Doing Our Own Thing

When we went on this trip to St. Augustine, Florida with some of our family it was actually our 32nd wedding anniversary.
We usually go off by ourselves on a trip for our anniversary but this vacation was right on our special day.

So that is why I am starting out with these pictures of us.

My "Sweet honey" is so good to me.
He has taught me a lot in the last 32 years.
His father passed away when "Sweet honey" was only 10 years old and you would think that he would not know how to be a good father and husband since he didn't have an example in his life.

But he is the best husband, father, & grandfather. He is a hard worker and has always been my provider and protector. My Sister in law & I often talk about how blessed we are with these 2 brothers. They are good Godly men.
Happy Anniversary Sweet Honey!
(It was actually on Sept. 1)

Here we are doing our own thing.
I am cutting out a pattern. I will tell you more about that later.
This is my kind of vacation. I love doing whatever you want to.

Here is Mom helping "Trouble" with college homework!
I am not sure that homework is what "Trouble" wanted to do.
But you gotta do what you gotta do, right?


Isn't Mom beautiful?

Speaking of beautiful........."Angel" is doing crafts.

Here Mom is doing her favorite thing....reading!

"Trouble" is multitasking.

This man has got it made!

There were 2 citrus trees in the back yard of the house we stayed in.

One was a lemon tree and one was mandarin oranges.

The trees were small but full.

Me & Mom

They are checking out the beautiful fish pond at this restaurant.

Trouble & Angel

On one of our tours the tour guide told us that Spanish moss was not really Spanish moss.

He told us what its real name was but I can't remember. But I do remember that he told us that the moss has chiggers in it. He told us a story of how someone had a mattress filled with Spanish moss and they were covered with chigger bites. I looked that up when I got home and read that it was a myth. So who knows?

When we weren't on tours or eating out we were back at the house doing our own thing.

This is a game that we played. It was so much fun. I had never heard of it.

As you can tell "Angel" won this time!!!

We had a lot of fun.

St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the United States. You can visit museums, the oldest school house, Flagler College which was the Ponce de leon Hotel. You can see the beautiful brick streets that lead to many historical churches and much more. There is so much history here. It really is an amazing place.
This is the bay right inside the city. It was just beautiful. It was so much fun and great to spend time with family. Mom read books, Trouble did homework and tests, Angel also worked on school work and did crafts. Sweet honey rested and I worked on a sewing project. My favorite thing was that we all did our our own thing. It was a fun and relaxing trip.

The Old Jail

Mom was so anxious to go into this jail she was first in line! This jail was built in 1891 and could house up to 72 prisoners for 60 years. It is one of the few surviving 19th century jails.

The jail was built by the same company that later built Alcatraz and was bankrolled by oil and railroad billionaire Henry Flagler. If you visit this historic city you will find out that Henry Flagler built most everything there.

This is a tour of a jail in St. Augustine, Fl.
It is so interesting hearing the history of the jail.
Back then they hung people for doing wrong.
The people that walked us through the tour acted real tough and mean just to show us how it really was. This prison housed prisoners until 1953 before becoming a historic attraction.
We actually walked inside the jail cells.
This looks like a real person but it is just a wax model.
I wish I had got pictures of the kitchen. It was really neat.
The men in the jail worked outside and the women cooked and cleaned.

This model shows a elderly man that was sick.
There are 4 cells in each jail. There is a bunk above him and then 2 beds on the left side.
That little aisle is all the room that they have.

Ahhhh! Look who this is!! Angel is in jail!

Then we headed to the sheriffs quarters. The family lived right in the jail building.
This is one of the children's rooms.
I love that crazy quilt.

Isn't this sweet? You can tell they were playing in the floor with these toys.

I wonder if the children realized that right on the other side of their quarters were some of the meanest prisoners ever.

I loved this. I love old things. The sheriff sure lived a lot better than the prisoners.

When you look on the outside of this prison you think it is a beautiful hotel.

It was even pink. But then you go on the inside and it was actually scary.

Everywhere we go there is always a sewing machine!

Do you think that is a sign for me to get to sewing???
I wonder if the sheriff's wife sewed or if she had someone do it for her.

This is the sheriffs room. Him and his wife have a nicer room than those cells.

St. Augustine is a historic city and we didn't see all of it. This is our second year going there and we are trying to see something different every time we go.

******************

Snippets From My Heart

Are you tired of seeing St. Augustine? It is not like the typical Florida trip - that is for sure.

I love history. I wish I had loved it in school. It is funny how when you are young and carefree you would never think that you would like to learn later on in life. I guess we all wish we could go back and do it over. I sure do. I would not actually want to go back to that age. I love my life but I try to learn everything I can. I always think of Granny and her word search puzzles. She said you can never learn too much. My Mom is another great example. She is so smart about history. Actually she is smart about everything!!! When I was younger and had 4 small children and sometimes was so overwhelmed with the every day life of raising them I had a very good friend come over to my house. She was an amazing woman. There was nothing she could not do. Anyway, one thing I will always remember that she told me was to not let one day go by that you don't do something for "yourself" and always learn something "new" every day even if it is just a new word. Good advice, huh?

Old Drug Store Tour

This is another historic place we toured. This is actually a working drug store but they had all of the history of how it used to be.
Look at this little sewing machine!

This is herbs and stuff where they make their own meds.

Well, I'll be.......................another sewing machine!

Now this is old.

A baby sewing machine!

This old drug store was on our trolley tour in St. Augustine.

We could walk through it and stay as long as we wanted.

I think this is the old soda fountain counter.

They had a room with just dolls.

Isn't she pretty?

My Mother has made many dolls like this.

Trouble & Angel

Me & Mom

(Can you tell I am sick? I was faking it really good.)

Tour Of Old Homes

This was the second best thing that we did while in St. Augustine, Florida.

It is a tour of old historic homes.

I thought the bird on this shutter was neat.


Most of these homes were for rich people way back when.
You can just tell.

I want this dough bowl!!!!
I want it bad!

I love this old stove too!

Oh I could decorate really good with these things.

Every room had some kind of wood heater.
This room looks like it is ready for a family to come and sit down and eat.

Enjoy the pictures.

I think these people were rich.

I used to have one of these. I sold it in a yard sale.

What was I thinking?

"Angel" asked me what this was for. She was so cute.

I told her this sure makes us thankful for our bathrooms and she agreed.

I need this at the Sparta Hilton. It would make a great washing station for outside.

A Harp with no strings. I guess they had to remove them because of people touching it.

This crazy quilt was at the foot of a bed on a trunk.

Life was good in this room.

Peace.

I want this too!

Pantry

This is one of the rich peoples homes. My Mother has a sister who had a house years ago that was furnished like this.

Yep, they were rich.

This is a close up view of the crazy quilt above that is laying on that bed.

I would love to have this too!

This house had running water and a commode.

I just loved this little picture. This made me think of my blogging friend, "Allie".
I could just see her doing something with this picture. I don't even know if she likes cats but she can make the cutest things. Go check out her lemon tree!

Well that is the end of the "Tour Of Homes" in St. Augustine Florida. I believe it was a total of 9 different homes. I just took random pictures as we walked through. I hope you enjoyed coming along!