The beach

After the Lexington (see previous post), we changed in the car, grabbed our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and enjoyed the beach.

  Being a Friday afternoon, it was completely empty ... another plus of homeschooling.=)  Now it wasn't the cleanest beach.  I'm not sure if the beach is always this dirty or if this is leftovers from Hurricane Ike.  The sand was pebbly so sand castles weren't easy, but it was a great starter beach.  

We found a jellyfish?  It sure looks like one that lost its tentacles but I was surprised at how rubbery it felt.  I've seen man'o wars on Florida beaches before (the blue jellyfish).  We'd find them on the beach and throw rocks to pop them like bubble gum.  I pictured jellyfish being the same, but nope.  This thing was rubbery and solid; not squishy at all.

The waves were little, but plenty for everyone.

Alex wouldn't go farther than this without assistance.

Look how close we're swimming to the ship.  It's permanently stationary in mud and cement.

I'm so glad Calvin enjoyed the sand cuz he sure wasn't a fan of the water.

After a few hours at that beach, we decided to explore other beaches.  We drove to Port Aransas, taking a ferry to get across.  The beach here was our favorite.  The sand was diggable (although I wished I had a sturdier shovel instead of the cheap plastic thing we'd picked up at the store.)  The kids were amazed at how far out they had to go to get into deeper water.  Splashing on the beach was fun.

The waves don't look that big, but the further out we went, the more fun they were to float over.

Flock of pelicans.  I love these birds.

After swimming at the beach, we were thinking seafood would be appropriate (even if we aren't fish fans.)  We tried Joe's Crab Shack for the first time.  I'm not sure if it was because it was a Friday night and we just got a bad deal, but we were disappointed at the amount of food we got (the size of cole slaw and portion of french fries shouldn't have been almost nonexistent).  So now we know we'll never go again but it was still fun.  We thought it would be fun to eat outside.  It was great until the sun started going down and those monster mosquitoes came out.  These suckers were huge and you can feel them when they get ya.  Here at home they're so tiny that you only notice them after the fact.  Nope, these huge beasts can be killed right on the spot and there's tons of them.  Don't leave your car door open too long or you'll be killing them the whole way home and then killing leftovers in the morning.  Next time we'll remember the mosquito wipes or dryer sheets (they seem to work just as well).

Look at those 2 handsome guys.

The hotel room wasn't too cramped.  The kids enjoyed watching cartoon network after a long day.  A special treat.

The last morning, we wanted so badly to go back to the beach, but were suffering from sunburns so we settled for a quick dip in the pool.  We extended our morning (you can checkout late for free at this hotel.  Awesome!!!)  I lathered up the kids with sunscreen til they were white.  Since Glen got the worst of it he sat on the sidelines reading a book and being an extra pair of eyes.  Calvin had so much fun just walking around the pool.  He didn't even want to touch the water.  Just being out of the hotel room he was good to go.

He even carted his bottle to the other side and just enjoyed watching us swim.

On our way out, we read there's a replica of the Nina (one of Columbus' boats) docked at the marina so we ventured over.  We were amazed at how small it was.  Glen kept asking, "Where did they sleep?"  We couldn't get on the boat to see if the inside had bedding areas or anything, but a ship this size really crossed the Atlantic?

The kids said that wooden box looked like a treasure chest.

It's about the same size as these other small boats around here.

What a fun thing to see before celebrating Columbus Day.

It was fun to see all the fishing boats and hear the fishermen (now these were real fishermen and not just fishers from the pier.  Glen laughed at me for that one.=)  They were yelling out "Fresh fish.  Buy your fresh shrimp."  I felt like I was in Agribah from Aladdin.  Don't ask where that thought came from.=)

We walked along the boat highway to see the sailboats, jet skis, and fishing boats coming and going.

And there in the background, we loved the big bridge and the big ships coming into port.

Personally, I wasn't sure the marina would be so cool, but I'm so glad we stopped.  

K, there's the update from our beach vacation.  Don't be surprised if my blogging takes a break for a while because my hands are sure tired.  I told Glen it's time to turn boring cuz keeping up with this journal is a lot of work.=)