St. Augustine | making the trek

For the past four years, some of my girlfriends and I have had the amazing luxury of (ridiculously cheap) access to a phenomenal beach house in St. Augustine. It is large enough to grant each of us “space”, even if there are 8 or 10 of us (this year 4 of us) and comfortably decorated enough to not feel lost in the enormity of the house. Generally, we go in November and do some “Christmas shopping” but this year we opted for a post-holiday season retreat (November was booked..) and THAT was a seriously good call!! And so, enjoy a (mostly) photo essay of the weekend!

Friday evening. Subs for dinner @ 8:30 p.m. and a chick flick.

Saturday morning. Peaceful. Quiet. Sunshiney.

A walk on the beach. And surfers, too! With snow in the Northeast this morning, THIS is the reason “snowbirds” got it goin’ on!!

I did NOT make my bed!!

Antiquing pre-lunch waiting for our name to be called at Osteen’s. (cash only, baby! super yum, super reasonable and worth the wait!…..about an hour!)

A one-man band.

Cobblestone streets.

Courtyards.

Graveyards.

The Cathedral.

Cupcakes @ Luli’s! Yes. I ate the WHOLE thing. and I didn’t take a picture. SO. FLIPPIN’. DELICIOUS!

Boots with the fur…the whole club was looking at her….(thanks, Flo-Rida…that’s all the lyrics I know, though, so you’ll have to YouTube it yourself, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to link here….)

Dinner. Out. Of course! Creekside. Sister restaurant to Saltwater Cowboys. Both are wonderful!

Sunday morning after Mass. One more walk on the beach…

My favorite elementary school field trip: St. Augustine, Florida. Fourth graders, charter bus, and as much history (and a little shopping) as you can shove down their sweet little throats in five hours! And I absolutely LOVE it and so do they. Fortunately, we live close enough (kind of) that we’ve also been able to visit as a family a few times as well to enjoy it at our own pace without the constraints of a scheduled tour, tired classmates and stressed teachers doing constant head counts (for which I am grateful).

This was my third time chaperoning (and I get to do it again next year for the last time) and I let my daughter have the camera and get the sights from her perspective. The results? I will be handing her the camera more frequently….

She’s a mini-me: (obviously she didn’t take this…I did…the rest are hers!)

She was fascinated by the Spanish settlement, how their faith (and ours) was EVERYwhere, seeing how they lived, growing their gardens, caring for livestock, cooking their meals, preparing their own leather goods and the sturdy carpentry skills.