Texas Vacation - Arrival

We packed our van and headed out of town on Friday afternoon and made it to Ft. Worth by midnight.  A quick stay at a hotel to recharge and we were back on the road by 9 a.m. the next morning.  Surprisingly, the kids did pretty good in the car.  We had to stop at least once an hour to pee or eat or change a diaper or whatever... which made for slow travels.  Let's just say we saw a lot of rural Texas gas stations.

But we finally made it to Port A by 4 p.m.  I was surprised by the amount of traffic in Aransas Pass and even more shocked at the parking lot of cars waiting to get on the ferry.  Ledger was so excited to get a "boat ride" and I was hoping we might get to catch a glimpse of the bay dolphins.  We were pretty lucky -- the dolphins were jumping about 20 yards off the side of the boat!  So cool.  Our first 10 minutes of arrival involved a boat ride (on the ferry) and spotting wild dolphins!!

On the ferry...

... looking for dolphins...

THERE THEY ARE!!

After a 30 minute wait to get on the ferry and then another 30 minutes to drive through 6 miles of standstill traffic to our resort.  When we pulled in, the parking attendant told us that it was the last day of spring break for Texas and assured us that the crowds would disperse by the next day.  We were just happy to get checked-in and finally see Oma and Doodah.  Our condo really took us by surprise -- it was just SO nice.  3 bedrooms with a big living room and kitchen with a beautiful balcony view of the ocean.  

So we've been driving for hours and we finally arrive... what do we do?  Hit the beach of course!!  You have to take this long boardwalk over the sand dunes to get to the beautiful beach and ocean.  Locke loved the sand and Ledger immediately pulled out his shovel and started digging.

 

After a really long day, we ate a home-cooked meal at the condo and everyone crashed early.  Ready for day 3...

Locke: One Year Old!!

It's hard to believe, but Locke is ONE YEAR OLD!!  He is 24 pounds (40th%) and 28.5" (10th%) and wearing size 12 month to 18 month clothes.  Locke is still very mobile, but not walking.  He is crawling everywhere and pulls himself up onto every available object.  He is usually very happy and loves to clap and give high fives.  He waves whenever we say "bye, bye" -- he has two unique waves, the full hand pivoting at the wrist (we call it the "beauty pageant" wave) and where he holds his hand still but waves just his thumb.  We love this special little quirk.  Locke has 6 teeth although the 6th tooth is just barely peeked through the gum.  He is no longer breastfeeding at all, but takes the bottle really well.  We are also slowly starting him on a sippy cup and regular milk.  So far, we've seen no symptoms that suggest he is plagued with any of the food allergies that Ledger had.  Locke is talking all the time and I call him my little mockingbird because he will mimic anything that we say and do.  He started blowing kisses, singing, and constantly verbalizing -- although it's hard to make out anything specific that he "says".  We are pretty sure he hasn't said "mama" yet though. :)

Locke was really blessed to celebrate his birthday THREE times and in three different states! :)  On his actual birthday, we celebrated while on our Spring Break vacation to Port Aransas, TX.  It was special to have my cousins Amber and Valerie with their families, my Mom and Buddy, and Great Grammie and Tommy all together to enjoy dinner and cake on his birthday.  Locke really enjoyed his blue cake frosting!

Our second celebration was in Oklahoma with BoomMa and BoomPa.  BoomMa got him an ice cream cake.  At first, he wasn't sure about the cold, but it didn't take too long for him to start to digging into the ice cream.  He loved it!

Our third celebration happened here at home with Grammie and Papa Michel.  Unfortunately, I didn't get out the camera for that one.  Locke really liked the whipped cream topping on his apple spice cupcake. :)

We sure do love this kid.  He's just so funny and happy and he gives the BEST baby hugs.  We are so happy to be a family of four. :)