Beach Fun!

Keith and I have promised the girls for a year that we would take them to the beach this summer for our FIRST EVER FAMILY VACATION. Well, the oil spill ruined our Florida plans so we opted for Rockport-Fulton.

Our journey began with me attending a 3 day math conference in San Antonio. Keith and the girls spent those 3 days with his parents in Temple. The girls met a sweet friend named Clara. They visited the spray park, fed ducks, went to a museum, and enjoyed some over-due Nanny and Papa time. They even got the pleasure of making Papa birthday cake and helped him celebrate his 64th~

We all met up on Saturday afternoon at my sister and brother in law's house in San Antonio. We visited a cool pool that had great water slides. The girls wore us out riding those. Then we headed back to their house for some cool beverages and hot dogs.

We left early Sunday morning and drove almost three hours to Rockport. We unpacked and headed straight for the beach. Rockport-Fulton has a beach area that is GREAT for kids. The waves are small and you can walk so far out into the ocean. Madeline enjoyed building a sand castle with daddy and Grace and I soaked up some rays while listening to her ipod! (she's growing up too fast)! That night we ate at a yummy place called Moon Dog. It was located right in the middle of a fishing/shrimp boat cove. The breeze was nice and cool from the water!

On Monday, we ventured (via Ferry) to Mustang Island. I wanted the girls to see REAL waves. Boy, were they real! The pictures don't really show how big and mighty these waves were. The sound was so relaxing and beautiful. We spent our time playing in the waves (we held tightly to the girls though because the under-tow was so strong), burying each other in the sand, making another sand castle (complete with a garden....Madeline created a garden for her castle with sea shells). It was so much fun; we were sooo tired that day!

We ventured to a local restaraunt called Paradise Key. The food was amazing!!!! Grace tried shrimp for the very first time and really liked it! Madeline wasn't so adventurous....she stuck with good ole corn dogs!

Tuesday was our last day to spend at the beach but it didn't quite go as planned.... we ventured back to the kid friendly beach at Rockport-Fulton. We paid our $4.00 entrance fee and only stayed for 5 minutes!!! The jellyfish were out in full bloom and after seeing those, the girls wanted no part of the beach! We loaded our stuff back up and headed to our hotel where we spent the entire afternoon (4-5 hours) playing in the pool and enjoying our picnic lunch! It ended up being tons of fun and we took some crazy photos! Keith's face in the "crazy picture" absolutely cracks me up. After 12 years of marriage, I had never seen him make this face before...

Leslie and Gregg were kind enough to let us stay Wednesday night with them to break up our LONG trip home. It was fun (as it always is). We made a quick stop in Temple on Thursday to say goodbye to his parents and we were home at 4:30. Whew.....vacation was so much fun but so much work! Keith and I need a vacation from the vacation now :)) Maybe soon....