The Florida Trip, Part Five: Friday and Saturday

In my last post, I forgot to mention something cute Emrick did when he saw the ocean. Remember that he had just been introduced to the swimming pool the day before he first went down to the ocean. He had gotten the word “pool” down pat, and seemed to enjoy saying it. Well, you can see where this is going. When we took him down to the beach and he looked out over that big expanse of water, he said, “pool,” over and over, with that extra long “ooooo” he likes to use. He sat on the sand with his bucket, looked at the ocean in front of him and said, “poool? poool? poool?” keeping his lips in a perfect pucker.

He’s so darn cute.

FRIDAY

On Friday, we headed down to Old St. Augustine for some shopping and sightseeing.

We brought our stroller with us so that Emrick wouldn’t have to walk or be carried the whole time (we gave him frequent breaks from the stroller, though). And we also brought his hat. I hadn’t been able to find our baby sunblock at the condo before leaving, so I thought maybe the hat would provide enough protection. But once we got there, it was obvious that we would be in the sun most of the time, and so Pookie needed sunblock. On top of that, I was already sporting a sunburn from the day before and I didn’t want to make it worse. So we popped into one of the shops and dropped $8.99 on a tube of sunblock.

We posed Pookie on this cannon before realizing later that you are NOT TO SIT ON THE CANNONS.

The whole family went to St. Augustine, but we divided into groups pretty soon after arriving. So Marcus, Pookie and I were on our own for most of the day. After looking around at several shops (we bought Pookie a t-shirt), we ate lunch and then headed to the Castillo de San Marcos fort.

The last time I had been here was on a class field trip I took when I was in the fourth grade. And you know what? It is exactly how I remembered it.

Almost immediately after arriving, we ducked into one of the many rooms inside the fort, which was shady but did not offer much relief from the heat. I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that this was a hot, hot, hot day.

A little while later, an announcement was made that a cannon would soon be fired from the top level of the fort, so everybody should head to the top level to watch and learn.

The view from the top level of the fort.

Several men in costume were already present next to the cannons when we got upstairs. Before firing the cannon, though, one of these costumed guys gave us a talk filled with historical information. I wasn’t listening too closely, I am afraid (did I mention it was hotttttttttt?), but I definitely caught the part where he explained that the costumes they were wearing were historically accurate reproductions of the originals, which meant that they were also made of wool. WOOL.

By this time, Pookie was being affected by the heat. Though covered in sunblock, his face was red and he was getting pretty sweaty. So we took him out of the stroller and gave him sips from a cold bottle of water.

“Enough talking! Fire the cannon already!”

Pookie points to the area below.

Finally! They fired the cannon!

BOOM!

After the cannon blast, we looked around a little before heading downstairs and heading out.

“DON’T SIT ON THE CANNONS! DON’T SIT ON THE WALL!” said a booming male voice during the cannon demonstration.

Pookie is a little orange dot near the bottom of the stairs. Can you find him?

If not, can you find him NOW?

The trip to the fort more or less concluded our day in St. Augustine. I never did find the “country’s oldest schoolhouse” which I remembered seeing when I was nine. Had it been about fifteen degrees cooler out, I might have been interested in looking for it, but as it was, I was eager to get into the air conditioned car. Pookie, too, had had quite enough of the heat, it seemed. When we got back to the car, my cell phone (which I had accidentally left in it) was hot as an iron, but still working. Then during the drive back to Jacksonville, we had to pull over onto the sandy banks along the A1A to change Pookie’s diaper, which had gotten messy enough that he was very upset about it. And believe me, if you’d seen it, you would’ve been very upset about it, too. 😉

When we got back to the condo, we changed Pookie’s shorts (see paragraph above), and then Marcus headed down to the beach on his own to give that boogie board another go.

Meanwhile, Emrick and I watched from the balcony.

Back inside, Emrick had some fun showing off for cousins Ed and Nick.

That evening, the whole family went to Sticky Fingers, another BBQ place, for dinner. Is eating at Sticky Fingers a family tradition now, just like eating at Woody’s is? I think so!

Uncle Chris (also sunburned!) visits our end of the table to visit with his newest nephew.

After eating, I asked the server to take a picture of our whole group. She took two. In the first one, her finger was covering the flash. D’oh!

But the second one worked out fine.

From front to back on the left: Sinead, Kelly, Clark, Dad, Mom

From front to back on the right: Chris, Anna, Nick, Samantha, Ed, Me.

And of course, Marcus and Emrick are in the back center.

Outside of the restaurant, we took even more family pics, using a bench that was there.

All of Grandma Cinda’s (Mom’s) and Grandpa Ed’s (Dad’s) grandchildren.

All of the kids and grandkids, plus Mom and Dad.

After dinner, we drove back to the beach and we met up at the Dairy Queen on 3rd St. (another family tradition, anyone?). We did not order anything for Emrick because Marcus and I always share with him, and of course he’s not capable of eating an entire treat on his own, not even a small one.

But fate was on Emrick’s side that day, because in all of the confusion involved in serving up ice cream to a large group, somehow an extra Blizzard was made by the DQ employees and they allowed us to keep it for free. So Emrick got to enjoy his very first just-for-Pookie ice cream treat. Of course, he still didn’t come close to finishing it, but for once he didn’t depend on the mercy of me or Marcus to give him a bite. He got to take his own bites! That’s historically significant to him, I am sure.

Unfortunately, the ice cream gods were not so kind to cousin Nick. For some reason, when Marcus got up to throw away our ice cream trash, he somehow crossed paths with Nick’s Blizzard cup, assumed Nick was finished, and proceeded to toss a wet napkin on top of the last couple of inches of ice cream at the bottom. And as it turned out, Nick was not finished. Sorry, Nick. :p

Ding! Ding! Ding! Thank you, Dairy Queen!

 SATURDAY

On Saturday, it was time to fly back home. The trip there had gone pretty smoothly, but it seemed even better on the way back because Pookie napped for almost the entire first leg. Even when he was awake, the whole flying thing had become old hat already.

And that was The End of our Florida trip!

Stay tuned for outtakes!