Ready to see some family for the weekend!
Today is the day we have planned for so long, the day we say good bye to Virginia and head out to explore our great country!
We had the best time on our first stop at Aunt Dawn and Uncle Chris’s house for the weekend!
Siblings 😝
💕Cousins 💕
🍻 cheers!
Yummy huge pizza 🍕
We made it to our next stop in SC at a small campground right off 95. We ate dinner at the fanciest place in town.
We are almost to our next destination St. Augustine Florida!
Camp set up is coming along great! We really love the spot.
If you’re ever in St. Augustine, come to the Green Paypaya! The best Thai and Sushi I’ve ever had and presentation was A+!
Bruce eating his leaf 😂
Gemma won’t look away from the iPad 🥴
Amazing presentation 👌🏻
Smoking hot!
Beautiful pad Thai 🤤
Veggie Drunken noodle
Perfect sushi 🍱
Thai garlic eggplant
Exploring Castillo de San Marcos today! St. Augustine is so beautiful and has so much history, we really love it here.
Bruce being a pirate 🏴☠️
Castillo de San Marcos so beautiful
Selfie!
What’s in there!?
Daddy explaining what the cannons were used for
Hot dog 🌭
Hey up there 👋🏼
Early Spanish military flag
Map view of the fort!
Waving from the bridge!
She’s so pretty 😍
A treat to cool off 😋
All that exploring will wear you out!
We picked up our national park passports!!! The junior ranger books are adorable and we got our frost stamps today 😊
Cutest littlest spot at the marina @Odd Birds cafe. . I knew it would be a great place as soon as we walked in the door, they had a cold case full of my favorite tea drink, Yerba Mate. The food was phenomenal and such a cute little hidden spot.
Dolphin tour @ Florida Water Tours with Nah and Matt 🐬 👀
This was such a fun and amazing experience with the kids and my mom. I loved getting to see their faces light up with excitement when the dolphins were swimming near us.
So excited 😆
The joy 🤩
Hanging out with Family 💗
it was super cool to spend time with my aunts and uncles! I love being here so close to my family.
One last goodbye for now and some PCCB and puppacino! Love you mom, we had the best week with you!
We parked, set up power to run the ACs, and changes to go to a 2 mile strip of beach that allows dogs off leash! It was beautiful, bright warm waters and the sand was full of beautiful shells! Not a bad way to end the day of travel and work 😃
We tried to go climb the Jupiter light house but unfortunately the kiddos had to be a certain height and we couldn’t climb! We decided to check out Blowing Rock preserve instead.
Blowing Rock Preserve was very cool! The path is covered with bent dense trees that block the hot Florida sun on the walk to the ocean and rocks. Very beautiful!!
Our third destination today was Bathtub Reef beach. Usually very calm water condition as lend to great swimming for little kids. Unfortunately today was red flag and not great for swimming. So we collected some seashells and played in the sand! Time to find somewhere to eat next…
We made it to our spot in the Florida Keys 😃
Lunch break walk to the marina proved eventful!! Saw some cool manatees and tons of fish 🐠
Wonderful day spent relaxing with my family. Missing Mason a ton, I wish he was here with us.
Today we decided to head to key west, but on the way we stopped at a few places from my childhood. When I was little, my dad was in the navy and he was stationed in Key West. It was really awesome to visit places from my childhood. So many awesome memories came back to me.
The first place we stopped at was on summer land key, and used to be called Sherman’s Nautical Emporium. My mom and step dad’s store we lived in the back apartment with them. Many memories of swimming, diving, jumping off buildings and fishing with my siblings. Many many great times there. It looks a lot different now! It was once painted with a full underwater mural and just beautiful. Honestly, it was looking kind of dumpy under its current ownership. But none the less, the bones were the same and it was so cool to visit!
Old swimming and fishing grounds!
Not much changed in the water, green and full of what we always called parrot fish. Idk if that is their actual name lol.
Next key and stop of our day was Cudjoe Key. Small little key that we lived in for a year or so when I was 9.
I’m not 100% sure until I look at old photos but I am almost certain this is the house! Looks mostly the same but it didn’t have a ramp. \240Or so Many yard decorations.
Next key from there was where I went to school, Sugarloaf Key. I attended this school for Mr. Hunters 4th grade class. Seeing the bus loop brought back a ton of memories from my early childhood, I loved it.
The next stop was to Sigsbee Naval Base, Key West. We stopped into the base housing and it honestly didn’t look like much had changed at all! It was amazing to see what I remembered so vividly was accurate! I loved that stop.
Evening fishing was fun! We watched a beautiful sunset and caught a bunch of little fish right off the dock at camp.