We have a tradition of taking a family picture at the end of every beach trip. It began 10 years ago when we first took our kids to Wrightsville Beach in NC (though I'm sure that (a) there is a family picture of us at the beach from before then and (b) that we've missed snagging a few family pictures since then). It would take me too long to hunt all of them up right now (and my list of things to do today is already a mile long), but here's a link to that fateful trip in 2013 (the one that started it all):
Friday, June 02, 2023
Thursday, June 01, 2023
Junior Rangers sashes
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
The Timucuan Preserve (a guest post by Benjamin)
May 26:
On the way back to Georgia we stopped at a place called The Timucuan Preserve.
It is on an island in the middle of the Saint John River. [Mom edit: The drive was surprisingly beautiful. We were on a winding dirt road for a good 10–15 minutes. The canopy of trees above us, draped with Spanish moss was divine.]
Fort Matanzas (a guest post by Benjamin)
May 24:
14 miles away from the Castillo de San Marcos there is a tiny fort called Fort Matanzas. Its perimeter is only 200 feet and its sides are only 50 feet long; it is shaped like a very short L.
It was made two years after the British laid siege to Saint Augustine because the Spanish had been resupplied via the Matanzas River so they needed to protect the inlet. The solution...
Fort matanzas!
Castillo de San Marcos (a guest post by Benjamin)
May 24:
A couple days ago we were in Florida visiting a fort called the Castillo de San Marcos. The oldest masonry fort in the US is so cool! They built it in a star shape so that they could catch their enemies in a crossfire, which basically means that you are getting shot at from three sides.
That is terrifying!Caldecott's Grave and Our Lady of La Leche (a guest post by Miriam)
Pirate-y Stuff (a guest post by Zoë)
*What I mean is that she was wearing a striped shirt and black pants. Pirate clothes. See???

Anyway, we got to go to the pirate museum at Florida, AND got to fire a REAL cannon! I mean, who even lets KIDS fire cannons? The coolest thing I did though, was fire a cannon! It was CRAZY! It wasn’t a real cannon, [but it was still pretty cool. We put a lighting stick to the touch hole and held it there until *BOOM!* Phoebe was scared of it]. My favorite part of the pirate museum was probably firing a cannon. It was awesome!
Some stories
Today's word count: only 464. But I entered this evening almost too exhausted to think and was having trouble putting thoughts together. So around 1:30 I went downstairs to get the sheets out of the dryer, only to discover that while I put the sheets into the dyer, I never turned the dryer on!
Why were the sheets in the dryer? Because I washed them, obviously. That's a good thing to do somewhat regularly (or so I hear), but we had a special reason for washing them today.
You see, Phoebe joined us in bed at some point in the night, as she usually does, and she was a little difficult to settle. And she kept squirming and sniffing. And I didn't think anything of it, really, beyond, "Why is she so sniffly?! She can't have a cold. We just got over the stomach flu!"
But, like, whatever. Kids pick up germs everywhere. If we had to have the sniffles, we'd get through that, too. If only she'd settle down and sleep!
Finally (after much nursing and squirming and sniffing), she fell asleep.
And when I woke up in the morning I realized that she had not had the sniffles. Oh, no. She was suffering from a bloody nose. There was blood all over my pillow, all over the bed, all over her, all over...me.
So the sheets had to be washed.
But at least she doesn't have a cold, right?
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Watch a storm roll in with me
For some reason or another, I was alone with the kids at the beach late Sunday afternoon/early Sunday evening (May 21). Miriam will be writing about what we did on Sunday downtown. But when we got back...I took the kids to the beach.
Perhaps Grandpa was napping.
Perhaps Daddy was making dinner.
Whatever the case, Mommy was at the beach with the kids. Even Rachel had tagged along (though only to sit on the beach since Sunday was her sick day and she didn't feel like playing much).
Zoë's 8th birthday (a guest post by Rachel)
Two more of us fell to this week’s mysterious plague today: Mom and Grandpa. Because 2 of the adults were down for the count, Zoë had a pretty low-key birthday. In the morning we just hung out at the beach (Grandpa was still feeling alive at this point so he came with us).