Weekend getaway

Jason's Astronomy assignment, the end (kind of) of his grueling July hours, and the last weekend before school starts prompted a mini-vacation.
After staying up late cleaning, packing a suitcase, snacks, and pool floaties, we got up early Saturday morning to head to Jacksonville. Starbucks-fueled.
Our first stop was Cracker Barrel for pancakes. Poppy stole the lemon off my water and made a variety of hilarious faces...

Another hour drive and we made it to the zoo!

Zoo train

James saw this tiny little marmoset and kept going on about how cute the tiny monkey was.

The animals were as tired and hot as we were. These monkeys were hiding out in a shady corner like sleepy teenagers. They wouldn't even look at us!

James found his spirit animal: the otter. He was so proud! He said, "It looks just like OE!" (his stuffed otter)

Afterward we headed to the MOSH museum. Jason took the boys to a star show in the planetarium (for one of the papers he's writing). Poppy and I explored the museum. There was a really cool dinosaur exhibit with video games and computers. The giant dinosaur skull replicas totally freaked her out though. She'd take one look and run away as fast as her little legs took her!

After the show, the boys wanted in on the video games too!

We found our hotel (eventually), had a lot of drama (they booked us into a single bed room, charged us for a roll-away bed, blegh), and spent a little time in the pool. The kids loved it.
After we pruned, we headed to find the beach and dinner. First stop--Eastwinds!

Even if it's not the little beachside motel with the pool and patio-faucet anymore, its still nostalgic to see the name written on a sign. Like a grave marker. Happy to bring back the memories, to know that buried under the giant condo building its in there somewhere. The beach is still there. Its the same beach I dug holes in, found a crazy looking dead fish with teeth on, made sand sculptures with my cousins on. It's the same foamy water that Grandaddy hovered me over, dipped my toes in, when I was as little as Poppy is now. Time stands still.

Our good ol' Dairy Queen is still there, too. I remember being little, out on one of those umbrella-covered tables outside our motel room and hearing all the grown-ups talking about going to get blizzards. I thought (and probably said out loud) "it's going to snow in Florida??!"
We stopped there for dinner (ice cream).
James was so tired (he was the only one who hadn't had a cat-nap in the car), he was about to fall asleep in his dip-cone.

We were all wiped out. We folded out the roll-away bed and the crib and tried to figure out sleeping arrangements.

And discovered the fun of jumping on hotel beds.

And turned Poppy's crib into a ride. There was so much stomping and giggling going on, I'm pretty sure we annoyed the hotel enough to make up for the hassle.

In the morning we snagged some breakfast downstairs and headed out to the pool before checkout.

When we checked out, the hotel lady was super rude and put a huge damper on things. I had a fruitless call with Priceline about our experience. So Jason got me some Starbucks to chill out.
We got to the beach parking lot next to Eastwinds (I had really really wanted to spend some time on my old stomping grounds and it just wouldn't have been the same if we had to go to a different spot) and it was filled up. I prayed for a break, for peace with all the hotel drama, that we could get to that spot on the beach. And sure enough, at the end of that lot two brake lights lit up right ahead of us. We got the spot!!

That's Eastwinds Condominums right behind my sand-baby.

The boys were braver than they've ever been in the water. They kept asking to go out, deeper and deeper. They jumped through waves, put their faces in it, let it wash over their heads. Riley wanted me to hold his arms so he wouldn't float away while he jumped.

Poppy was (as usual) brave herself. She kept running toward the water, heading out to the deeper waters with her brothers. No sitting in the shallow end for this girl. She's a water baby.

We had an amazing weekend together. It was so wonderful to get to spend time with each other, a change of scenery, try new things, remember old things. It was the perfect way to end summer vacation.