Florida wedding

We traveled down to the Jacksonville area for Heather's nephew's wedding. At Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve we came across these ruins. Florida is the state without stone and this shelly coquina is all that the earliest inhabitants had to work with.

Kingsley Plantation had exhibits about slaves working a cotton plantation. The girls learned how difficult it was to separate cotton seeds in the era before a certain Eli ginned up a mechanical separator.

The plantation dock reminded us that cotton and enslaved people were loaded on and off the ships

Mmm, plastic oysters

Indigo, sugarcane, and oranges were other cash crops on the plantation


We revisited Cumberland Island National Seashore with Tessie. It's not everyday that you get to play with an old payroll safe.

Back in Fernandina Beach, the pelicans were not about to let the girls enter their dock

At Fernandina Beach there was the unmistakeable pong of a paper mill. Following the train tracks outside our hotel led us to the source of the pong and this enormous mound of wood chips to fuel the mill. The perspective doesn't do justice to the size of this pile, as we witnessed a chipalanche big enough to bury a house.

The wedding was beautiful in the unusually chilly Florida air

Aunt Katy, Lyla, and Charlie visited for a high-energy weekend


At Boda Borg Caroline and Lyla completed 10 quests!


Erin showed off her pierced ears

We celebrated Caroline's 12th birthday

The whole team attended Heather's performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony