Florida - Part 3 (St. Augustine)

Wednesday evening we said goodbye to [rainy] Orlando and drove to St. Augustine.  My brother's family moved to St. Augustine last summer and we hadn't seen them since! (They used to live about an hour away from us so we were used to seeing them all the time!) We were so excited to see my niece and nephew (my oldest niece was at camp so we missed her!) and have them meet Adalyn.

Thursday morning we woke up to beautiful weather and decided on a day at the beach!  Well, with a baby it's not really a "day" at the beach. It's more of a "few hours" at the beach. By the time we got all of our gear and lunches packed and out the door it was going on lunch time! But the weather was amazing and the beach was beautiful.  It was a quiet secluded beach and completely non-touristy. Wonderful.  We got some great pictures of the water.  Unfortunately many of them included me in a bathing suit and you are sorely mistaken if you think that I will be posting those to this blog for the whole world (or the 2 of you that read this) to see.  But we got some pretty cute pictures of my niece with Adalyn.  Jonathan doesn't get in the ocean so he stayed on the sand and took some great pictures!

Testing out the ocean for the first time! She loves water and she enjoyed jumping in the waves with me.

 Lauren was such a great older cousin! It was like having a built in baby sitter! She loved on Adalyn at all times and Adalyn loved all the attention!

 I love this picture.  It's like they are having their own little conversation. Oh, and that Boogie Board she's sitting on? Yeah, I'm no good!

 They had this great tent that was perfect for Adalyn to have some shade!

She loved Lauren's bathing suit strings.

 This? This is not me. I need a little more practice. That must be it.

We went out to a delicious dinner at a "Fish Camp".  I've never heard that term before, but I guess all the seafood places there are called "fish camps".  Thankfully they had called ahead for reservations because the place was packed! We had a great time catching up with my brother and fam.  And Adalyn was a good girl at the restaurant.

Showing off in the restaurant.

Friday we decided to make it a pool day.  Their neighborhood has a pool and it's not like any other neighborhood pool I've ever seen.  It was like a nice country club pool.  Adalyn even took a nap under an umbrella table so we were able to lay in the sun a little! There was a huge water slide that Jonathan tried out! (My sister-in-law and I kind of pushed him to do it...but he liked it!)

That afternoon my brother left for a two week business trip to Australia (LUCKY!!) so we said our goodbyes and then went with my SIL and the kids to Old St. Augustine to walk around.  We were really hungry so we decided our first stop should be food.  When we got out of the restaurant it was raining for the first time that week there! Grrr. So sick of the rain.  We did manage to make one stop at a little fudge/ice cream store. But I feel like we missed out on so much.  I'm pretty sure we could have easily spent the entire week in St. Augustine with all of the fun stuff there is to do there!

Oh, and did I mention that Adalyn started crawling while we were at my brother's house? Because she did! And here's a really long video with very little crawling. (AKA if you're not a grandparent you probably aren't interested.) Please excuse my crazy voice in the background!

Saturday morning we woke up, got some breakfast and packed our car back up.  We got a few pictures with the kids in their pjs and then said goodbye.  It was sad to say goodbye since we don't really know when the next time is that we will see them.  In this year they have grown so much that I can't imagine another whole year from now! I could kick myself for not getting a picture of Adalyn with my brother before he left town! And for how little pictures I got of all the kids! You live and learn...

Cousins!

 Adalyn was sad to leave. Can you tell?

Overall we had a great trip.  Long gone are the relaxing, reading and tanning vacations, but that's ok.  I wouldn't have it any other way! We had a great time seeing old friends, enjoying sites and visiting with family.  It was hard to say goodbye to Florida but we knew we had to get back to reality.  Adalyn did great on the way home (not as great as the way there, but what can you expect?) and now we know that a car trip is possible.  And it's possible to pack enough homemade baby food in a cooler to last an entire week! So glad my baby didn't have to go hungry! I kid. I kid.

And why not wrap up the trip with another boring video of Jonathan driving and me babbling. I must have been bored:)