We celebrated our 12th anniversary in St. Augustine for about a week! It was the most time that I've spent exploring a town so close to where I grew up (as well as the most time we've ever been away from our kids), but we were so grateful for the opportunity! When our anniversary cruise was becoming questionable during the early days of COVID-19, my parents graciously offered their timeshare as a backup plan. At the time, only 2 locations in Florida were available due to the pandemic. I chose St. Augustine because it allowed us to go to the beach even if most other things were closed! Soaking up the sun and time to ourselves was just what we needed.
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| Hiding under the pier when it started raining |
The beach was so refreshing! We went to Vilano, Anastasia, and St. Augustine Beach during our time there. Here's some of our views:
Going to the beach without kids has lots of perks: less people to sunscreen, the ability to read on the beach, playing in the water without worrying about how they're doing, and not having to deal with heading back in time for lunch or naptimes! It was like a different lifestyle! (Of course we missed our kids, but we did have almost 3 full months without a break from them so this time was pretty special!)
We had lots of great food while we were there. My favorite restaurants included Ice Plant (pictured below), Prohibition Kitchen, Back 40 Urban Cafe, and Mojo Old City BBQ. We ate most of our meals at our little condo, but we went out a few times!
We went on a Chocolate tour at Whetstone, which was pretty cool.
We also took a self-guided tour of the St. Augustine Distillery, only to find that the CEO and co-founder's last name is McDaniel!! Here's a piece of their decor from a barrel with our last name on it!
One day, we walked around as the sun was setting and explored some of the downtown area, including the fort. It was beautiful! I especially liked being out past our kids' bedtime!
Throughout our Florida trip, I had a fun time documenting the pandemic for posterity. Here are two of my favorite ones:
We took a similar picture when we first looked at engagement rings almost 13 years ago! It was fun to be back in a very different stage of life!
Meanwhile, back at my parent's home, it was "Grandparent Camp." I received few pictures of all that took place, but I think they were thoroughly spoiled and made some special memories with their grandparents, Uncle Benny, and the cats! It included a homemade "Chuck E. Cheese" time, lots of sugary treats, and movie watching!! They were thrilled!
Drew loved seeing the cats and helping my parents feed them each day.
Kate spent a lot of time at the water table!
Anna's favorite was watching movies! (Side note: she got glasses right before this trip began. Doesn't she look so intelligent?)
One last special memory that I wanted to mention - my mom allowed Anna and Kate to put on some makeup and dress up in her clothes and shoes. I had reminded her of how my grandmother (her mom) did that with me and my cousin Jane and it inspired her to do this with them.
(Side note: Kate makes the funniest faces!)
Shortly after we came back from St. Augustine, it was time to head back to Indiana. It was hard for all 5 of us to leave! In fact, Kate wanted to build a house in the woods next to my parents' house to stay there. They're already looking forward to "Grandparent Camp" next year when we *hopefully* and *finally* make it to that cruise we've been planning for the last 2 years!
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