Maggie meets the dolphins

April 18, 2017

Magical is all I can say about spending a week with a 10 year old,12 year old and a 13 year old.  It was pretty darn special being with 3 other adults too. Rob, Tricia, Jack and Patty geared up for their visit with breakfast at the Metro Diner. 

Company came late in the day and as planned we took them to the Okinawa Restaurant, Maggie's first experience at an hibachi grill. The next day we set out on our week's excursion.  

Waiting for a table

Leaving Jacksonville for Cumberland Island from the 

city to the serene

Leaving Jacksonville for Cumberland Island from the 

city to the serene

Our first stop was at Cumberland Island, where we rafted up with Nearly Perfect and took the dinghies to shore to walk 2.5 miles to the Atlantic Ocean beach. While on the island we visited the Carnegie House, saw wild horses, and an armadillo to name only a few neat things.  We had a picnic on the beach and watched kids frolic in the water.

Rough Life

Rafting

Carnegie House

Loggerhead Lamp

Tiffanie lamp 

    

We walked room to room and in the one was a piano.  The tour director asked if anyone was a piano player and this 8 year old's mother volunteered her.  It was amazing, now she can say she played at Carnegie Hall.

 First ice machine

                                 

Wild Horse

Moon over Cumberland Island

Picnic on the beach

Bathing Beauty

A couple of guys who helped make this all possible

Girls at play

Uninvited guest

Rafters

Docktails are when adults get together at 5:00 with snacks and drinks. Although I see now that this is coffee in the morning I guess I don't have one of the docktails pictures, so you will have to imagine it. While we had boat/docktails on the boat there was a boat-tail bird singing on the top of the boat. I am not kidding it is described as having a keel shaped tail.

Dock-tails on Nearly Perfect

...but I do have one with the kids having boat tails on Linda Jean with their snacks prepared by Kayla and non alcohol drinks of their choice.

Boat-Tails on Linda Jean

We made bread several times with the assist of Maggie and Kayla

The captain?

Immediate friendships born

Next we stopped in Fernandina for the night to break up the trip to St. Augustine, this time we stayed on a mooring. We took the dinghies into town for ice cream and margaritas.  The kids were silly as they should be.

We saw lots of dolphins and birds along our trip.

The grown-ups

One big dog!

Nana has a special gift of fudge from Katie

Enjoying the ride

The next time we took the plunge and made the trip to St. Augustine.  Rob and I keep returning there for different reasons and always have fun.  We stayed at the dock this time, giving Maggie another experience.  Is it me or is it just plain fun to cruise?    

We spent a lot of time on St. George Street, this is a magic shop and Katie is some impressed with the card trick 

Maggie asks the magician if he is a Death Eater and indeed he is.  You can see the fear in Maggie's face when she finds out that Kayla and she are right about him. 

Wednesday is Papa's birthday

Maggie has salmon and fun

Young girls are the only ones that look glamorous in the chocolate factory garb

See for yourself

Everyone but me visited the distillery, I did the tour last year.

The lemonade was reported to be weak and not very good

But where will she wear it?

 We left St. Augustine and returned to our starting place, The Marina at Ortega Landing in Jacksonville, Florida.  Maggie catches a flight back home, the other girls leave for Alabama and the adults stand there wondering, what just happened.


We moved on to Fernandina where we met Jack and Patty for Easter ham dinner.

See you next year

The tide is low

Have a little flare for the dramatic? The sun sets on a wonderful week as we head north for home.

It has been well worth the adventure and we would do it all again.

Tricia