05.05.09 Saint Augustine with College Friends

We had a special treat this week in that Josh Ramsay, one of Chris' best friends from college and Matt Seel, Chris' college roommate (both were good friends of mine, as well) came to Jacksonville to visit with us. Unfortunately, Chris did have to work, so it was up to me to entertain them for a day or so. Monday evening we played cards and talked Theology (Matt's an associate pastor in KY and Josh is a young adults pastor in TN).

The guys went and played basketball on Wednesday morning, then after Chris went to work, we all went to Saint Augustine. We enjoyed the fort there. I hadn't been in the fort since my parents took me years ago, so it was nice to be back. Grant was fascinated with everything. He was really into learning, and it thrilled me. He learned the name of the shellstone the fort was built out of - coquina. He wanted to know what the cannons were for, he looked at just about every picture there was and asked questions about them, and he was fascinated by the prison door. It was fun to see his little mind working.

We also walked around the old town, ate gelato of course and just enjoyed the wonderful breeze. The kids were great, and I think we all really enjoyed ourselves.

Josh (left) and Matt (right)

Grant was intrigued by this door. It had a window in it that he could stick his head through and see the prison in the fort. We could hardly pull him away from it!

Grant was convinced the weapon he's pointing to in the upper left was an airplane...I kept telling him it was a knife of some sort...at least he's not really into weapons, right?? :-)

Well, okay, maybe I take that back. Sticking one's hand into the mouth of a cannon must show some fascination with them, huh?

Poor Mr. Josh and Mason were stuck in "jail." Let me out!!

Loading poor Mason as our ammunition. We were surprised to learn that some of these cannons could fire up to 3 miles away! Wow!

Grant was not too happy to be used as ammunition himself -

he was too afraid of it being "dirty."

He much preferred to be behind the controls!

We let the kids crawl all over this mortar for quite a long while. They had a blast!