It has been a full week here, and I have not posted in several days. Finally, today, I wanted to share about our camping trip of 11 days ago. It really was one of the most restful camping trips we have taken to date. We did not pack it with activities; we just let the ideas come to us while we were there. It helped that our campsite was a short stroll to the beach, for we were camping at Anastasia State Park near St. Augustine, FL. The weather was very nice. Although the first night was chilly (lower 40s) we were toasty warm in the van during sleeptime, and that was the most important thing.

As usual for every trip, we tracked license plates. On this weekend, we spotted license plates from 27 states and 3 Canadian provinces.

Here are some photos of the experience..


This park is so unique and beautiful for our state.








Little Son found so many treasures on the beach, including this shark's tooth.








The children were entrepreneurs once again, this time trying to sell seashells by the seashore. Eventually they had to lower the price to "free", and even then there were no takers. Finally, a friendly camper from Nova Scotia "bought" some shells from them for a dollar. We didn't quite witness this; just heard about it afterwards.




An intact sand dollar found at the water's edge.









Baby Girl was a bit squeamish about holding that live star fish. We saw several plum and cream colored star fish that weekend, and Little Son was always careful to throw them back into the surf.







A shot of Mommy at the beach with children, decked out in sweats because it was quite windy!








DH alternated between cook and campfire tender much of the weekend.








We walked to a Farmer's Market nearby and enjoyed some live music.









This is Baby Girl walking back from the Farmer's Market with her beloved brother, in the way that she knows best. At this particular moment, Little Son is actually returning some of the affection. Quick! Click!






And for an aside, I wish to announce that my DH is the best DH on earth. Not too many men would keep their mouth completely shut and not even appear slightly annoyed by a blunder like the one I made on the Sunday of that camping trip. Like I said, the trip had been restful and uneventful. Late that Saturday night, as I lay falling asleep in the van, it occurred to me that I had not packed any feminine products for this camping trip, and darn it if I wasn't "due" by about now. Early Sunday morning, around 7, I made my early restroom run and returned to the van to announce that we had to go shopping immediately. No breakfast at campsite, nothing, until after we could stop at a supermarket or Walgreen's or somewhere. Of course, going shopping meant disconnecting everything in the van from the campsite, A/C hookup, electrical hookup, and strapping the A/C unit securely before driving away, removing and packing away all the window coverings, and securing the futon. About 30 minutes of work. And then undoing everything at the end of the day before retiring for the night, another 30 minutes. Then, we did eventually find a supermarket off the island. At that point, there was no point in going back to the campground just to make breakfast, as we were all hungry enough to eat nails (and feeling cranky as well, although DH never let on) so we drove, and drove, and drove, and DROVE for what certainly seemed like an hour, and who knows how many miles, in circles in and through and around St. Augustine looking for a Panera Bread and never actually finding one and having to settle for Dunkin Donuts for our Sunday morning repas. Phew. And never once did DH make a snyde comment, sigh, act annoyed, act cranky, or act smarter than his wife, even though he had EVERY REASON TO! If the situation had been reversed, I honestly don't know that I would have demonstrated such longsuffering. These are things I need to always remember. Forever.