"Your greatest contribution to the Kingdom of God may not be something you do, but someone you raise." ~Andy Stanley

March 18, 2016

Family Day

We always do a Family Day before Nathan returns to CA after a visit ...and it is about that time again!   Boo-hoo!
He came to stay for 3 months during Hubby's second battle with cancer and he ended up staying 7! What a blessing!

So, we all chose a date in March and all the kids took off work for it and this time the boys got involved in the planning, which meant a trip to Downtown Disney would not suffice. LOL
They were thinking BIG and their first idea was to go to the Dry Tortugas, which is a fort and a National Park 70 miles off of Key West, accessible only by boat. How cool is that?! You take a ferry over and camp and snorkel in that gorgeous water!


-But, actually, the idea of camping 70 miles from civilization kind of freaks me out!
Eventually, the amount of drive time and the price of the ferry changed their minds. Now, it is on everyone's Bucket List, except maybe mine. ; )

Plan B became St Augustine! -Which actually did end up including a road trip, a fort and a National Park too! But no camping!

St. Augustine is America's oldest city, founded by the Spanish in the 1500's.  They have the oldest wooden school house and we walked on America's oldest street.



 The first thing we did was climb all 219 steps of the lighthouse!




Quite the view!




This is one PATIENT woman. This ship model did not come with all the pieces. So she's making the the ones she needs by hand! All the sails, the ropes, the tiny cannons etc...
So glad that Zac's super fun in-laws joined us!
Then we headed to the fort just in time to see them fire a cannon.





Then we went back downtown to do some eating and window shopping.



That night we went on a Mystery and Murder Tour, because we found a Groupon for it. It turned out to be really fun and exceeded our expectations. It was a guided walking tour through the city by lantern light and we got to hear some of the crazy (and somewhat gruesome) true stories about the city's history! Very interesting!

 Hubby and I actually took the kids here years ago and did these very same things with them,  (minus the walking tour with the gory facts!) ; )
but Joy and Andrew don't remember it! So, it was great fun to redo it all!

I can't even begin to imagine how much we are all going to miss Nate when we leaves! But I'm so grateful for every minute that he was here! -And very grateful that we found out we get to keep him an extra week! Hooray!

~Becky

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