St. Augustine (Day 4)

On our last day in Florida we drove from Jacksonville down to St. Augustine. We only had about half a day to spend there until we had to drive home but we enjoyed it. I loved the Spanish architecture in the city and it is a very nice place to visit. The only thing I didn't like was how touristy the city is. Since it is the oldest town in America it is not built for the masses of people who visit. It makes it hard to drive around the city but luckily we were able to park and just walk around the town.

With limited time we tried to choose the activities that looked the most interesting and that would give us the most for the money (this place is a bit pricey). We decided to do the tour of Colonial Quarter. We had an awesome tour guide, Grimm and it was really interesting to hear the history of the city.

Mike got to participate in a demonstration of what it was like to be in the infantry. Grimm asked all the kids but then he needed some adults to help. I loved how he explained to the kids that they have a fun organ and that for adults that organ just shrivels up and falls out at a certain point. Luckily 4 adults in the audience still like to have fun and Mike was one of them :)

We also got to see a two room house that 5 people lived in. It was smaller than the apartment that Mike, Dan and I live in. Just one bed

We climbed to the top of the watch tower and had a nice view of the Castillo de San Marcos. We could see the ocean behind the fort. It took 107 years of the people asking for a fort that couldn't be burned down for the queen to give them one and then another 23 years for it to be built! This one is a big contrast to fort caroline we saw the day before (much much better).

Look! The cannons aren't facing each other! Much better to have them facing your enemies

After the tour and the fort, we attempted to just drive around the city and just look at the other stuff we didn't have time to do. While we were driving we found a church that I thought was really pretty and I couldn't resist taking pictures.

On our way out we stopped by the St. Augustine lighthouse. We decided $10 a person to climb a lighthouse was a bit much so we opted to just look at it.

We had fun in St. Augustine but I wish we had more time to really explore and go to more of the forts and check out the beach. Maybe next time we go down to Florida :)

Really the Happiest Place on Earth (Day 2)

Our second day in Florida was by far my favorite. We got up super early and drove down to Orlando. I wanted to go to the temple with Mike since that is something we rarely get to do anymore (due in part to Daniel and in part to the temple being almost 2 hours away). I hadn't been to the Orlando temple since I was 4 and Mike had never been but it was beautiful. I had never been in a stationary temple session before so that was neat. It is one of the most beautiful temples I've been inside so far, of the 8 that I have been inside. The grounds were beautiful too! It was a wonderful and peaceful morning. It was great to be able to go and just sit in the temple and relax and not have to rush home to take care of Daniel. We had a lot of fun on our trip but this was a high light and made the trip down to Orlando completely worth it :)

Jacksonville Zoo (Day 1)

Mike and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary at the end of March. We didn't get to do much since it was his finals week but back in February we had planned a special trip for us to celebrate during his Spring break. We finally decided on Florida since Mike had never been there and since we're moving West at the end of the year, this would probably be the last chance to go to Florida for a while. We decided to go to Jacksonville but we would also spend a day in Orlando and in St. Augustine. We were super excited.

The day before we drove down to Charleston and we dropped Daniel off with my parents. Little Dan was going to get 5 days to spend with his grandma and papa without us. We left really early Monday morning and I felt a little bad about leaving Daniel but that only lasted for about 15 minutes or so and then I was fine :)

Our first stop was the Jacksonville Zoo. If you know us at all then you know that we like to find the zoo wherever we are and go see it. I had been to this one before but Mike was surprised at how big it was. We got there early enough that it wasn't too crowded or hot yet so most of the animals were out. It was cold when we left South Carolina so we still had our coats on (silly us...we thought we would need coats). This was the first and last picture we took wearing jackets!

One of my favorites :)

 Mike loves the alligators! He wants to see them in the wild...I'm perfectly happy viewing them from a distance and behind a barrier. 

Our next stop was to see the black bear and the monkeys. I'm not a huge fan of monkeys but the baby gorillas were cute.

 This is the titanboa statue. We called it the basilisk since I think it looks like the snake from Harry Potter. It moved and hissed...creepy.

The gardens in the Asia section of the zoo were beautiful. Seeing the tigers reminded me of how much I want a pet tiger :)

We saw lots and lots of animals.

We had a great time at the zoo! It amazes me that we are able to have so much fun seeing the same animals we have seen a million times before but its still exciting and we still enjoy it or maybe we just enjoy spending time together? :)

Fun in the Sun (Day 1)

We couldn't go to Florida without going to the beach. After we went grocery shopping and checked out our hotel we figured a trip to the beach was in order. We decided on Jacksonville beach and it was awesome! The sand was super soft and the best part was that we basically had it to ourselves. There was only one other family in the area we were in! Mike and I aren't huge fans of the beach (we prefer the mountains) but having it to ourselves was perfect!

The water was freezing but the weather was perfect to just lay out in the sun. Mike decided to go running and I just read. I love listening to the sound of the ocean so I was very happy. Since we were pretty alone, I could enjoy the sound of the waves without the annoying background noises of people or dogs. We also got to do a little walking and we found some pretty shells. Talk about relaxing! The only annoying part was that a storm started to come in and it cut our trip short so we went back to the hotel and laid by the pool and tanned since it was sunny there.

The best part of the first day was going to bed at 9:30pm and sleeping for almost 9 uninterrupted hours...heaven :)

Stay tuned for Day 2!