The Sherman Invitational

From May 12-15, Shaun played in the 83rd annual Sherman Invitational, an amateur golf tournament held at the Panama Country Club. I had some personal leave days that were about to expire before the end of the school year, so I took Thursday and Friday off to go cheer on my golfer. It ended up that he had a golf cart to himself for the first two rounds on Friday and Saturday, so I even got to ride along with him! It was fun to watch him play again, and he was only one spot away in the standings from taking home some money. Here's some photos from the weekend of my favorite golfer!

Saturday morning was the start of Round 2. Shaun's tee time was 7:36, so we arrived at the course at 6:30, which meant we left our house at 6:00. Then when Shaun was getting ready to tee off, one of those famous Florida thunderstorms rolled in off the water and we had an hour of rain delay. If only we could have spent it sleeping...

On this par-3, Shaun was inches from a hole-in-one. This was his putt-in for a birdie. If you click on the picture you can see better just where exactly his ball landed. It was the most exciting hole of the weekend! If only.... :)

The best looking golfer anywhere! I was so proud to be his fan that weekend!

St. Augustine -- Part 2

Our first morning in St. Augustine started with it's largest landmark -- the Castillo de San Marcos. It is the oldest fort in America (construction began in 1672) and was used as recently as World War II to hold war deserters. It's made of coquina shell rock, which is similar to limestone. The coquina held up remarkably well to artillery and cannons, absorbing the shock. This was part of the reason the fort was never defeated, despite some serious siege attempts, one lasting two months!

Enjoying the breeze by the cannons.

A view looking down into the fort from the top. Can you imagine 1,500 people and their livestock living in here during a 2-month siege?

Spying on intruders

St. Augustine also is home to the oldest wooden one-room schoolhouse, so of course I had to take a picture outside of it! But we opted to eat popcorn and popsicles instead of paying the entrance fee to see it.

Walking around a cute tourist town like St. Augustine provides for lots of quirky shops to peek in. One of our favorites was Pop'N Off, a gourmet popcorn shop. They had dozens of flavors (and ship from their website!) and many to sample. We tried dill pickle, strawberries and champagne, and peanut butter and jelly, but eventually settled on buying a bag of half tiramisu and half dark chocolate caramel. Yum!!


Another cute find was The Hyppo, a gourmet popsicle shop. They made popsicles from all-fresh, mostly-local ingredients. They had crazier flavors like pineapple cilantro and cucumber lemon mint. Mine was mango champagne (SO good!) and Shaun ordered a key lime (also SO good).

Side note: Shaun wore an Auburn shirt, and in the Hyppo as well as from a passing car, we got two "War Eagles" hollered at us! (I know Caroline and Ashley would be proud! War Eagle!)

We finished our evening with St. Augustine's number one attraction, according to TripAdvisor.com -- the History, Mystery, Mayhem, and Murder guided walking tour. It sounded a little more appealing than your typical ghost tour. We followed our guide Dion around the town learning about pirates, scandals, massacres, and exploding corpses (no lie!) that color St. Augustine's past. This was one of the cemeteries we stopped by.

Dion in front of an inn that used to be a funeral parlor in the early 1900s.

Stay tuned for Part 3 -- Shaun's favorite day! :)

St. Augustine -- Part 1

Shaun and I live for adventure. Adventure in that we love to make memories with one another, mostly through travel experiences.

But travel can get expensive... fast. And being military, we have the rare privilege of living in new places on a fairly regular basis. So our philosophy while living in Florida has been to see everything we want to within driving distance. Disney? Check. New Orleans? Check. Atlanta? Check.

It makes sense (both logical and economical) to just bloom where you're planted. And right now, we're planted in Northwest Florida. Therefore, we had another city on our local-ish map we had to check off for a 4-day spring break trip: St. Augustine, Florida; the nation's oldest city.

Another philosophy of ours -- when making memories traveling, few are made within the four walls of your lodging accomodations, so you shouldn't break the bank on where you sleep. Because of this philosophy, we have fallen in love with Priceline.com, the website where you can name your own price for a hotel. We've done it for each of the aforementioned cities, and St. Augustine would be no exception. Priceline is ideal for big cities, but we found that this strategy is a little harder for less populated areas. So when we got our hotel, we weren't quite sure what our 2-star, $32-a-night motel would end up looking like.

Ends up we had a mini fridge (perfect for cheap breakfasts), a microwave (perfect for a couple cheap lunches), and internet service (perfect for searching restaurants and sights as needed) with clean sheets and a pretty clean bathroom. We were pumped! Our adventure was off to a great start!

A photo of our room later on in the trip... a little scattered from unpacking, but you get the idea.

We had left home after work on Friday afternoon. After the 300-mile trek to St. Augustine, we were hungry for dinner. TripAdvisor.com had Cellar 6 listed as the #4 rated restaurant and it was suggested for romantic dinners, so why not?

We each ordered a glass of red wine and then chose two tapas to split between the two of us --
a duck confit flatbread pizza with carmelized pears, goat cheese, and arugula and a crab-stuffed portabella mushroom with remoulade sauce. Both were DELICIOUS! We loved it!

Far and away the coolest menu I've ever seen. The drink menu had backlights like a computer screen so that the dim lighting couldn't hinder your ability to order another glass of wine. Genius!

We passed the Wax Museum on our way back to our car, and when Shaun saw the Yoda in the window... well, take a picture we must.

With all the attractions closed for the evening, we ended up driving to a Publix on our way back to the hotel and grabbing a cup of ice cream for dessert and watching a Netflix movie. Keep posted for the rest of our adventure....

Counting Down

My friend Lisa, whom you saw here, is always wowing me with her cute, creative crafts that she makes. From colorful tissue paper Easter centerpieces to the custom wedding and birth announcements she designs, I am always impressed.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I told Lisa that I only had 30 days left with my class before summer break. We excitedly started making plans about how we can spend afternoons together once my days were freed up -- shopping, gym trips, beach trips, lunch dates, you name it! I came home from work that Monday and was greeted with a cute creation of Lisa's on our front door.





I was so excited! Each flower had a number 1-30 with a Starburst candy taped to it. Needless to say, the countdown has continued next to our front door, and that little sugar pick-me-up has helped me get through the last four weeks. (How is it that teachers get more excited for summer than students?!)

And look, Lisa! We're now down to only 9 days left! Woo hoo!!!

Tyndall's Air Show

Tyndall Air Force Base hosted the Gulf Coast Salute, an air show on March 26th and 27th. (I know, I know... I am so incredibly behind in blogging!) We went with some of our good friends who are stationed at Tyndall with us -- Denis and Lisa. We brought lawn chairs and enjoyed watching the stunts and performances by all of the amazing aircraft. Our favorite was the finale -- the Thunderbirds! (How can you not love watching them?)

Me, pressing all sorts of buttons in an E-9!

Lisa and I sitting in a C-17 -- It's huge!

A real, live hovercraft! Shaun tried to ask the guy some questions about how fast it could go and such, but was answered with "I can't disclose that information." Sweet!
This plane landed on top of the truck as it was driving down the runway. It took a couple of tries because of the wind, but it was cool.






A man rigged his school bus to shoot 75-foot flames out the back of it. Not only that, but it reached speeds of 350 MPH.

This is one of the tricks that the Thunderbirds do, when they seemingly fly two of the planes right at each other and then swerve right at the last moment to graze past each other.

And last, but not least, the United States Air Force's Thunderbirds!