The Peine Family

Seven years ago today, Jonathan and I were married. To celebrate, we snuck away to St Augustine yesterday to spend the night at a bed and breakfast while Janice watched the kids.

On the way, we realized we left our camera at home. As it worked out though, we'd planned on getting a new digital camera as our anniversary gift and had gone out looking the night before. So on the way we stopped at Super Walmart and got our new Sony Cybershot.

The first photo on our brand new camera.

We stayed at the Peace & Plenty Inn on Cedar Street.

All six suites were booked that night.

The exterior of the b&b from the street

The parlor

The dining room Fireplace in the parlor

The entryway

Our room at the top of the stairs...with a pretty little stained glass transom window at the top.

The doors to the rest of the upstairs rooms.

The foyer in our suite

Other side of the foyer

The huge bathroom...with the tiny little shower.

The bedroom

The sitting room

The fountain in the back

The back of the inn. Our room was along the back of the second floor.

For dinner, we walked to Columbia Restaurant on St George Street.

Waiting to eat the bread...so good! My meal...roasted pork, black beans and rice, and plantains. Every bite was so good.

Jonathan had citrus marinated mahi-mahi with 'good' rice and plantains. His was great too.

We finished up with a complimentary flan dessert which we received courtesy of our b&b. When we talked to Rosemary that night and told her we had flan she said, "The Spanish dessert?" I was surprised she remembered.

When we got back to the room, desserts and drinks were laid out on the table in the parlor.

This morning, we got ready and headed down to breakfast.

Jonathan had a bit of yogurt while we waited for our Belgium waffles.

Mmm...again, so good! And Jonathan's water was Fountain of Youth water.

I could get used to this!

Afterwards, we checked out then walked to the old town. It was a good walk, but it was pretty warm.

No trip to St Augustine is complete without seeing the fort.

A self portrait at the fort.

Look what Jonathan found on the ground!

We walked up to Flagler College to look around a bit too. Jonathan's great-grandmother worked here as the head housekeeper when it was the Ponce de Leon hotel.

We decided to take the tour after walking around the rotunda and gift shop. We first heard and little history about the college, but most of the tour focused on the history of the hotel and Henry M. Flagler. Our tour guide, Tori.

Inside the gorgeous dining hall. We asked Tori if students 'get used' to being in such an incredible space. She said that she hasn't and she's a senior. Could you imagine eating three meals a day as a college student here?

30% of the chairs in the dining hall are original to the hotel...that's over 100 years old. The one of the right in the photo is the original, Tiffany-designed chair. The left is a reproduction.

The ceiling and Tiffany glass skylights in the dining hall.

We were allowed to tryout the seats.

The last stop on the tour was the Ladies Parlor, where the ladies would wait while the husbands paid (in cash) for their stay. Again, another amazingly beautiful space.

Fireplace with a white onyx mantle piece, an Edison clock, and a Tiffany crystal chandelier. This is where the Faculty Senate meetings are held. (Fellow Gators - UF holds its Faculty Senate meetings in the Reitz Auditorium...a bit different, eh?)

Trying out the panorama setting on the new camera.

Portrait of Flagler.

Close up of the clock.

Another fireplace. This one was in the ladies bathroom. :-) (It used to be the ladies billiard room).

Looking back at Flagler College as we headed back to the car.

We couldn't decide where we wanted to eat and just kind of ended up here, at Theo's. Nautical decor and Greek food. Kind of off the beaten path, but some good gyros.

After lunch, we headed a couple miles north to Fort Mose. Jonathan had read about the fort in two of his grad classes so he wanted to stop by. Fort Mose was a fort established by blacks who had escaped Carolina slavery by running away to St. Augustine where the Spanish granted them freedom if they converted to Catholicism.

The fort is no longer there, but we were able to walk out on a boardwalk and see the original site.

The original site is now a brackish marsh.

Before leaving Fort Mose, we looked around the visitor center then watched a short movie.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the outlet mall for a bit then headed home. For just an overnight trip, we managed to pack a lot in and still get to relax...a great way to spend our anniversary.

Happy Seventh Anniversary! What an amazing seven years they have been.