you families get your kids to sit still for a photo? Anyway, I'll post a few just to show you how I can never get Ryan to look dead on the camera. His face points to the camera but eyes always look off. Or he will put on such a fake grin it becomes hilarious. Oh well...here are our memories. BTW, yes, later that night we took the boys to the hotel pool! It was great. No sand, so salt, and the largest dragon flies I've ever seen. Aiden loved floating around in his floatie and Ryan swam like a fish in his spiderman vest. Great ending to our official anniversary day. A bit different from the honeymoon 11 years ago, but wonderful all the same.

Summer Vacation Begins! ~ Friday, June 26, 2009

I took Scott to work today after his lunch break so we could hit the road as soon as he got off work at 5:30. We were all so excited to leave. We had been marking off the calendar with Ryan for 15 days leading up to our vacation. Ryan was plum giddy. We drove until about 12:30am until we reached Adel, Ga, just outside of Valdosta. We didn't have a reservation because we didn't know exactly where we would end up. We were so tired at this point and Aiden was screaming because he was tired of being in his car seat. I seem to remember Ryan being a better traveler at that age. We pulled into a Super 8 just hoping to get a cheap stay, but they were all booked up, so we had to drive down the way. I was actually glad because it looked like a dump. There was a Hampton Inn and I called the number on the GPS and they said they had room available for $79. I said "we'll be there shortly." I was so glad because Hampton's are usually at least $100 a night so I was more than willing to take it. When we got there the clerk said that the phone number was wrong on the GPS and we actually spoke to the Hampton in Albany, Ga and the rooms here would be $99 a night. But, my smooth talking husband worked his magic and got the room for $79. Woo hoo! We got a room there and it was like heaven. The beds were so comfortable. The room was clean and we got a good night's rest. We hit the road the next morning after a great hotel breakfast about 9:45am to finish our drive into St. Augustine. Again, with butterflies in our stomach.

Milking Betsie...

I'm trying to play catch up on posts but we are currently on vacation. Those posts will come later.

The summer reading program has been fun, but sometimes I wonder if I want to see these things more than Ryan does. We went to see the milking of a cow and he would rather have just played with his friends. Some times you think something's going to be a great idea and the kids just really aren't that interested.

A Day at the Zoo

The boys and I decided to go to the zoo today. We've been waiting for a Tuesday because it is half price day! We had a blast, but I think we chose the hottest day of the year so far. That didn't stop us though. We trekked all over that zoo. I think Aiden's favorite place was the beautiful butterfly house. Ryan tried so hard to sit still for the butterflies to land on him, but they never did. They kept landing on Aiden. The zoo keeper said that if one landed on you, you could make a wish. I think Ryan was wishing for a toy from the gift shop. Ryan's favorite exhibit was the reptiles! We just got through reading a book about snakes so it was exciting to see the ones in his book. The sea lion show was a blast, but it was hard holding Aiden and trying to take pictures (see the one where he is picking my nose.) We took a picnic lunch and the peacocks and guineas were roaming right up to the tables. After staying 5 hours, and using lots of sun block, we almost finished the whole zoo, but we had to skip a little. Oh well, we will just have to go back when Daddy's not at work! Lots of fun, but I'm thanking God for our air conditioner right now!

Summer Church Reading Program

Ok we may have bitten off more than we can chew with these reading programs. We signed up for the Trussville Public Library reading program, and now our church is having a reading program too. Both have fun activities so it was so tempting to sign up for both, but the competitive nature in me might get the best of us. I think Ryan is going to take after me too. He has always loved books, but we are reading books non-stop now. Yesterday was the kick-off at church and you can see some of the fun carnival pictures. They each got a library bag and got to paint it, along with a clown show, bubbles, popcorn, decorating a picture frame, facepainting, and more.

Star Park-Feeding the Ducks.

We found a darling new park in Birmingham on Saturday. Out in the middle of the pond there was a little island the shape of a star. We enjoyed feeding the ducks and going for a walk around the track. It was great fun. We went to try to find a letterbox (a hobby of ours) but we never could find it. Ryan kept saying "I sure wish we had brought our fishing poles!" There were a ton of turtles and little fish in the pond coming up as we were feeding them.

Summer Reading Program at the Library

We went to the library yesterday to pick up some books we had on hold and it just happened to be the day to sign up for the Summer Reading Program. We were so excited because they had some fun activites (always good for preschoolers). Ryan thought he was so cool when he got his face painted like spiderman. They also had popcorn, lemonade, free book giveaways, inflatables, etc. It is such a great program because they have all kinds of fun things scheduled for the summer like puppet shows, petting zoos, magicians, etc. And the best part: its free! Yeah, we have something to do this summer!

We had one of those great weekends that started out with a little boo-boo, but turned out so fun and relaxing! Aiden is pulling up on everything now. And Saturday morning the tray table in the living room came tumbling over onto him. It formed a pretty big goose egg. You can see his boo-boo above didn't really upset him all that much. After a little crying he was happy and laughing at big brother again. After getting everyone settled down from our little tragedy Saturday morning, we went out for breakfast to IHOP. Scott loves him some pancakes or as Ryan calls them "panacakes." Ryan felt pretty special with his create-a-face panacake. I must say the blueberry syrup is pretty good. Anyone hungry? Then we went downtown to a historical place called the Peanut Depot. Its been around since 1907. It was great to go in and see them roasting the peanuts in big barrel like machines. As we were leaving a middle aged man drove up in a convertible (must be a mid-life thing) and chuckeled..."I use to come here with my dad about 40 years ago." Its fun to think that the boys will look back on days like today with fondness! That's why we love to say...makin' memories!

Paying for the best salted, roasted peanuts.

Shelling a peanut.

Just down the cobblestone street was a red train car that has been converted into a restaurant/club. We were there on a Saturday morning so it was not open, but it made for a good look-see. Then to finish off the morning we went to the Pepper Place Farmers' Market. We will definitely be going back.

Setting up our pool

We recently put our pool up, but the water was sooooo cold we couldn't stay in it very long. We snapped a few photos because it was Aiden's first time in a pool. He was shivering, but actually liked it. I'm hoping it will be a good pass time for us this summer. Just trying to figure out how to keep Ryan active...no, I mean entertained. He is plenty active!
We set it up 2 years ago for the first time and at the beginning of that summer Ryan couldn't reach the bottom. He stayed in a floaty most of the time. By the end of the summer he was bouncing around on his tip toes. We didn't put the pool up last summer because I was pregnant and no way was I going to be climbing into that thing then. But this year he jumped right in and is a full head and shoulders out of the water. Its amazing how fast he is growing!