St. Augustine Beach Getaway

We hadn’t had a getaway in close to three years and I’ve been wanting to take the boys to the beach for the past two summers.  We finally did it last weekend!

The first thing Josiah wanted to do was play in the sand.  He later said it was his favorite part.Here is one of the few pictures I appear in since I am usually on the backside of the camera.  It shows my darker side :)

         My handsome boys!  I love Elijah’s crazy tousled red hair!

“An airplane!  I’m going to eat it!”

I grew up going to the beaches of Anna Maria Island, but everyone up here raves about St. Augustine Beach, so that is where we decided to go.  Well, maybe it was because of the storm brewing causing the non-ideal conditions, but I think I’ve been spoiled by the beaches down home.  While the skies were beautiful and the temperature perfect, the water was too cold and too rough to get in past my knees, particularly holding a kid for dear life, and the beaches were being rebuilt, resulting in shelly sand and distorted beaches.  Also, the beaches are SO wide and you can’t see the beach from the road, so you don’t know where is a good place to go.  That was all an adjustment for someone who is used to peaceful water, soft white sand, and being able to drive right on the coast to find a spot that suits your fancy.  Despite having to adjust my expectations, we had a fabulous time and the boys thought it was great!

I love the coloring, reflection, and shadowing of this picture!

The three Elijahs: he’s checkin’ out his shadow in one direction and his reflection in the other.

Look how wobbly they look here.  Both kids had trouble keeping their balance when the waves came up and swept over their feet.  You know the disorienting feeling I’m talking about?  Mister Independent, Elijah, insisted on walking into the water by himself, though, so we just had to be ready to catch him.

Josiah and Jacob had fun playing chase in the shallow water:   

Elijah enjoyed playing in the sand on the shore.  The occasional wave came along and I can still here his response of an initial quick breath with a jump followed by a musical “ooooaaahhhh” as the water swept over him.  So cute!       

 

Our little runner.  Running is Josiah’s favorite pastime and he finds opportunity to enjoy it everywhere he goes!  Just look at that form!

 

Childlike freedom!

Elijah is starting to join in the fun, too!   Ooops!  Mommy and Daddy were too slow!  He had a disorienting run-in with a wave resulting in a spill!

  But all was well!

We debated for weeks trying to decide if we should just get a cheap hotel or splurge on a condo with a spare room and kitchen.  We opted for the cheap hotel and it was a good choice.  It was a good location and had an indoor pool, something I was counting on with all the rain we’ve had.  It turns out we had great weather, but it was still nice to use the pool without lathering sunscreen on four bodies.  It was our first experience having all four of us in one room for an extended time.  We were leery, but it went as good as can be expected.  I took children’s Benadryl just in case, but I never used it :)

The water was rough.  Only the surfers were in past their knees: This is part of the rebuilt beach…a 3 foot drop in the sand and a useless pier.

   Elijah spent a lot of time following the birds :)

    These blue eyes, pink lips, and red hair make my heart melt!

More bird chasing: If he’s not running, he’s jumping!

 

The “big” problem we had on our trip was that Jacob ran over a turtle on the way there.  Granted we fared better than the turtle, but unfortunately we hit it hard enough that it did something to our car resulting in a major vibration on the passenger side floor board.   $100 at the mechanic fixed that problem.  The funny thing is that before we hit the turtle, a lady had pulled over to go rescue it, but because her vehicle was on the side of the road we had no where to go to avoid it.  Jacob saw her expressing her frustrations in his rearview mirror after we ruined her mission.

A second favorite to sand was the splash park on the beach.  It was an awesome way to rinse the beach off.

We also learned that a three year old boy can singlehandedly use the entire word allowance per day for all four of us in a single car/hotel room.  And next time DON’T tell him that we hit a turtle because he’ll insist on seeing it for the next three days.  (At one point he asked where the turtle was going and we told him we didn’t know.  He said it must have been going to see his mommy.  I figured if his mommy was in heaven, then that may just be true!)  It is also wise to schedule a trip around your 17 month old’s molar teething.

We visited a park with a boardwalk to the beach before leaving town.  The boys loved this, too.  

Sweetly enough, Josiah asked to go home each night.  He is pretty attached to his bed (he won’t even nap with me in our bed) and doesn’t really enjoy sleeping away from home even though he does really well.  However, by the last day, he LOVED the hotel room and begged to stay.  Perhaps it was the HBO since he got to watch a few new cartoons and Monster Trucks that morning while we packed.

Fun times!  Thanks for hanging in there with all the pictures.  I narrowed them down quite a bit, but my little family is so beautiful, that narrowing it down anymore was impossible!  Besides, this is our photo album.