State parks, forts, baking and vbs!

 
 Hontoon Island State Park - We decided to explore a few more state parks in Volusia County.  When I read about this park online it indicated that is was an island and to get there you would ride the free ferry.  That sounds cool!  Once we arrived at the free state park we realized the ferry boat ride literally took 3 minutes and covered about 50 meters.  Once on the island we decided to take a 3 mile hike. 


 This was a really neat tree.  The limb of the fallen tree was actually living and thriving.  We tried to get the kids to take a picture next to it but one of them yelled "bee" and everyone refused to stand anywhere by it.

 We saw an owl in the tree!  It was neat to see one during the day.

 This is halfway point on the trail.  We are actually standing on one of the two mounds on the island.  The Timucuan Indians were the first inhabitants of the Island and they gathered snails from the St. John's River.  Through the years the discarded shells accumulated to form this mound.  We were proud to be standing on the only elevation in Florida!      

 It started to pour!  There was so much rain coming down, Alia stopped to get a drink from the rain coming off one of the palms.

 
 Alia saw this picture in one of my magazines and asked if we could make them.  We baked the cupcakes together and then I told the kids to pick out their candy so we could decorate the cupcakes.

 This is what they decided to do.  I am pretty sure this was all about how much candy they could get on the cupcake and not about the actual cupcake!

 This one actually has kit kat legs.

 On Father's Day we headed to St Augustine since it is within range of our electric car and we love exploring and history.

 Our first stop was Castillo de San Marcos.  For many years this fort was the northernmost outpost for Spain's vast New World empire.  Thanks to Ponce de Leon's early discovery of the area in 1513, Spain knew that this was the perfect spot to control as their fleets full of treasure sailed past .  This is the oldest masonry fort and it is well preserved.

Even though Spain claimed Florida through Ponce de Leon's discovery, France gained the first establishment there by establishing Fort Caroline on the St. John's River in 1564.  Spain saw this as a threat and King Phillip II sent an expedition under Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles to get rid of the French and establish a fort for Spain.  Menendez tried to board the French ships unsuccessfully and decided to sail south and established a fort at St. Augustine.  Almost immediately the French sent ships to attack but the ships were driven southward by a storm and wrecked and the mission failed.  Fort Caroline was lightly guarded now and the Spaniards marched north and captured the fort.  England became Spain's next contender for Florida and Sir Francis Drake attacked and burned St. Augustine in 1586.  Then in 1668 British pirates again burned St. Augustine.  This caused Spain to build Castillo de San Marcos.  It took 23 years to build the fort.  Time and time again the fort successfully stood up to siege after siege.  Great Britain and Spain traded Florida a few times during various wars and then in 1821 Spain finally ceded Florida to the United States.       

 St Augustine was a quaint little area.  We walked around the narrow brick streets and visited several little shops.  The area was a living history area and you could go into these shops and watch people in costume perform.  We also visited the Colonial Quarter which is a historic adventure tour.  The city is a replica of the 16th 17th, and 18th, century Spanish colony.  Everyone was in period costume and you followed a tour guide around telling you about St. Augustine. 

This week we went to vbs at Oasis church.  The theme was Glow for Jesus.  Wednesday night we all wore our team colors along with various glow things.  It was a really fun week!