Birthday Wishes

Many months ago I started asking Aubree what she wanted to do for her birthday. "Go camping," she answered, "and get really, really dirty." When her response stayed the same month after month, we decided to honor her request and got reservations at Anastasia Park, an island up near St. Augustine, Fl. We even convinced some dear friends to join us in our camping adventure. Here are some pictures to help tell the story:

Aubree opened a couple of presents before we left on our trip.

We left Thursday morning and spent most of the day site-seeing in St. Augustine. Did you know it's the oldest city in the country? We spent a couple hours taking a tour trolley all around the town. All the history and sites were interesting to see, but it was ridiculously hot (95+ degrees) and humid and that significantly detracted from our enjoyment of the ride.

Fountain of Youth

We also spent a couple hours visiting the Fountain of Youth. What an interesting place! One of the reasons Ponce De Leon thought that this spring was the fountain of youth was because the Indians who lived there averaged 6'6'' tall and lived to be around 80 years old. By contrast, the average European at the time was only 4'5'' tall and lived to be only 40 years old.
We all got to have a drink from the Fountain and we told Aubree that meant she would be three forever. She didn't believe us. There was a strong taste of sulfur in the water and the water at a camping site also had quite a bit of sulfur. Aubree kept calling it "Fountain of Youth water" and loved drinking it.

All my recent pictures of these two seem to involve Aubree trying to keep Bryce in the picture!

We got to our campsite in the late afternoon and set up our new, HUGE tent. I forgot to take a picture, but it was at least 4 times the size of our previous tent. We had a traditional tin-foil dinner, but since we got a late start, we were eating in the dark! While we were eating dinner, the bugs were having us for dinner. Have I mentioned I hate bugs?
After spending a long, hot, breeze-less night in the tent, we woke the next morning ready to celebrate Aubree's 4th birthday. We got together with our friends and had the biggest camping breakfast I've ever heard of: bacon, sausage, eggs, bagels, biscuits, bananas, orange juice, hash browns, english muffins...Crazy, eh? Then we hit the beautiful beach.

Aubree and Ella playing in their specially built "pool"

We built a huge sand cake for Aubree. You can't tell from this picture, but it's actually quite elaborately decorated. In this picture she's trying to blow out the candles. I tried to convince Aubree that between this gorgeous sand cake and her special "birthday s'mores," she didn't need a real birthday cake, but she shot down that argument. So we made cupcakes this week for her to share with her friends in preschool.

Bryce LOVED being at the beach. He loved playing in the sand and being in the waves. Even Aubree overcame her trepidation of the waves in a very serious way - she learned to boogie-board! She claims it's because she's four now and "so brave." She's even asking for a boogie-board for Christmas.

Opening more birthday presents, a task Aubree took very seriously!

That night we had a fancy birthday feast - hot dogs and s'mores. The kids had a great time playing in the woods and even set up a little obstacle course with the extra firewood. Bryce's favorite things were the water spigot and the car - he spent hours with Mark climbing up and around the seats. *shrug* Whatever kept him away from the fire was okay with me!

Checking his hair for bugs??

Saturday morning Mark had to get up early and leave for a church meeting, but the kids and I took our time packing up and heading out. It was a fun trip, definitely too hot, but Aubree says it was just what she wanted. It's a good thing that camping trips are so memorable, because they're A LOT of work!
Happy 4th Birthday, Aubree!!!