Sunny Beaches ... Fresh Oysters

During Ryan's last week in Florida, my dad and mom flew out from Colorado, making it a family affair! We had so much fun together -- going out to eat, church worship night, a canoe trip, movie night, lots of card games and Liar's Dice, and of course a couple days out at the beach!

Considering sand dollars are my favorite finds on the beach, I was pumped to see the boys' spoils from snorkeling.

After the beach we went to a Panama City staple: Hunt's Oyster Bar. It's been in business since the '60s and has some of the best Apalachicola oysters you can find, and at only $4.95 a dozen, we ordered 4 dozen to share!

It's sad to think that this was our last time to have family visit in Florida, but I guess next time we'll just have to show them around SoCal! Love you guys, and thanks again for coming to visit us; we had a blast! :)

PS- Please forgive all the photo editing. Someone just discovered PicNik.com. :)

Brotherly Love

My brother Ryan came out to visit for three weeks in July. This was his first visit to our Florida home, and will be the last since we're moving in December. Unfortunately many of his days were filled with Floridian thunderstorms, which allowed for lots of sleeping in, Netflix, and reading. Occasionally the sun would reappear, leaving us with the chance to go to the pool or beach. Here's some snippets from his trip:

The boys grillin' out on the playground next to our house.

We decided to try something new while Ryan was out with us -- renting jet skis for a 2-hour dolphin tour!

We got the jet skis up to 83 mph (which freaked me out as a passenger, helplessly hitting wakes and being thrown into my driver's back) and most importantly, spent time swimming alongside a mommy dolphin and her young baby. Shaun dove down and touched the mom, regretting that we left our snorkel masks in the car. We didn't have a camera with us either, but this picture I found on trip advisor gives a good idea of what our experience was like.

This photo of Sunshine Watersports of P.C. is courtesy of TripAdvisor

After a hot afternoon in the southern sun and water, one must regain energy through calories. And if those calories come in rib-and-pulled-pork form from a local hot spot (namely Sea Breeze BBQ's food truck on Tyndall Parkway), then all the better!

Brothers-in-law out for dinner on Panama City Beach before a worship night.

Shaun was happy to have a playmate at the beach. Though I will occasionally get in the water to cool off, I prefer the sand. With Ryan, however, Shaun had a partner in snorkeling!

Ryan came out during his 23rd birthday, which we filled with sushi at our favorite sushi place (note: raw conch is chewier than you'd think) and lots of ice cream!

We were honored that you chose to celebrate with us, Ryan, and that you took the time to come spend some time with your nerdy big sister ("Ryan, go stand next to the open sign!") and brother-in-law. We love you!

Oh, and when we move to LA, you better not wait 2 years before coming to visit! :)

Thunderstorms

There are few things I love more than waking up to a thunderstorm and having nowhere to be.

I woke up this morning in just such a scenario and took my own precious time laying in bed and listening to the rain hit my window. But what good is a storm without snuggling up in a blanket with a book and a steaming mug? So I came downstairs and, after opening all of our blinds, made some hot tea and grabbed my book.

Florida, hands-down, has the best thunderstorms I've ever witnessed. There are the peaceful morning storms that roll in off the water, like this morning, and then there are the powerful, wild ones that wake you in your sleep and leave you with pre-Edison technology. The rain comes in torrents, the thunder shakes the sky, and the lightning streaks through the clouds.

We had a thunderstorm a couple months ago that took our power out a couple of times. The rain was literally coming sideways. We stepped out on our screened-in porch to watch at one point, and in the blink of an eye, the wind shifted. We could barely make the two steps inside before we were soaked clear through our clothes! We took a little video of it from our front door:

Note that in the video, it is not 10 pm, rather 5:30 pm, and our door has a awning that stretches a good four feet from the door!

St. Augustine -- Finale

On our last morning in St. Augustine, we made a couple quick stops before heading back home. Stop #1: Whetstone Chocolate Factory for a passion fruit and mango macaron.

Stop #2

We had planned to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by eating lunch at Meehan's Irish Pub, but my mental calendar was a day off -- so instead we ate on March 16th. The Irish clam chowder and Guinness Beef Sliders were delicious!

Stop #3: Crucial Coffee Cafe, a little coffee shop that had high ratings on TripAdvisor.com. My frilly coffee-drinking self chose a Snickers Cappuccino, and it was pretty good! :)

Stop #4: the Love Tree cafe.

This tree was unlike anything I had ever seen, and a perfect illustration for a quote I read recently (see below). After our photo, we loaded up the car and left to drive back home, refueled by yet another weekend adventure that we had the privilege to share together.

"Love is a temporary madness.

It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.

And when it subsides, you have to make a decision.

You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.

Because this is what love is.

Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion.

That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,

and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.

Your mother and I had it;

we had roots that grew towards each other underground,

and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches,

we found that we were one tree and not two."

-- Louis de Bernieres (Captain Corelli's Mandolin)

St. Augustine -- Part 3

Tuesday morning started with Shaun's part of the trip -- the World Golf Hall of Fame. It was a great museum about the history of the game and showcasing those proud few who've earned the honors of being inducted. The tickets included a temporary exhibit on Bob Hope, which was my favorite part of the museum.

Like a kid in a candy store -- Inside the gift shop

Testing out the putters on the astroturf green

The museum had a simulation of the famous Swilcan Bridge from the oldest golf course in the world -- St. Andrews in Scotland. Maybe someday, Shaun, maybe someday...

The evolution of the putter.

The top level of the museum held one of each of the majors' tournament trophies. My favorite part of the room, however, was the ceiling. 126 names of inductees spiraled in the shape of the perfect golf swing on the floor, and suspended above them were crystals in the same.

The tickets

included playing a virtual hole of golf as well as a challenge shot, modeled after hole-17 at the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass. I gave Shaun my shot as well so he had a chance at landing 2 on the green for a poster. And get a poster he did! Yay, Shaun!

We played an 18-hole putting course after the museum. Shaun gave me an incredibly generous handicap, but I needed every bit of it!

With his gifting of a stroke allowance on every other hole, I won by a stroke!

After Shaun came down from his golfer high, it was back to old St. Augustine to see what else the city had to offer....

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This is the Oldest House Museum that dates back to the early 1700s. While tempted to tour it, we decided to just take a quick picture instead. (All the separate museum fees can really mess with your budget....)

We went to the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum later that afternoon when we came back from the golf museum. Newly reopened from it's original home in Key West, the museum was founded by Pat Croce, an avid pirate fan since he was a boy. His collection in the museum was extensive and there were so many Disney-esque animatronics and interactive features that kept us busy for quite a while! Unfortunately, there were no pictures allowed in the museum, so we had to settle with just this one of us in the stocks. Yo ho ho!

Ahh... dinner at a cute little French bistro downtown for a relaxingly slow meal.

Baguette slices and cups of a creamy mushroom/cauliflower soup compliments of the chef! The soup was amazing!

Escargots! I almost pulled a "Pretty Woman moment," but thankfully the waiter came over and showed me how to hold the shell in the tongs so it doesn't go flying across the room. :)

Coq au Vin and a seafood bisque/risotto like meal.... both were so good!

The day ended with some dark chocolate covered coconut and almond bark from Savannah's Sweets, so you know it was a good day!

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! :)