{WHW}: St. Augustine #1

Hey all--I'm back from a long absence on the blog because we were traveling for my Spring Break. 

We headed to St. Augustine on Sunday morning at 5:45 am (not the most ideal with a toddler, but she was excited for the change in our routine and the adventure). 

We made it there without incident and had an hour drive from Jacksonville, where Ella took a much needed nap. 

We were staying at the Embassy Suites in St. Augustine which was recently updated, right on the beach, and beautiful. It was ideal to have a separate bedroom and living area so we had somewhere to hang once Ella went to bed at night.

Unfortunately it took about 3 hours for our room to be ready, so we had lunch and drove around killing time. Eventually we got into the room, changed,  and made our way down to the pool area and the grounds to check it out and then the complementary hotel happy hour.

Ready to enjoy the sunshine!

They have a great "grassy" area that has huge games of Jenga , Connect Four, corn hole, badminton and other games

We ended up running into an old friend of MG's, his wife and three kids. The youngest was 5 and adored Ella, and we ended up staying and hanging out until Ella's bedtime.

The next morning we decided to go to Gatorland and it was actually much cooler than I thought it would be. They had gators, monkeys, a bird sanctuary, vultures, etc. Ella was engaged the whole time and learned the word "gator" and "dinosaur". It was crazy how LOUD the alligators are when they are talking to one another. Scary loud!

After that we drove into Old St. Augustine to explore and grab lunch. There are so many cool little streets to wander down, shop at and get lost in. We did that for a while and then grabbed lunch and ate outside because the weather was beautiful.

Afterwards we headed back to the hotel so Ella could nap, and then hit up the pool for a few hours and saw our friends from the night before again. Ella was adorable in her little sunhat and swimsuit (thanks Lynn for the suits and cover-up!!)

We decided to drive back into Old St. Augustine that night for dinner and found a quiet place to eat outside, with a view of the fort. Unfortunately it took over 45 minutes to get our food which meant Ella was losing it by the end, so we made a quick exit to get littles back home and into bed as she had woken up early that day, took a crummy nap and was just ready to go to bed. Mom and Dad enjoyed wine that night while unwinding from the day and putting an overtired toddler to bed.

So I don't photo overload you, I'll recap the rest tomorrow!

In the meantime, share with us what's hap-"pinning" with you: