Morning at the Mission

We’ve had such a full, great day today! We started out with the pumpkin bread I made baked late last night, for breakfast this morning.

Then I washed up a giant pile of dishes, while Jeff and Emmie cleaned the living room.

Then we finally made it over to visit Mission San Luis. We’ve lived literally in their shadow for the past 7 years, and never been. Today though, we made it to their once-in-a-blue moon free day. And it was a perfect, beautiful day, full of puppies and more…. exotic… animals. If you’ve never been there, you should definitely check it out. It really was a cool place! Here’s some info I copied and pasted from their website:

“From 1656 to 1704, Mission San Luis served as the principal village of the Apalachees and was the Spaniards’ westernmost military, religious, and administrative capital. Mission San Luis was one of over 100 mission settlements established in Spanish Florida between the 1560s and 1690s. It was home to more than 1,400 residents, including a powerful Apalachee chief and the Spanish deputy governor.

In recognition of its historical significance, Mission San Luis received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Today Mission San Luis is the only reconstructed Spanish mission in Florida. As a living history museum it is devoted to sharing the stories of its former Apalachee and Spanish residents. Knowledge of life at Mission San Luis over three centuries ago comes from intensive archaeological and historical research—the site is the most thoroughly investigated mission in the southeastern United States.”

We even saw Addie’s teach from daycare, Miss Ary, who had her bearded dragon, BB, with her. The girls were fascinated with him, and kept petting him over and over and over again. (Oh, what I didn’t say before, and why there were so many animals and pets, today was the “Blessing of the Animals,” and you could bring your pet to be blessed by their Catholic priest.)

The girls loved watching this sweet old man working in the blacksmith shop.

I loved this amazing, beautiful old wooden table in the fort.

Then both girls were very brave, petting this snake! Emmie actually held it, and let it slither down her leg a little bit. She was so strong and brave and I was weirded out but impressed with her.

We were there for like 2.5 hours, and we were all hot and sweaty and tired and hungry by the time we got back to the car. I dug up stuff for lunch for all of us, and we got the girls down for their naps. Jeff ran to Walmart to pick up our groceries, and I spent just a few minutes working on the puzzle, before making up some cowboy caviar.

I fell asleep for a short little cat nap on the couch, after finishing in the kitchen. Once the girls woke up, we went over to our friends’ Ashlee & Louis’ house for dinner. We had tacos and black beans and rice with two different dips. Tacos were followed by cupcakes, but I didn’t take any pictures until after dinner. They have a sweet gentle giant German Shepherd name Zoey, and this morning they actually got a brand new puppy German Shepherd, who doesn’t even have a name yet!

They got the girls that giant coloring and sticker pad, and Emerson wrote them a really nice note about having fun playing at their house with their dogs and suggesting they name their new boy dog Kate (because she forgot it was a boy) and thanking them for everything. It was so precious.

The girls were exhausted from our big day once we finally got home tonight, but both needed more snacks (as usual), but we finally got them both down late, around 9pm. I’m also exhausted from our busy day, and ready to rest and relax a little bit.