2025 Recap: A Year of Roots, Relaxing, & Road Trips
If you’ve been wondering where the heck we disappeared to this year — well, let’s just say we traded a few suitcases for a set of house keys. 🏡
That’s right: 2025 has been the year of putting down some serious roots. In August of last year, we bought a home in a neighborhood that’s packed with awesome amenities, so most weekends you could find us posted up at the pool, splashing and fishing in the creek, riding bikes, or just chilling close to home. It’s been a different kind of adventure — one filled with porch-sits, potlucks, and making the most of our new everyday surroundings.
That said, you know us too well to think we could stay put forever. 😉 .
This post is going to grow along with the year — a living diary of the places we go, the memories we make, and all the cozy, local magic in between. Thanks for sticking around, and we can’t wait to take you along for the ride!
Table of Contents
June 2025
Once school was out for the summer, the kids decided enough was enough- they were ready for a quick day trip. Our oldest (11) suggested that we go down to St. Augustine for the day. We’ll never turn down the opportunity to hang out in our nation’s oldest city, so we hopped in the car and headed south.
Fort Mose was the first free Black settlement in what’s now the United States. Established in 1738 as Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, it was a sanctuary for enslaved people of African descent who escaped from British colonies and were granted freedom under Spanish rule. Today, Fort Mose Historic State Park commemorates this powerful legacy with a museum, interpretive trails, and living history events. In May of 2025, the park opened up a replica of the fort, and we HAD to check it out.
The fort (and the park) were really well done- it’s been a LONG time coming! We enjoyed learning about the people who called Fort Mose home and how it came to be.
Afterwards, we headed down the historic district. The city offers a free tram that drops you off at Castillo de San Marcos or the Plaza de la Constitución. We took it to the second stop and walked back to the Visitor Center.
Our first stop was Flagler College, my old stomping grounds. It’s always fun to reminisce on my college days and share stories with the kiddos. From there, we strolled down historic St. George Street popping in and out of shops and visiting the Tipsy Duck, a super trendy bar that serves up beverages adorned with rubber duckies.
While it wasn’t a super elaborate trip, it was nice to get away and reminded us why we love traveling and exploring so much!
Later in the month, we hit the road for our first trip of the year — a 7-hour drive up from Florida to one of our all-time favorite summer spots: Bostic, North Carolina, home to Jellystone Park Golden Valley. This was our third visit to Golden Valley (and our fourth Jellystone trip overall, if you count the one we did near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky!), so we felt like we already knew all the best spots before we even unpacked the car.
Over the next four days, we crammed in as much fun as we could — zooming around on a golf cart, racing down the waterslides, splashing in the lake, and even taking a ride on the alpine coaster. Every day felt like a new adventure, and by the time we left, we were already plotting our next return!
While we were zooming down the alpine coaster, Stinky and I caught a quick flash of movement in the trees — and sure enough, it was a black bear! 🐻 Even better, Stinky was quick on the draw with the GoPro and managed to get it all on video as we zipped past. It was such an unexpected and exciting moment, and easily one of the highlights of the entire trip. Nothing beats the thrill of seeing wildlife in its natural habitat, especially when you’re already having a blast on the mountain!
July
After what felt like a long hibernation, July brought us back to life in the best way. Our days were packed with pool hangs with friends and family, neighborhood events, and our annual beach trip with our baseball crew.
On the business side, July was a huge month. We locked in some incredible brand partnerships with:
✨ Wildkin
🔍 World’s Greatest Search and Discover
🚀 Kennedy Space Center
🎨 Crayola Experience Orlando
🚎 Old Town Trolley Tours in Savannah
Plus, we secured a few exciting collaborations for our fall trip to Nashville—can’t wait to spill more soon.
In the middle of the month, Elle packed up the crew and headed south for a little Orlando adventure. We kicked things off at the Crayola Experience. There were tons of colorful, hands-on, art-inspired activities for the kids to do. They built models out of clay, painted with hot wax, turned their drawings into a live action video, molded emoji shaped crayons, and created coloring sheets in their likeness.
Then, we wandered through the Florida Mall, which absolutely blew our kids’ minds. “Wait—you don’t even have to go outside?!” was the general vibe.
That evening, we stepped into the topsy-turvy world of WonderWorks Orlando and caught the Magic Dinner Show, where the kids were mesmerized! They offered up bottomless salad, pizza, soda, beer, and wine. Yes. Please.
The next day, we braved a tropical depression and visited Kennedy Space Center. Ya’ll! I was completely blown away by the KSC! I’ve been wanting to take the kids there for years now, but the cost of visiting has always deterred me. Mannnnn, I wish we had visited sooner! This place is AWESOME! There are numerous incredible, fun, and educational hands-on activities for the kids to enjoy! We rode in a takeoff flight simulator, journeyed to Mars, felt the propulsion of a rocket, and explored tons of space memorabilia. We even got to touch an actual piece of the moon!
We literally spent all day there- even though we were soaking wet! The kids loved the play spaces (including a replica of the International Space Station), I loved that they were learning while they were having fun. KSC- we will be back!
Our next road trip took us to Savannah, Georgia, where we partnered with Old Town Trolley. We had some incredible tour guides cart us around one of the South’s most beautiful cities. The heat index was over 110 degrees, so we were grateful that we didn’t have to walk around in that heat.
We visited Forsyth Park, City Market, Telfair Museum, and the Children’s Museum at Jepson Center. We were thankful the latter two had AC!
Sites Visited in 2025
Florida
Georgia
North Carolina
- Fort Mose
- Flagler College
- Cummer Art Gallery
- Crayola Experience
- Wonderworks
- Kennedy Space Center
- Forsyth Park
- Telfair Museum
- Jepson Center- Children’s Museum
2025 Recap Numbers
Number of States Visited This Year: 2 (Florida, North Carolina)
Number of Other Countries Visited This Year: 0
Number of Florida State Parks: 1
Number of National Park Sites: 0
Number of Buc-ee’s Stops: 0
Number of Miles Traveled: 949 miles
Our 2025 Goals
✅ Hey Boo Boo!
At Christmas time, our kids’ Elves on the Shelf “stole our credit card” and booked a summer trip to Jellystone- our kids’ absolute favorite place to vacation. We spent 4 days hanging out and having an absolute blast at the park!
Nashvegas Baby!
Our New Years Day tradition is putting the names of the states the kids have not been to into a hat and selecting a state at random to plan a trip to. This year, they pulled Tennessee. We booked a flight to Nashville. We can’t wait to share our Nashville trip with you!
Visit More National Parks
Gimme all the parks! The kids each have National Park passports and they love collecting stamps. We visited a TON of National Park sites last year and I’d like to keep it going. I hope to add a park to each of our itineraries this year.
Add at least 1 more state to our list of places we’ve been
On New Years Day, the kids randomly selected “Tennessee” from a list of states that they have not visited. We’ll be going to Nashville in the fall.
Wrap Up
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