Trip to St. Augustine, Cape Canaveral, and Orlando

Brent had a conference for work in Cape Canaveral, Florida a couple weeks back, so we thought we'd make a family vacation out of it and first stopped off at St. Augustine, Florida, then continued on to Cape Canaveral Florida, then on to the temple in Orlando. It was a great time for all. Lots of great memories.
Here are some pictures of the Castilo de San Marco in St. Augustine, Florida.












This was the place of worship in the castle.


We couldn't resist the carousel ride in downtown St. Augustine. This was probably one of the kids'favorite parts of the entire trip.




Scientists have dated this tree to be at least 600 years old!!

We loved seeing the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the United States. There were lots of beautiful statues in a walking garden weaving throughout the tiny schoolground. This was in St. Augustine, by the way.




This is the kitchen, as you can see.








Meditation Room---hmmm, nice euphemism for the outhouse.







Dudie loved this little puppy statue--so cute.

Here we are on a trolley tour of St. Augustine, Florida. Sorry we don't have the names of most of the buildings--didn't write them down and didn't remember. :(



This is supposed to be one of National Geographic's top ten most beautiful avenues in America. I think it's quite pretty myself.








Statue of Juan Ponce de Leon.




We LOVED the swimming area of the pool in our hotel--gorgeous and very kid friendly. Had an awesome hot tub too.




While Brent was off touring Kennedy Space Center, the kiddos and I went on a fabulous boat tour of Cape Canaveral aboard the Blue Dolphin. We were there with about 12 retirees and it was a blast! A perfect day at sea.

We even got to see a few dolphins--they weren't swimming very fast through the water as I expected, but they were still beautiful.


The locks--da da da!




I think I took like 50 pictures of pelicans--they were everywhere!

A snowy egret--check out those cool bright yellow feet.

The captain let Sissy drive the ship for a few minutes--he was very trusting. :)


Here we are at Coco Beach. The morning was nice and cool and overcast. Loved it.

Camping

We went camping a week or so ago and had a great time! It was our first time trying out Brent's new tent that he got for Christmas. It worked out great--the weather was perfect--not too hot, not too cold. For someone who loves fire like Brent does this was a dream--he was proud that he used only one match to light the fire that lasted from Friday around dinner time all the way through breakfast and had to be doused out with water.
We got to see one raccoon which climbed a tree by our campsite, a friendly little squirrel who wasn't shy about begging food from us, and a beautiful bright red cardinal perched in the tree. After breakfast we drove 5 minutes to the beach for some fun in the sun. It was an ideal location for camping.