Vacation, Part 1

We rarely vacation. And by rarely, I mean this was our first “not necessarily to see family plus we stay in a condo that we pay for” vacation we’ve had since our honeymoon in 1999. Why? I’ll give you 5 reasons. (1) We’re homebodies. (2) We live in paradise, so why leave? (3) My husband has his own business and it’s hard to leave town for more than a couple days. (4) When we do manage to leave town, it’s always to visit family. (5) We either haven’t been able to scrape together enough money for a real vacation or have had other things to spend that money on in the past decade. And now you know.

So, when my friend Jessica said she would be eloping the first weekend of May, I said, “Girl, you can’t get married without pictures!” She agreed. Since the wedding would take place in Saint Augustine, we thought, “How convenient! We can stay with friends in Jacksonville.”

But then I started talking with Darlene. It just so happened they would be traveling up and down Florida’s east coast the same weekend, so obviously they were going to stop in Saint Augustine for Eric to do the wedding ceremony. Darlene told me about the beachfront condo they would be renting. I expressed my slight jealousy. Then she invited us to come with them. What?! Stay with the Partins on vay-cay? Hello, dream come true! We decided to split the condo cost 50/50. They were already getting a sweet hook-up via a friend from church, so this made for a c-h-e-a-p weekend getaway. Praise the Lord!

We left as the sun came up Friday morning and drove the black hole known as I-10. Really, could there be a more boring stretch of interstate anywhere in the country?

We arrived in Jacksonville around lunch time and made a pit stop in trendy San Marco to visit my friend Stevie and check out her chic boutique. Therapie is so… Stevie! I love it. Fabulous clothes, fabulous location, fabulous decor. It was great to hug her precious neck and I was simply oozing with pride over her shop. If you’re ever within an hour of Jacksonville, you absolutely must stop by Therapie, say hello to Miss Stevie, and spend some of your hard-earned on her merchandise.