LifeBook 2014 ~ Week 8 ~ Joy of Intention

I am trying to catch up with last years LifeBook lessons. I was a little uncomfortable doing this one. I am the type that likes to plan out paintings. This lesson was about letting go a painting whatever feels right. This is what I came up with. 

Art and Music Book Design

When this set of books came up on our 2014 copyright list of books to design, I was a little intimidated to take on the design of these. Once I got going on them, I really let loose and had fun with the concepts for them. These are some of my favorite designs so far.

St. Augustine Adventures - Part 2

Here is part 2 of our St. Augustine Adventures. This was the last day we were there and the weather was finally beautiful. I took a lot of pictures this day!

First thing in the morning we went to Starbucks and got coffee, Yum! Then we headed over to the Castillo de San Marcos fort.

We got there early enough to watch the cannon firing demonstration.

The pull the cannon out of position.

Then they stuff it with what ever they are going to fire out of it. In this case them mentioned that they shoot out bread for the birds.

Then they use the big pieces of wood to walk it back into position.

Then the add the gunpowder and fire it!

After they fire it they have to pull it back out of position and clean it out. Then they let us know that it is all clear.

We walked around and checked out more of the fort.

I did take a bunch more photos but I condensed it and just shared my favorites.

We then headed to the little shopping area. There is the oldest school house and we decided to check it out.

While we were purchasing our tickets to go into the schoolhouse this little squirrel was chilling out eating a peanut.

Inside the classroom they had a mock up setting of a classroom with mannequins in it.

There was this kid sitting in this small cupboard area under the stairs. The sign said this was called the dungeon and they would put the kids that were bad in there, close the door and leave the child in the dark. We think people are rough with kids now a days.

This was a picture I took of the little shopping area while we were walking around.

Then we headed over to the Old Jail House. They said the sheriff had the building painted pink and did not want it to look like a typical jail.

This is what they call the gallows. This is where people were hung to death. They said that part of the sentence was that you had to build your own gallows.

Inside the jail was pretty dark so I didn't get very many pictures inside. The cells and rooms were all super small. The sheriff and his family actually lived on one side of the building and the cells were on the other.

After visiting the jail we were starving and decided to check out Mellow Mushroom. The pizzas were great.

We then decided to waste some time and go check out St. Anastasia Park.

We had purchased tickets to do a haunted tour of the lighthouse. They turn most of the lights out on the property before the tour.

We were able to walk up the stairs to the top of the lighthouse in pitch dark. The only light we had were glow sticks hanging from our necks. The lighthouse is 145 feet tall and there are 219 stairs to climb all the way to the top. I think I was the first person to stop because I was out of breath.

I just love the composition of this shot. You can see the city, the moon, and the light beam from the light house.

This is looking down from the top platform!

And this is looking back up from the bottom!

Unfortunately we did not see any ghosts or experience anything odd. After everybody left we stayed and took pictures from the front of the property with all the lights back on.

This is another picture where you can see the light beam from the lighthouse.

We had such a great time. With it being a holiday we ran out of time to see everything. We are going back in February so there should be more pictures coming from that trip!

St. Augustine Adventures - Part 1

This trip started out actually while I was in Nashville earlier last year with my sister. We ended up going to Bass Pro Shop and they had a travel center there. The guy pulled us aside and was giving us these crazy offers for a vacation. It took me a little bit to agree to it because it sounded to good to be true. Well we paid just over $200 for a 4 night vacation in St. Augustine. The only catch was you had to attend a timeshare presentation. No big deal that's not to much to ask for the discount they were giving us. Also after we signed up there we got a $50 Bass Pro Shop gift card with the promise of another $100 gift card after we attended the presentation. So fast forward to our Christmas getaway in St. Augustine.

When we arrived we had to go check in with the resort to get our hotel vouchers. We were hungry by the time we got there so they referred us to CaddyShack which is owned by Bill Murray and his brothers. So we decided to check it out.

There was this awesome chopper with a Caddyshack theme there that was built by Orange County Choppers. The food was ok just your typical bar restaurant type of food. The atmosphere was great looking around at all the memorabilia.

After that we went and checked in the Hotel. Then we headed to the downtown area to figure out what we were going to do. It was raining quite a bit so I didn't pull out the big camera to take any photos the first couple of days we were there.

The first place we went was Ripley's Believe it or Not! I couldn't resist taking a picture of the shrunken head. I didn't take any other pictures while we were there.

Later that night we went to this bbq place called Mojo BBQ for dinner. This place was great!

The next day was Christmas Eve and we had to go to our presentation of the timeshare. Well we ended up purchasing into the program. We were there from 8:30am–2:00pm, but not because anybody made us feel like we had to stay. We were taking our time deciding on whether we really wanted to do it. The salesman was very patient with us. For making the purchase they gave us a free 2-night stay with an owner review. So we will be going back to St. Augustine in February.

We were starving after that and ended up at a little Irish Bar and Restaurant. The food was really awesome here.

Then we headed back to the downtown area and ended up at the San Sebastin Winery. We missed out on the tour of the chocolate factory and the distillery because everything closed early for Christmas Eve. We walked around for a bit and enjoyed all the christmas lights (which I did not get any pictures of).

Heading back to the car we stopped in the old pharmacy and wax museum and they had a Dobby statue right up front. Dobby is one of my favorite characters, I just love him.

For Christmas we realized there wasn't much to do because there wasn't a lot of places open. We had purchased a haunted tour of the lighthouse for the next night, so we decided to drive over and see where it was located. You can see how dreary of a day it was.

The only thing that was open was the Alligator Farm, so we went to check it out. Here are some of my favorite photos.

After the Alligator Farm we decided to go relax at the hotel for a bit. I made the boyfriend watch the movie The Family Stone. He didn't care for it!

We had a hard time trying to find a good place to eat dinner. I ended up on Yelp and found a Sushi Restaurant not to far from the hotel that had excellent reviews. So we decided to give it a try. This was the best Sushi I have ever eaten. The texture of the fish was so buttery and wonderful. I also tried the Green Tea Mochi Ice Cream and that was delicious.

I took so many pictures on our last day there I thought it would be best to split this into two posts. Hopefully I will get those photos edited and posted tomorrow.