Sunday 11/28 - Junior Rangers

On Sunday we took the kids back to the Padre Island visitors center.  They had completed all of their assignments in their junior ranger book and were ready to collect their patches.  The kids had to interview a ranger, map out their visit on the island, write some poems, write some responses to examples of letters, pick up trash, do some matching activities with animals and their habitats, learn about animals on the island, learn about the people on Padre Island, find specific seashells, and learn about the different kinds of jellyfish.  The kids worked on this during the week as part of their school assignments.  They each received a patch, a pin, and a certificate.   Below are one of each of their poems they had to write.

Jellyfish Dream

by Rees

I have a dream to stay in water

but once the waves come

I follow

Portuguese Man-of-War

by Trent

I got stung by a man of war

the blue and purple

left me black and blue

Pelicans

by Jake

Dive hard to catch fish

we fly up above to search

we put on a show

USS Lexington

View from inside car on the ferry

Saturday we headed out to the WWII aircraft carrier the USS Lexington.  What an experience...you get to walk around the entire ship.  There was a dentist office, barber shop, sickbay, surgery area, hearing and optical offices all on board!  We saw the mess hall, sleeping areas, captains quarters, air traffic control area, the bridge, machine shop, chapel, engine room, where the bombs were assembled and loaded, and the anchor area with these huge chains.  We also made it up to the flight deck where they had many different planes parked on the deck.  It was amazing to see all that was in this ship.  Walking around through the long halls and having to walk over the openings in order not to hit your shins, it made you wonder how many times those guys actually hurt themselves.  Some of the ladders to walk up were so steep and you had to be careful not to hit your head.  It was great for the kids to be able to touch everything and experience the ship.  When we left the ship we headed the long way around back to our campground, we wanted to take the ferry across the island.

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  It just happen to be my 44th birthday too.  It was a great day!  I did forget to mention that on Tuesday after spending the day at the beach, we got home and Bryce and the kids were playing football outside, well Jake landed on his wrist in a funny manner and now he is in a splint with a sprained wrist.  We ended up taking him to the doctor to have an x-ray done. (Don't want anyone left out of the blog)  Anyway, for part of the Thanksgiving day, the boys went fishing for part of the afternoon and boy did they score!  Bryce caught 2 of the same fish he did yesterday, except he learned they are called Red Drum, from the local park ranger.  These fish were absolutely HUGE!  He said they were fun reeling in and gave him quite the fight.  One was about 40 lbs. and 39 inches long, and the other about 45 lbs. and 46 inches long.  Jake also caught a Red Drum that was about 2 feet long, he had to have help reeling him in, he said it was hard. They ended up bringing 2 of the 3 fish home.  You can only keep one Red Drum that is longer than than 39 inches, you even have to send in a piece of the fishing license letting them know that you caught one that long and kept it.  When they got home they ended up cleaning the fish, so we could eat it tomorrow.  While the boys were fishing, Rees and I made the birthday cake and just relaxed.  We ended up having our Thanksgiving meal at the Omni Hotel, it was fantastic.  Better yet I had no dishes to do!

Wednesday - 11/24 Padre Island

Happy Thanksgiving!

So Bryce brought home some ocean fishing equipment yesterday and decided that we had to at least try it since we were here.  So after school we went to the beach do do a little fishing.  Bryce and Jake did the fishing using the extra large poles.  Rees, Trent, and I picked up some trash along the beach and enjoyed the sand and the surf.  Then all of a sudden the boys were yelling that they caught something.  Bryce reeled in a beautiful fish, but we were a little unprepared to keep it, we were just going to try it out, not really expecting to catch anything.  Yet Bryce did...it was a beautiful fish about 2 feet long and about 4 pounds, we had no idea what kind of fish it was. We did have a bucket and we decided to put it in there, but the fish had other ideas, he jumped out and swam away!  A little while later, Jake pulled in a small catfish with a large trash bag attached to it.  By this time, the sun was setting and it was time to head back.  When we got back, we tried to look up what kind of fish Bryce caught and decided it was a kingfish.  What a fun couple of hours fishing!  We will be trying this again, maybe tomorrow!

