Finally! After what seems like week after week of rain, gloom, wind and a general sogginess, the sun has finally reappeared in Jacksonville! It’s so good to have that bright beacon of optimism back – however, it brought 100+ degree temperatures along with it, so now we are baking instead. Oh well, at least we had beautiful weather for the Fourth of July!

Life has been busy lately, which I’m sure you all deduced from the lack of posts, but a good friend gave me an encouraging nudge a few days ago, so this will be my attempt to catch you up! After living here for over a full month now, one of my favorite things has been our many outings and adventures. I always used to be passively content with the usual and the familiar, but my sweet husband has challenged me in my desire to try new things and places, and we have made more fun memories exploring together! Here are just a few of the highlights:

The Magnificat Café, Jacksonville Art Walk and Museum of Contemporary Art

Our first official date night after moving to Jacksonville - this is still one of my most favorites! The Magnificat is a sweet little corner café in the middle of downtown, and has some fantastic French-inspired cuisine. Don’t worry, if everything on the menu looks too good and you can’t pick, Chris will be more than happy to tell you just what you’re in the mood for, and his little brother will happily devour your cookie for you, should you be too full to finish it! J After dinner, we headed across to the Hemming Plaza for the Art Walk that is put on by local artists the first Wednesday of every month. The aforementioned dampness meant for a slightly smaller crowd than usual, but we enjoyed meandering through the various stalls in the hopes of a great discovery. We didn’t find anything worth bringing home, but the paparazzi found us – follow the link to see us posing for the cameras of Florida Times Union’s Jacksonville.com!

Austin & Amber - Art Walk

The MOCA!

After this, we ventured into Hemming Plaza’s other gem - the Museum of Contemporary Art! Their main exhibit right now is entitled ReFocus and features the art of the 1970’s, including photorealism, earthworks, conceptual art and abstract painting, as well as video, performance and installation art. An article about the exhibit describes the art of the time period as “far from the mainstream and appreciated by a select, usually underground, audience.” So true! The art was weird, but I have to admit, some of the people emerging to wander the galleries were even weirder! I wouldn’t say it was my favorite artistic display, but the experience was fun and the Stormtroopers that showed up at the end made it all worth it! Don’t believe me? Well, here’s another link with photo evidence!

Stormtroopers

Five Points, Pizza Italian, Memorial Park & The Bold Bean

Main Street in Five Points

Memorial Park

Jacksonville has a surprising amount of quaint little historic districts that abound with bookstores, coffee shops, boutiques, and amazing hole-in-the-wall restaurants that are just waiting to be discovered. Another favorite weekend excursion was to the historic main street of Five Points. Here, we wandered through dusty antique shops, hunting for treasures amid the junk and memorabilia of yesteryear. A small back room filled with bin after bin of old records provided nearly an hour of entertainment as we laughed over our various finds. Soon it was time for lunch, so we strolled across the street and through the front door of Pizza Italian. First impressions were not good – the place looked like it hadn’t been updated for at least forty years, the entire room looked dingy and smelled musty, we had a few peeling and water-stained menus tossed to us over the counter, and a very large expanse of ceiling above the soda machine was falling down and hanging on by a few mere pieces. While I tried not to freak out about the code violations for both health and interior design, Austin ordered us a pizza to split. They make them fresh, so it took a while in coming – long enough anyway for us to hear a commotion back in the kitchen. As Austin and I sat staring across from each other in our booth, we could hear the chef yelling in very loud, very adamant Italian to whatever poor soul happened to be caught in the kitchen. After a while it got to be downright comical, and we had a hard time not dissolving into giggles or attempting an impersonation of the tirade, complete with frantic hand gestures! Thankfully, the pizza was absolutely delicious, bigger than we’d expected and piled high with fresh, yummy veggies – Pizza Italian had redeemed itself – for now. An afternoon stroll brought us to Memorial Park on the banks of the Saint John’s River, a beautiful little slice of serenity in the middle of suburbia. We relaxed here in the shade and enjoyed the views until the afternoon coffee craving hit. The Bold Bean Café was happy to oblige and we very much enjoyed their French roast. Austin has been a huge coffee fan all along, but seems to really be enjoying the art of gourmet coffee lately, so we purchased a grinder and returned from our second visit to the Bold Bean with their delicious Ethiopian blend. Nothing like waking up smelling that in the mornings!

The Cummer Museum & Gardens

Another fun place we enjoyed was the Cummer Art Museum and Gardens. Their collections and exhibits were quite impressive and they have a wonderful interactive area designed specifically to teach children about art. However, it was the gardens that I fell in love with. Sculptures and reflecting pools, a gently splashing triple-tier fountain, ivy draped arbors, wandering paths, sheltering oak trees – this place would be more ideal for a manor or a chateau! They feature both the Italian and English garden designs and provide wonderful views of the river. Austin enjoyed the complimentary painting supplies and I was happy to wander and take pictures, although my camera couldn’t capture the sweetest view – a little boy of four with soaked overalls and an utter enchantment with the ever elusive tadpoles living in the pond!

Chamblin’s Book Mine

If you’re ever in Jacksonville and need something to read, look no farther than Chamblin’s Book Mine! Yes, that’s really what it’s called – and for good reason! Never in my life have I encountered a place quite like this. From the minute you walk in the door, all you see for row after row is shelf after shelf piled from floor to ceiling with every type of book imaginable. Between this company’s two bookstore locations and their warehouse, they have over two million volumes! Yeah, talk about literary overload – it only took about five minutes for me to feel like I was on a book high! Normally I don’t get overwhelmed that easily, but after browsing for close to a half an hour, my eyes were glazing over, I felt claustrophobic and I’m pretty sure my eye was starting to twitch. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around too much longer, but I’m determined to go back again with a specific goal to keep me on track. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure the place might eat me alive – oh well, there could be worse ways to go!

San Marco

One of our more recent excursions was to the historic square in San Marco for a movie night. The theatre there was built in the early thirties and boasts only a single screen. One of the original projectors stands proudly in the lobby, and the concessions booth in the back of the theater itself will be happy to provide you with whatever movie fare you might require. Our movie choice of the night – Pixar’s newest film, Brave! We’ve been following the film ever since it was announced two years ago and we couldn’t wait to finally see it. Opening night was full and we just barely found seats between all the wide-eyed and expectant little girls J, but the movie was well worth it. Full of fun, magic, and drama, Pixar has done a fantastic job once again! Yay for bagpipes and kilts – I would have loved to have been on that research team!

There’s so much more, but I’ll save the rest for when I have more time to really tell the stories properly!

Happy reading!