Searching for our tree of life

So we're back from St. Augustine. We had a really good time. On Monday Jeremy was pretty much over the cold he had, but I felt horrible (mostly sinus pressure/headache) and Jakob still had a bit of a cough. I didn't know if me and Jakey were going to be able to go with Jeremy, but I was pretty much determined that we would try. On Tuesday I woke up feeling much better, and Jakob woke up in a good mood, so we packed up the car and left the house about 9:30 in the morning. We hit Orlando about 12-12:30. I don't know how many of you have ever been to Orlando but it just screams excitement and fun. We're driving on I-4 and there's billboard after billboard of Disney, Universal, Sea World...I am soooo ready to go to Disney! We have a lot of Disney movies for Jakob to watch on video. At the beginning of almost every Disney video there is a commercial about parents taking their kids to Disney. Every time it comes on one of us either Jeremy or I will look at the other one longingly seriously wishing we could take Jakob there tomorrow. Whichever parent is still sane will remind the other that Jakob is too young for Disney right now and wouldn't even really enjoy it. We are waiting till he can actually have a clue what's going on and then we are definitely taking him! I don't know when the day will be, but I'm so excited for it already. Anyways, back to the story...we made it to St. Augustine around 2:30 or 3:00. We checked in to the hotel parked around back because we had a beachside room!!! Whew-hoo! Our room was only on the first floor, so we couldn't actually see the beach because of the sand dunes outside but I'll take looking at sand dunes over a paved parking lot any day. There was also a little porch connected to our room, so that was nice too. Before we unpacked or anything we took Jakob over to the little playground and he climbed stairs and played and slid down the slides for a while. The surf was really rough, it was starting to sprinkle when we arrived so we looked at the beach, but didn't go down to it. We unloaded all our stuff and hung out a while. For dinner we went right across the street to a seafood restaurant...the name escapes me right now, but it was soooo good! The whole time we lived in Georgia we would talk about seafood, but we knew there wasn't any fresh seafood there, so we would just say "when we visit home we need to go eat seafood." I had grilled shrimp and Jeremy had fried fish (grouper, I think) that was huge and shrimp. I ordered Jakob cheese ravioli thinking he might like it, but he ended up eating some of my sweet potatoes and a lot of daddys fried fish. Even with both of them eating that fish we took some back to the hotel with us. Wednesday Jeremy was in meetings all day with his bosses. Fortunately the hotel they were having the meetings in was across the street from ours, so he just walked over there and I kept the car. Me and Jakob went driving in downtown St. Augustine. It is so pretty there. We have decided we want to go again, because we just didn't have enough time to sightsee. Everything is within walking distance-or riding distance (lots of people rent bikes and ride). I found a little street market on the beach next to the pier (for those of you who know what I'm talking about it's like the seafood festival, but a little smaller) There was food there and people were selling crafts they made and jewelry and all kinds of stuff. Next we went to the beach. It was not really warm, so I didn't wear my bathing suit, and I didn't put Jakob in his swim trunks. I figured we'd just get our feet wet and that was it. Well, I guess I forgot how much Jakob liked Sanibel Island. He just ran straight to the water and sat down in it. He loved sitting in the water as the waves washed up to him. The waves even knocked him flat on his back and washed over his whole face (I had to grab him up and salt water got on my phone in my pocket and now my phone doesn't work!!!) and once I picked him up he got back down and ran straight back to the water. I definitely need to get the child some swim lessons! Once Jeremy got done with work (around 4) we headed to Fort Marion which is downtown. We met up with all the other employees that were in town for dinner. I got to meet Nichole, the girl who works with Jeremy doing invasive species work. She's a nice girl. I also got to meet all of Jeremy's bosses , they were all really cool. Dinner was another story. It took this place an hour and a half to get our food. It was well after 7:30 by the time we ate and Jakob was not a happy camper. I couldn't blame him. Thursday Jeremy was only in meetings till 12, then we went to Ripley's believe it or not. The one in St. Augustine is the original one. It's in this castle like house. I was a little nervous, because I don't like scary things, but it was cool. They have this tunnel that is spinning, and you walk through it and you feel like you're turning in circles. When we were standing in it Jakob was not reacting at all, so we took him out of his stroller and let him walk through it. It was so funny. He kept bending over and putting his hands on the ground because he thought he was falling over. He ran out of the tunnel (to me) but he was smiling so big. After that he kept running right up to the entrance of the tunnel, but he would not go back in :) I was so proud of how brave he was. After Ripleys we went to the fountain of youth. Where Ponce De Leon first discovered Florida. They give you water from the spring and you can drink it. It smelled like rotten eggs (sulfur) but I drank some anyways, just so I can say I've drank from it, and Jeremy drank some. They have peacocks just walking around there. They see so many people that they are not afraid of you. Jeremy was watching a video about the discovery of Florida and I had to get up and leave because Jakob was getting restless. While we were waiting for Jeremy this peacock walked right up to Jakob. Jakob didn't know what to think of this big huge bird, he was a little timid and scared of it. Eventually it wandered away from him. After the fountain of youth we got on the road and headed home. We had a great little mini vacation