Padre Island

Portuguese Man-of-War

Eating lunch in the back of the truck, right on the beach

Variety of shells collected by the kids

Family portrait

Silly me to think there was a facility out on Padre Island with turtles.  When I was on the website, I knew there would be no nesting turtles or hatchlings, turtle season is from about May - Aug, but it did sound like they do talks and/or have some information /facility.  Well it's a visitor center and there is some information to browse about the whole island.  We decided to hang out at the beach anyway.  The kids picked up some junior ranger books filled with activities, and if they complete the book, they will get a patch (which they plan on doing).  When we first walked down, the sand was soooo soft, very fine.  It felt wonderful between our toes.  Then we headed down to the water.  Along the way we noticed what we thought was a jellyfish, and as we continued to walk, they were everywhere.  They were a beautiful blue color with a long top body and some blue squiggly tentacles.  Of course we knew to touch them!  Not only that, they are not jellyfish, but Portuguese Man-of-War!!!!  The water felt a little cool and first, but was refreshing.  We were a little apprehensive about being in the water due to all the jellyfish we saw along the way.  We then headed back so we could eat lunch (I packed us lunch, but forgot they drinks).  Needless to say the store was closed where we could get drinks, so we got in the car and headed back into town to get drinks.  We knew we could find beach access anywhere along this area.  Well we got our drinks and drove down the road that said beach access, and  they meant beach access...we drove right onto the beach!!!  We parked the truck and sat in the back eating and watching the waves, it was magnificent.  During lunch Bryce dropped a chip and ended up throwing it out towards the birds...big mistake, all of a sudden there was a swarm of seagulls flying above our heads, and everywhere on the ground around us.  We ended up leaving and heading towards the other island towards Port Aransas.  It was a beautiful drive and we wanted to go spend more time at the beach so we headed that way, again being able to park right on the beach.  We went for another walk - the kids collected shells, played in the waves, and we watched some people fish and reel in a spanish trout (beautiful fish).  We had to still be very aware of where we were walking due to the Portuguese Man-of-War everywhere.  You are probably about to guess what happened...YES Trent ended up stepping on one of these creatures, and let out a cry/scream.  He was very brave as we got it off his foot, lucky it was just a very small one.  It did hurt, but we headed back to the car and the stinging went away.  All in all it turned out to be a wonderful day at the beach.

Corpus Christi Texas

We arrived here on Saturday.  Something about the smell and feel of the air when you are close to the beach!  I have missed it.  The weather has been nice, warm, and a little sticky at times.  There has been a nice breeze blowing through.  Today we are headed out to Padre Island.  we are taking the kids to the Sea Turtles Inc. facility where they will be learning about the Kemp Ridley sea turtles.  On this island the turtles come to nest, then the Sea Turtle Inc. collects the eggs and incubates them until they hatch.  They then release the hatchlings back into the ocean.  We are not here during their nesting time, but this is something I would love to come back and see with the family.  I will post about our adventure at the facility tomorrow, and the kids will be doing some research and reports on sea turtles.  If you would like to see more about this facility here is the link:  www.seaturtleinc.org

Kemah, Texas - Wednesday 11/17

Greetings from Kemah!  Yes I said Kemah.  A town that is southeast of Houston.  We are staying at a campground called the Marina Bay RV Resort, which by the way is not a very kid friendly place.  We haven't had the warm and fuzzy feeling from this place.  Anyway the weather has not been great - windy, chilly, and a little rain.  Yesterday the weather was finally warmer, still a little wind, but nice.  The kids decided they wanted to go swimming after school, except for Rees, so we did...in a pool that was not heated!  That was the best laugh I have had in a long time.  Watching the boys jump in and then quickly jump out.  Yet Jake continued to keep jumping getting used to it, really I just think his body actually got too numb to feel the coldness any longer.  While they played football, Jake in the pool and Trent on the outside of the pool, I painted Rees' nails.  We were right next to the bayou so we got to watch this amazing sight of  a pelican diving down into the water, he hits that water so hard it looks like he should be hurt, and then coming up with a fish to eat.

Later in the evening we went out to dinner.  Guess what?  We finally made it to one of those Diner, Drive-ins, and Dive places right here in Kemah.  It was called T-Bone Tom's Steakhouse.  Cute little diner, and packed.  We had their famous Armadillo Eggs - pickled jalapenos stuffed with beef brisket then fried.  They were huge and very yummy, a little too spicy for the kids, but I was very proud that they tried them.  It was one of those places were everything was fried, but yummy.

