St. Augustine, Florida

Est. 2011 · Five kids · One dad

Sunshine Dad

Welcome in. I'm Mike Smith — I spent the stay-at-home-dad years raising five kids seven and under and writing about all of it, and these days I build small, useful things from my corner of St. Augustine, Florida. This is the front porch: the old blog, a few projects I'm tinkering with, and a little about me.

The Smith family at a picnic table on a road-trip stop — Caroline and the kids with sandwiches, sippy cups, and a baby in a car seat on the table
Road-trip lunch stop, from the blog: “4 Kids, 6 Days, 2200 Miles” (2015)

The projects

Everything here is something I made because it sounded fun or useful. Come on in.

Sunlit sand dunes and scrub on the father-son wilderness trip
The Archive · 2011–2017

The Sunshine Dad Blog

Where this all started. From 2011 to 2017 I was a stay-at-home dad to five kids, ages seven and under, and I wrote about the adventures — the road trips, the myths about stay-at-home dads, the ordinary days that turned out not to be ordinary at all. The whole blog is back online as a read-only archive: 269 posts, photos and all.

New here? Start with these
Read the blog archive →
Mike and his daughter in Florida Gators gear at a Gators football game, her face painted for her first game
Gator Football

Gator Gridiron Hub

A home base for our Gator football crew — game picks, polls, trip planning, and talking ourselves into believing this is the year. Gator fandom in this family starts early; that's my daughter at her first game.

Enter the hub →
Caroline smiling at a picnic table on a family road-trip stop
Date Night

Sweet Caroline

Named for my favorite person. Sweet Caroline plans a date night for you — a few good ideas stitched into one evening out, so all you have to do is show up and enjoy each other.

Plan a date night →

In the workshop: one more project — a little matchmaking fundraiser app — is still on the workbench getting its engine rebuilt. It'll hang here when it's ready.

Mike behind the wheel in a green striped polo and sunglasses, holding a boiled egg on a family road trip

About Mike

I'm a recreation guy by trade — camps, community centers, and programs for kids and families — and a University of Florida grad. The Sunshine Dad years were 2011 to 2017, when I stayed home with our five kids and wrote the blog you'll find here.

These days I run St. Augustine Handyman here in town, and I still spend my spare time the way I always have: building things that help people get together and have a good time.

More about me & my work →