St. Augustine Day 2 / Day 3 at Kennedy Space Center

Here are some pics from the trip to Ripley's Believe It or Not! in St. Augustine the 2nd night we were there. The 2nd set of pictures are from the Kennedy Space Center. We stopped by the Space Center on our way home from St. Augustine and had a great time. It's awesome to see the shuttles up close and personal! Enjoy..

Ripley's Believe or Not!

Notice my red face. No, I did not wear sunscreen and YES, it hurt.

Jared and Jonny taking a lot of interest in this sculpture made of....sorry, I don't remember what it was made of!

This was a chair that you put money into so it could tell you what kind of person you were...apparently Jared is cold. Somebody get that kid a sweatshirt!

This is a huge Phares Wheel made out of these little kid toys. Sorry, I can't remember what the name of the toys were...guess I should have done this post right after we got back!?!

And this is Jared with a moose that made noise whenever you walked by it.

This is a mirror for the kids to try different things with their tongues. The funny part is that on the other side of the mirror, other guests are watching you make funny faces. Boy do I have some good videos of the girls on the trip making funny faces!!

Group picture after Dairy Queen.

Space Rocket.

Us in front of a NASA plane.

Did I tell you Jared is going on tomorrow's space mission??

Jared holding a rocket in his fingers.

Nick, Jonny, Joe, and Jared

Can you see the little alligator? The Space Center is a wildlife refuge, so there are a lot of alligators and we saw some bald eagles too. The bald eagle's nest is so big that a human could lay down in it!!

This building (sorry for the bad picture) is where they assemble the shuttle. On the top of this building, you can actually fit the New York Yankees stadium AND have room for 1 acre of parking. The picture does not do it justice as to how big it is.

Jared and I on the tour bus.

Replica of the rocket that went to the moon.

HUGE.

Jared in front of a piece of the rocket that went to the moon.

Jared and Johnny on Mars!!

These are the last of the pictures from our field trip to St. Augustine/Kennedy Space Center. I hope you enjoyed them!!

St. Augustine --Day 2

Here are the pictures from Day 2 in St. Augustine.

Sunrise view from our hotel balcony.

Some of the guys waiting to go on our tour of Castillo de San Marcos (the huge fort in St. Augustine).

Jared self shot of himself.

Far away view of the fort.

Picture of Jared and I before going on the tour.

REAL cannons!

This was a picture of Jared in front of the huge walls of the fort. We are actually in the moat area...the moat was a dry moat, where the people of St. Augustine brought all of their animals if they were going to get attacked.

A self shot of Jared and I next to the wall. The walls of the fort were made from Coquina, which are crushed up shells.

Jared on a cannon...

This cannon was "experimented" on by the Spanish soldiers in the fort. They figured that if 3 lb. cannon balls could fly 3 miles with great accuracy, then why couldn't 6 lb balls fly 6 miles. This cannon was the answer...it didn't work that way! The cannon blew up and killed the 3 soldiers, the only casualties during that battle.

Sleeping quarters for the Spanish troops.

This was Jared asking me if he could take a nap on the beds, but I wouldn't let him because we were on a tour.

This was some Spanish troops going through how you shoot a cannon. They shot the cannon for us during the tour. I will try and post the video later. It was pretty loud and shook the camera!

One of the watchtowers.

The kids in the watchtower.

The cannons were a big hit with the boys...something about big guns!?!

A view from the gun deck down into the courtyard. This fort was attacked 15 different times over the years and it never lost. The shape of the fort made it so that there was not one part of the fort that was not covered by a cannon. Plus, the fact that the small cannons could shoot precisely at 1 1/2 miles and the larger cannons could shoot up to 3 miles!

Picture of of the main street in St. Augustine.

This was the restaurant we stopped at for lunch. Jared had gator tail bites!

Picture of Jonny and Jared.

Jared begging me to let him get a sword. He couldn't understand why I would say no...and say no to him getting a knife on a SCHOOL field trip.

Joe, Jonny, and Jared getting a picture of the knight in front of the weapons store.

The guys enjoying some ice cream.

A picture of the St. Augustine lighthouse. This was Jared's favorite thing to look at at night!

So this was basically the 2nd day. I will post more pictures later from day 3 at the Kennedy Space Center.

Trip to St. Augustine, FL--Day 1

So here are some pics I promised from the field trip that Jared and I went on last Thursday-Saturday to Saint Augustine, FL. We had a really good time and it was great to see such a historic town. The area was first sighted by the Spanish explorer and treasure hunter Don Juan Ponce de Leon on Easter, March 27, 1513. He claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida, meaning "Land of Flowers". St. Augustine was founded 42 years before Jamestown, Virginia and 55 years before the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock if that tells you how old the city was!! St. Augustine is the oldest permanent European settlement on the North American continent.

This is a group pic at Fort Matanzas National Monument right after we had a picnic lunch.

Jared sitting on one of the HUGE trees in the picnic area. They were these huge Elm trees that were perfect for climbing. Thankfully, no children were harmed in the making of these pictures. :)

View from the ferry ride of Ft. Matanzas from the Matanzas River. This fort was built to guard St. Augustine's southern river approach.

Jared laying down in one of the beds in the Fort.

One of the actual cannons shot at this Fort.

View from on top of Ft. Matanzas.

Jared and some of his friends playing soccer on the beach.

More soccer. Jared loved this part of the trip!

Here is a picture of the kids playing a game on the beach. You can see Jared running on the other side of the circle. He was still playing soccer with one other boy at this point...not wanting to stop to play the game EVERYONE else was playing.

This is a picture of the pier that was right next to the beach that our Beach Front Resort was on.

Picture from the beach of our resort. It was called a resort, but only because it was directly on the beach. Not really too much of a resort though. The resort could use some of Obama's stimulus money and it was be a really awesome place to stay! :)

Picture of the boys after the beach and pool in front of our room. I had 2 other boys in my room other than Jared...the first boy on the left and the 2nd from the right, Nick and Joe.

Great view from our hotel door.

This is what most of the kids spent their extra free time on...playing cards!

Group picture of all of the boys after the Pirate Treasure Hunt. It was mostly a tour of the city explaining different stories about the pirates.

This was day one. I was dead after day one, but we still had 2 days left. It was kind of interesting trying to get 3 boys to sleep at a decent time. I think they woke me up 3 times before I finally got them to sleep! Day two will be posted as soon as I can...