We Went to Saint Augustine

I doubt anyone noticed I was gone last week.  I had a few posts scheduled, so things didn’t go completely silent here.  Thanks for all of your visits and comments while I was gone.  I am working on catching up with everyone’s blog posts.

As part of our plan to actually do more things, rather than just talking about things we want to do, we took a trip to Saint Augustine, Florida last week.  It had actually been in the works for a while.  Our neighbors go almost every year and love it.  Last year, they spent a week there in January.  It was their Christmas gift to each other.  Being the type of people to copy a good idea when we hear it, we decided to do something similar.

We made the decision not to give each other any gifts for our birthdays or Christmas last year, but instead to save the money up for a warm weather vacation during the winter.  We reasoned that we really didn’t need any more stuff, we want to travel more, and our neighbors seemed really happy doing that.  And if you’ve been visiting here for a while, you probably know that I absolutely hate the winter.  I don’t do well in the cold, gray months.  I’m mostly miserable during the worst of the winter weather, and unfortunately, I think I tend to make those unfortunate enough to be around me miserable as well.  Poor Nick.  So an escape to someplace sunny and warm was particularly appealing to me.  Nick tends to wilt in the heat, so is much happier visiting beaches in the off season when it’s warm, but not hot.  A winter getaway to a warmer climate seemed ideal.

We chose Saint Augustine based largely on the neighbors recommendation, the fact that it was reasonably affordable during the off season, the fact that it has a lot of history, the fact that it was less than a seven hour drive, and the fact that it would be warm enough to make me happy, but not hot enough to make Nick miserable.

We take the dogs with us on our Folly Beach, SC vacation, but chose not to take them to Saint Augustine.  Folly Beach works well for them; we go there often enough to have taking them down to a science.  We rent the same house every year, so we know what to expect, where we can take them, and where we can’t take them.  It’s much more difficult to find a pet friendly place to rent, especially a place that’s okay with two dogs, and one of them being over 90 pounds.  We’ve also learned over the years that some places aren’t as dog friendly as they claim to be, so it usually works out better not to take the dogs with us the first time we go somewhere.  Honestly, it’s also nice to have a little break sometimes, too.  The dogs stayed in the kennel at their vet’s office, and seemed to have a good time based on the pictures the vet sent while we were gone.

We rented a condo that wasn’t at all dog friendly, and took full advantage of all the amenities it offered including a hot tub, heated pool, and Jacuzzi.  I would have preferred the weather to be just a little warmer, but it was warm enough to wear shorts most days; we both came back with a tan.  We walked on the beach, did some tours, spent time in the pool, visited some museums, and ate a lot of great food.

We had a great time, but I don’t think Saint Augustine is a place that we’ll go back to every year, or over and over again.  A lot of it was much more of a tourist trap than what we typically like to do.  Some of the tours and museums felt more gimmicky than educational.  I’m not saying that we didn’t enjoy a lot of things.  We really did, and it was wonderful to have a winter vacation.  I plan to post about some of the highlights later on.  It’s just not a place that we think of as “our place”, like the Charleston area.

We’re definitely hooked on the idea of not buying birthday or Christmas gifts for each other in favor of a winter trip to somewhere warmer and sunnier than home.  There’s definitely something to be said for experiences over stuff.  At least for us, right now.  We’ve decided to start researching other places for next year.  Maybe another beach in Florida.  We’ve also heard good things about Jamaica.  If anyone has any suggestions for a place that’s nice and warm in January or February I’d love to hear them.

I’m working on getting caught up with all of your blogs as soon as I can.  I’m looking forward to catching up and seeing what I missed while we were gone.

Dream A Little

We almost never buy lottery tickets.  I think we maybe average buying one every year or two.  Nick isn’t usually inclined to do anything that’s so likely to be a waste of money.  Lottery tickets are mostly sold at gas stations, and I barely put gas in the car, so I rarely think about or have the opportunity to buy a ticket.  Every now and then we’ll buy one, though.  It’s fun to dream, right?

Nick’s dad almost always gives everyone a lottery ticket or two at Christmas or birthdays.  It’s kind of a fun little bonus gift.  It’s fun to think about what you could do if you actually won.

This past Christmas Paul gave us each a lottery ticket, as usual.  Neither of us won anything, but we did spend a little time thinking about what our winning the lottery fantasies are, of course the winning millions and millions kind of fantasies. 

There are things we would do to help out our families and a few good friends.  We’d like to travel.  Neither one of us have really been anywhere, so travel would be high on our list.  Of course quitting our jobs, with an appropriate notice.  That would  free up a lot of time, and we wouldn’t spend all of our time traveling, so we’d have a lot more time to volunteer.  Nick would probably spend more time volunteering with the fire department.  I could spend a lot more time cooking and taking food to the hospice house.  We would donate to various cat rescues, and a few other causes that are very near and dear to us. 

We both agree that we wouldn’t want to move.  Our house is small, but we like it, and are happy here.  We also have the best neighbors in the entire world.  We’ve often said that if we won the lottery we’d be far better off to give some of it to the neighbors to do whatever they needed or wanted with their house, in hopes that they’d never move.  They’re really that great.  There are certainly things we would do to fix up our house, and buying some of the land around it and putting in a pool sounds nice.  Really nice, actually.  Moving to some huge house in a strange neighborhood doesn’t.   

I’m not sure if our list makes us the most boring people in the world, or just really practical, and fortunate enough to know what we would want.  Either way, it’s fun to dream a little every time Paul gives us a lottery ticket.

So what about you?  Do you buy lottery tickets often?  What’s your winning the lottery fantasy?