Beach Party!

This past holiday weekend we went down to South Padre Island. Being from California, our expectations were admittedly low but South Padre exceeded them nonetheless. It's a pretty easy drive down the coast from San Antonio, and we lucked out Pricelining a great hotel with private beach access and free breakfast. Except for a little rain Saturday morning (we were in the waves, so it didn't bother us much), we had excellent weather. The water was warm, waves were fun, sand was great, food was delicious, and we enjoyed some side trips in the area on Sunday.

We went to Church on Sunday morning at the small branch in Port Isabel. It reminded me of Spain since they met in a small space in a shopping center. The meetings were conducted in Spanish and the boys got to wear headphones for the shaky translation from one of the missionaries. Joey took it off immediately, but Charles stuck with it for a while, intrigued at the idea. He kept listening and staring at the speaker, taking them off for a second, putting them back on, looking back at the missionary translating--you could see the gears turning in his head. Here is a picture of the marquee outside the branch. Can you find the Church?


Then we took a little trip down to Brownsville to visit one of my projects next to the University. Of course, we had to stop by the Vermillion restaurant so I could have Liz try the ceviche. Ceviche is one of my very favorite things in the whole world, and the Vermillion serves the best that I've had outside of Spain. Liz agreed that it's the best. Also, beside the ceviche and seeing the project, the trip down there was made worthwhile when we saw two roseate spoonbills, which are very rare to see in the wild in the U.S.

After Brownsville, we decided on a lark to drive up to the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Reserve, which has a staggering number of rare and endangered species. It's the only place in the US where Ocelots and Jaguarundis exist, and the last place that Leopards were found in the U.S. (yes, leopards were once indigenous to South Texas. I know, I was surprised too). On our little visit, we saw ospreys, a sandhill crane, a wood stork, a Texas tortoise that I almost took home, crested caracaras, green jays, golden-fronted woodpeckers, roadrunners, a green kingfisher, dozens of other birds we couldn't identify, and alligators. Yes, that's right, there are alligators there, and we actually ran into two of them, as you can see in this video:



And here's a picture of the boys with the gator in the background:


The rest of the time on Saturday and Monday we spent relaxing on the beach, eating a lot of good seafood, and walking the huge fishing pier in Port Isabel where we saw a guy catch a 26 pound red drum.

Blackbeards (or the Pirate restaurant, as the boys called it) has probably the best calamari (another one of my favorites) I've had outside of Chipiona, with Pirates Landing's (or the Pirate Castle restaurant, as the boys called it) calamari coming a close second. We had fresh Gulf shrimp with every meal--so much so that on Monday Joey asked "where are we going to go eat shrimp?" instead of "where are we going to eat lunch?" I think the boys had shrimp every day for lunch and dinner.

The kids had a blast and we practically had to tear the boys away from the beach on Monday. Tori squealed with delight all weekend long and slept through the night in the hotel. We were sad to leave. In fact, since we've been back, Joey keeps asking, "when are we going back to the hotel?" Soon, I hope.

Now, tons of pictures:

Here's a bizarre entryway for one of the many beach shops

And a picture of my three favorite girls (the third being our car, Jenny B, in the background)

Here is the gang at Pirate's Landing in Port Isabel:

And Charles helping steer the ship:

Of course, we did the obligatory 'bury the kids in the sand.'

Then I made a sea turtle for them to ride.

I tried to get Joey to sit on the sand and let the waves hit him. He wanted no part of it.

Instead, he just danced around on the sand.



Charles was much braver in the surf:


I love the anticipation on his face in this picture

He even caught a few waves himself and was fully stoked--then he got planted face first in the sand. By the way, is it wrong that I was laughing for like 15 minutes after Charles got bent? We've all been through this before, right? Right?? Here is the video:

And here's my gorgeous little baby girl. I really just can't get enough of her--as evidenced by the dozens and dozens of pictures we have of her. Every time she sees me, she smiles as big as she can, wiggles her arms and legs, and squeals and squeals.

Cool pic of Tori with cho-cho in the background:


Another fun thing this weekend--Tori popped her first little tooth:

Here they are again--mom and daughter. Am I not the luckiest guy in the world?

And of course, my favorite picture of all (at least half of it).