Vacation Part 3 - St. Augustine Evenings

Since we were staying at my brother's house, we were able to go to the grocery and eat most meals at his house. We grilled out with his family one night, ordered Chinese one night, and got pizza one night after the kids had not napped and Jonathan refused to leave the house with them. (They were seriously CRAZY that night!) So we ended up only going out to eat three times which was great on our wallets! And my brother helped us make awesome decisions about where to eat!

Wednesday my brother's kids had activities going on so the four of us went to dinner in Jax Beach. We went to this fun seaside grill place. (I can't remember the actual name.) It was in the upstairs of a building and pretty much outside. It was kind of like eating in a screened in porch and all the tables were picnic tables. It was very laid back and a bit crazy that the food was made downstairs and the servers had to bring the food upstairs to the tables! The food was good and the bonus was that we happened to go there on kids eat free day!

On Thursday we decided to go out to Aunt Kate's Restaurant in St. Augustine. It was on the river so we weren't on the ocean which was awesome because we had a beautiful sunset view during our dinner. This Fish Camp had a dock that we walked out on to get some family pictures while we were waiting for our dinner. This was my favorite atmosphere and food of the trip!

My mom bought Adalyn this precious Mud Pie dress the week before we went on vacation and Adalyn thought she was so grown up wearing it. She was sure she was a teenager (and she had had girl time with the girls painting her finger and toe nails)! Of course I had to get some sibling pictures in the back yard before we left for dinner.

 "Wadder!" You wouldn't guess by Cayden's face in all of these pictures, but he was in "wadder" heaven. He loved standing looking at it. (Which is probably why he was not happy that we were making him smile and look at a camera instead of the water.)

 Love Cayden's expression in this one... Little Turkey!

 Cousin picture. It's hard for me to believe my nieces and nephew are this old!

 Boys waiting for the girls to be done with pictures.

 Beautiful girls!

 They love their Uncle Aaron! I love him too. He's a pretty awesome brother!

 My brother's beautiful family.

 I was so glad my brother requested this table. It was awesome. We had a beautiful view of the sunset over the water and we had this cool tree that was growing up through the deck that was growing over our heads. It was so unique! The food was awesome too!

 Right below where we were eating was a lower deck and Cayden saw this owl thing and flipped out that it was a tweet tweet and wanted to go see it. He was petting it and talking with it. It was hilarious.

On Friday evening we decided to head to Old St. Augustine and go to a touristy area. Everything is touristy in Old St. Augustine and finding a parking spot within a 2 mile radius of the A1A Ale House was pretty difficult. Thankfully the guys dropped us off to put our names in but were gone forever finding parking and then walking back to the restaurant. While we were waiting on them the kids all sat down on the sidewalk and I had to grab a picture.

We somehow scored outdoor dining at this restaurant. My brother didn't even know that they had outside tables so that was pretty cool. And even though it was hot and humid, the table had a fan over it and it was absolutely pleasant while we were eating. We had an cool view of the ocean and city life!

 The kids did so well. Every night we went out to dinner we didn't eat until well after their normal bedtime but they really hung in there. Just look at Adalyn's face in this picture. I'm just glad they were never fussy about it.

 The kids and I all started walking toward the bridge to check out the pirate ships while the guys waited to pay our bill. I had to get a quick picture of them hanging on the balcony by our table. How cool is this old building?

 We were looking for Hook and Jake! There were actually some guys on this ship working on it so that was exciting for the kids!

 Beautiful sky as we walked back toward the city. It is a fun city to walk through! Lots of old buildings to check out.

 We did a lot of walking after dinner and I was thankful that Aaron was willing to lug this big guy around:)

 Of course we walked out of our way to get ice cream and fudge from Kilwins. I remembered it from last year (and the year before that.) It was well worth the walking and the calories! Between being up so late, spending time with the big girls, and then getting a whole cup of ice cream hours after bedtime, Adalyn was practically in heaven.

 And even though they were exhausted they were sweet enough to share ice cream:)

It was hard to head back to pack up our bags and the car that night so we didn't. Ha! We decided we would pack up the car the next morning and head home leisurely instead of at the crack of dawn. It worked for us and the kids were pretty good in the car. We actually only had to make one or two stops outside of food stops which is pretty good since it was about 12 hours in the car. We had a wonderful week filled with many memories and I'm so glad to have these pictures to look back to. We don't go on many vacations or trips, so this is my week of the year that I look forward to all year! And just because I couldn't help myself I had to find a sibling picture from last year's trip...

I can't believe how fast the time flies! I can't imagine how old they will look next year!