After dinner we went to the Kemah Boardwalk.  They have some rides and shops right on the gulf.  We walked around and then came across the Aquarium where you can feed and touch stingrays, well of course we had to do it.  We bought our tickets and food and proceeded into the stingray area.  These things came right up the side and out of the tank to try to get fed.  We were all a little apprehensive/scared to do it, except Trent, that child is not afraid of much.   Right as we came up to the edge one came right up and out onto the ledge, of course I screamed!  Bryce, Trent and I fed them, Jake and Rees only wanted to touch them. You had to hold the little fish you were feeding them in between your fingers, then making a fist with the fish sticking out put your hand in the water and the stingray would come up and suck, yes suck like a vacuum, the fish out of your fingers.  The only problem is that it was hard to even get your hand in the tank, as they were all over there and up on the sides wanting the food.  They also had a small portion of the tank separated with a piece of plexiglass, this kept some of the baby ones from the larger ones.  Those little ones were so cute, and of course they would come right up the side.  Trent was letting them just suck on his fingers.  We stayed there for quite a while just touching and watching the stingrays, it was a great experience!

Admiralty RV Resort

We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Admiralty RV Resort in San Antonio Texas.  This has been one of our favorite places so far.  The people in this park were very friendly and they had lots of activities planned throughout the months to come.  We absolutely loved the huge heated pool that we got to swim in everyday!  The boys got to do some golfing, the girls did some shopping.  Rees has been deciding whether or not to get her ears pierced.  She is still a little scared.  Trent broke 100 by shooting a 93 on the golf course, he has finally found his swing!  We left here on Saturday 11/13 and headed towards Houston.  We will be staying outside of Houston on the bay in a city called Kemah.  For those of you wondering about Lucy, as you can see she is living the life and enjoying herself.  We did have to take her to the doctor recently, she was throwing up everywhere.  Seems she caught some sort of bug and was dehydrated, but she is back to her old self.  This comes after spending a boat load to get her diagnosed with blood tests and x-rays, and then having to put her on a bland food diet.  Got to love those pets!

Saturday 11/6 - San Antonio Texas

Turn up the music and watch and listen to our day at the Airshow!
Saturday was a big day... we went to the air show at Lackland Air Force Base.  All I can say is WOW!!  It was so much fun.  It was a perfect day, in the mid 70's with lots of sunshine.  They had tons of planes and helicopters out and around the base for anyone who wanted to look up close, touch them, and even go in some of them.  Then the show begins...I'm not sure where to even start.  There were  F-22 Raptors which took off so fast that the sound came later and they flew over us with an open bomb area so you could see where they carry them and drop them out.  We saw the C-5 Galaxy which dropped some parachutes from the sky, my kids love this plane.  It is huge and loud.  There were F-16s who could go so fast and then turn and almost stop in an instance.  One of the F-16 pilots was a female, pretty impressive.  The Thunderbirds who by far were the most amazing pilots to watch, what they could do in an airplane, two of them came by one upright and the other upside-down right under the other, they were within what seemed inches of each other.  Of course they were too fast and I didn't catch that picture.  They all buzzed around the air at speeds that were incredible.  The Golden Knights (parachutes) were there umping from their plane, and some World War Two planes, who did some loop-di-loops in the air together.  There was also a Pearl Harbor Reenactment complete with P-51 Mustangs, P-47 Thunderbolts, Japanese Zeros and even ground fire.  Many of the planes did amazing stunts that you would never think could be done in planes.  Some went so high up they almost disappeared and some so low you thought they might crash.  We got to sit in helicopters, tour through the E-3 satellite plane, walk under may planes, walked through a Galaxy, and even got to see a military dog training demonstration.  The best thing of the day was watching the kids faces as they enjoyed every minute of the day!

Weekend in San Antonio Texas - Friday

camel's bladder used for water

three-eyed turtle

Beatles etched onto tiny eggs

painted potato chips

Abraham Lincoln made out of GUM

We have had a busy weekend.  After school on Friday we drove downtown to go see the Alamo and the River Walk.  First the Alamo - this was very interesting considering it is directly downtown with all the other tall buildings around it.  I guess we expected it to be on the outskirts, since that is where you mostly find these kinds of forts because they take up so much space.

Since we are already downtown, all we had to do was walk across the street and down some stairs to get to the river walk area.  The River Walk is a beautiful area - they have taken the San Antonio River and made a u-shaped channel through the buildings.  Along this area there are a ton of restaurants and stores to shop. You can take boat rides through the channel and under the tunnels.  These tunnels are created so that you can get from one side of the river walk to the other side.  We walked the entire river walk and then had dinner outside at a restaurant right along the river.
After dinner the kids wanted to go through the Ripley's Believe it or not attraction.  Bryce had no interest in this so he waited outside while I took the kids through it.  Needless to say I am glad I can cross that off the list and not have to go in one of those again.  The kids had a great time and they thought is was fun, that's all that matters anyway!