The Last But (certainly) Not the Least Day of Fun!!

Tuesday we spent the morning playing hard

on the beach

and in the pool.

 Then we headed to a really neat place...

 

The Georgia Sea Turtle Center

taught us a LOT about sea turtles and how to protect their habitats.

 We also got to see how much this center helps sick and injured sea turtles.

 

(This one is eating some lettuce.)

 We spent a bit more time exploring the rest of the island and it was absolutely beautiful!

 Definitely a trip to treasure!!

Double Dip (back to St. Augustine)

Going back for another dose of history!!  Monday morning we checked out of our room and headed back to St. Augustine for some more exploring.  On the way Sophie read to us the significance of the  

"Castillo de San Marcos.

St. Augustine's most historically significant structure is the Castillo de San Marcos, a fort constructed by the Spanish between 1672 and 1695.
The need to fortify the tiny garrison town was understood as early as 1586, when it was attacked by Sir Francis Drake, an English corsair whose fleet of twenty ships and two thousand men sacked and burned the town.
Later, in 1668, the English pirate Robert Searles assaulted and plundered the settlement. At the same time the threat of English colonization in the north had significantly increased, and Queen Mariana of Spain authorized the construction of a stone fortification."

The time we spent at the fort was so fun.  The girls actually wanted to take a few laps around because they were so amazed at everything from the sleeping quarters...

to where the ammunition was stored.

A 5 minute clip of a movie was shown teaching how the cannons and riffles were loaded to a cadence.  Haleigh would still be sitting there if we hadn't needed to move on eventually.  I'm not sure if it was the funny soldiers all moving in step with the call, the weapons, or the Spanish cadence repeated over and over, but she was intrigued!

 

After much discovery we found a cool spot in the fort and filled out our Jr. Ranger booklet.  It was amazing to see how much the girls had soaked in during this visit.

 

Jr. Ranger pins and badges were collected and the girls were very proud of their "new status."

Nothing could beat our fort experience, but the girls wanted to take stab at it by visiting the Pirate Museum.  It did not even compare with the fort, but there was a LOT of history there too.

We ended the adventure with lunch at a little deli and the lemonade was exactly what we all needed!

With full bellies we headed north to get Mark from his final lecture.  He jumped in the car and steered us toward Jekyll Island, GA.

What a great day!!  

Needless to say, we all slept well that night!

MOSH Sunday

The first exhibit we explored was pretty amazing.  Many human organs were preserved in jars and displayed.  There was streaming video of different surgeries; a colonoscopy, knee replacement, and heart surgery.  Also, there were many interactive learning stations that intrigued the girls.

Next was a fascinating underwater world exhibit.

 The touch tank was a favorite for sure.

 

 The second floor was the most hands on, and of coarse where we spent most of our time.

 Haleigh stationed herself at the liquid magnetic exhibit and taught the rest of us all she had learned. It really was super neat!!

 During our second lap through the museum we were in perfect time to observe and pet some animals.

What a fun day!  How else could we end it than with a great dinner and 

ICE CREAM!!

Saturday in St. Augustine

 

Friday we spent the morning at the pool and then met up with Mark for fun!

We drove to the beach and as we were unloading very excited girls we realized a few things...

1~ it was very cool and the water was even cooler cold

2~ as I packed for our fun outing, I forgot to put in bathing suites :(

But that's ok right, because remember it was cold, who would want to be all the way in the ocean anyway??

 

 

 

 

Honestly, I told Mark I could just stand right in that spot the rest of the day watching these three precious girls fully living,  being the best of friends, enjoying this beautiful creation, and the sweet blessing of the Creator of it all!!

 

After a lot of shaking off sand and shells as the girls changed into the clothes I did pack, we headed to St. Augustine.  I'm telling you, this mamma has absolutely never been a history buff, but homeschooling has done something to me.  

I could not get enough of the history here.

 

But before we could take in too much history, we needed to take in some grub!!  

 Get this, Mark found an organic Mexican restaurant for us.  Yum!  It was so good.

There was so much to take in!  We had to plan another day to come back to see it all, but what we did see was amazing!!

Lots of walking and discovering deserved lots of treating...

 and that is about all we could cram into our sweet Saturday!!