South Padre

We just got back from our trip to South Padre. It was a great weekend! Dan's trip to Venezuela got postponed, so he ended up being able to go with us. It was a good thing too, because we ran into some minor setbacks on the way. (More on that later...) Anyways, be warned...lots of pictures ahead. I had a hard time choosing from the 275 I took over the 4 days we were gone!

Thursday morning- departure day! We were so proud of ourselves for actually leaving at the time we were shooting for! We said that we were going to leave our apartment at 6:00 AM fully expecting to be walking out the door at 7. Nope... we were all packed the night before, and just pulled our kids straight out of bed and strapped them in their carseats. We were even happier when we hit NO traffic on the way out. We were making great time and were expecting to be at the beach by 4:00 until....



just out of Corpus Christie our tire sensor thing on our car started beaping that our left rear tire was low. We had just filled them up before we left. We pulled over to check it, and it was fine. We hopped back in the car and went a little more ways down the road when our friends Dallas and Abi (who traveled down there with us and were right behind us) called us and said our right front tire looked low. We pulled over again, and sure enough, this is what we found. We stopped in Kingsville and shopped around at 3 different tire stores before we found one that had the kind of tires we needed. Needless to say, I'm glad Dan ended up being able to come so I didn't have to put my good friend Lisa and her 2 kids who offered to come help me out through that!

Shortly after 6:00, after a 2 hour delay, we finally pulled into South Padre Island. It was beautiful!



This is the condo we stayed in. It was so nice, and WAY cheap! If anyone is planning a trip down there anytime soon, call me so I can give you the info. We were really happy with it.



Friday the first thing on our agenda was to check out the beach! The first thing on Jacey's list was to build a sandcastle. It lasted about 5 minutes before they discovered that playing in the ocean was more fun.



Broden was in heaven! There was a little section of the beach that was higher than the rest, so it was like a little island surrounded by water. He loved standing on that and running down into the water. He loved squishing his toes around in the wet sand and splashing in the water.






Broden discovered the squirt guns that Jacey stashed in our beach bag before we left home, but couldn't figure out how to point it the other way so it shot other people instead of himself. I'm thinking this boy will never be allowed to own a BB gun.




He finally decided it worked better as a water bottle.

Saturday was RACE DAY!


Dan was so cute to drive the kids to different spots on the beach to get some pictures of me running, then hurry the kids into the car so they could go down a little farther to get more pics. This picture is kind of blurry. I like to think it's because I was running so fast, but I think it's really because the camera was on the wrong setting :)



We finished! It was so fun to have someone to share this adventure with! I think Abi is amazing for still doing a half-marathon even with a stress fracture. Way to go Abi!

After the race we wanted to go to the beach again. After multiple attempts to give Broden a quick nap first, we finally decided to just go. We got everyone else out the door, then looked around for Broden. Back in the condo, this is what we found...



Do you think he looks just a little tired?


Our family on the beach




Have I mentioned how much Jacey LOVES Dallas and Abi? She was thrilled when they took her out in the ocean to jump over waves. We took them to the airport yesterday to go to Utah, and she has been praying that they would have a good trip ever since.



What a pose!

Our trip to the beach and, more specifically, the race itself has been an ongoing conversation between Jacey and I. She REALLY wanted to run the race with me, and to tell her that 13 miles was a little too far for her little legs just made her more defensive. ("But Mom, I'm as fast as lightning!")



While at the beach, we decided to give Jacey her very own race. The competitors were Dallas, Dan, and Jacey. I must say, the competition was fierce! And the winner is...


The one with the mile-wide smile!



In the meantime, Broden couldn't have been happier. Life doesn't get much better for a little boy than sleeping on the beach, filthy and covered in sand, with a stick in his hand. Life is good..



The last big adventure of the trip was feeding the seagulls. We noticed the first day we went to the beach that they would come right up to you if you offered food. The last day we went to the beach I packed some bread so Jacey could feed them. I took out a couple of pieces to begin with, unsure of what I should do to get them to come over to us. Within seconds it seemed like every seagull on the beach was within inches of my head trying to get the bread from me. I'm sure that's a slight exaggeration, but that's what it seemed like. I was SO scared, but running from them was useless. I finally threw all the bread I had on the beach just to get them away from me, but they STILL kept chasing me. I'm so glad the video camera was safely put away, although I'm sure everyone else would have found it very entertaining. I delegated helping Jacey feed the birds over to Dan and Dallas, and sure enough the birds came right up to them and Jacey LOVED it. Once again, one of my children proves to be tougher than Mom.

It was such a fun trip! It was so much fun to see our kids experience the beach for the first time. Two days there was just long enough to tease us, but also long enough to make us even more excited for graduation and being able to take one last REAL vacation before we give up student life and become part of the real world!