Texas Vacation - Port Aransas Day 3, part 2

For Locke's FIRST BIRTHDAY celebration, we had a big party.  We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and invited the Lewis and Shober clans to our condo.  We even baked Locke a birthday cake with blue frosting and fish sprinkles -- we were celebrating at the ocean, afterall!  He loved smashing the cake and frosting all over his face and all over his Mommy too.  He opened presents from his family and then was ready for bed after a long, fun-filled day.  I can't believe my little baby is already one year old.

Ledger and his big cousins made a plan to go hunting for hermit crabs after dark.  They loaned Ledger a head lamp and we all headed out to the beach.  Ledger was so brave and willing to reach out and touch the crabs right away -- something his big boy cousins wouldn't even do!  I was so proud of how well he kept up with his cousins Nate and Logan.  The whole thing made me ridiculously happy to see how much fun Ledger was having.  It was my favorite night of the vacation.  If you've made it this far, WATCH THE VIDEO!  It's 3 minutes long, but a lot of fun!

Texas Vacation - Port Aransas Day 3, part 1

(This post was getting really long, so I broke it into two parts...)
Day 3 was started out cold and dreary.  But Ledger was so excited to get out to the beach to try his newly acquired (found it abandoned near the pool area) boogie board.  So he and I went out into the crazy terrible weather, down to the beach, and he laid on the boogie board while I ran in the surf pulling him.  It was quite a workout.  After about half an hour, his lips were turning blue and we were both ready to head back inside to dry off.  To keep us entertained on a dreary morning, Doodah and Daddy drove into town to pick up Tommy's beach cart to take us for a ride.  Doodah even let Ledger drive -- which he LOVED.

Ledger loves driving.

We found this awesome stick washed ashore full of barnacles.
Ledger loved watching the barnacles slide in and out of their shells!

After lunch and naps, the sun finally came out and warmed things up enough to hit the beach and pool.  At the beach, Doodah tried to get Ledger to really "ride" a wave on his boogie board.  It took a few tries, but Ledger did finally get a good ride -- check out the video!  At the pool, Doodah had been wanting to take some specific "posed" pictures at the kids water park.  See below. :)

Locke smiled every time the water washed over his legs.  He loved just hanging out in the surf.

Doodah wanted to try to get Ledger to really "ride" a wave on his boogie board.

After all of our fun that day, there was even MORE fun to come in the evening.  See PART TWO.

Texas Vacation - Port Aransas Day 2

Oma and Doodah granted Chris and I a little bit of alone time in the morning to go explore the Corpus Christie area.  Chris had never been to this part of Texas and we both like to drive around to explore our surroundings.  Corpus has a beautiful sea view drive and the U.S.S. Lexington aircraft carrier is docked there.  In the afternoon, we made it back to Port A for lunch at a really good little Mexican restaurant before heading back home.

When the kids woke up from their naps, they were ready to hit the beach again!  Have I mentioned how much Ledger loved the ocean!?  Locke liked playing in the sand too and giggled every time the water washed up onto him.  So sweet...

Texas Vacation - Port Aransas Day 1

On our first full day in Port A, Locke woke up (really) early enough that we were able to join Oma and Doodah for some early morning beach combing.  The spring breakers had all abandoned camp and they had found lots of treasurers over the last week -- including two pairs of Sperry boat shoes, sand toys, lots of shirts, flip flops, and towels.  On this last day, our big find was a pretty nice cooler.  We also found a couple of nice beach towels too.  The spring breakers sure left things a mess -- lots of trash and drunk college kids still laying around. There were a lot of people on the beach cleaning up the mess and also a lot of people collecting cans for recycling.

When we got back to the condo, Ledger was ready to hit the pool!  While Locke and I laid down for a nap, Ledger, Oma, Doodah, and Daddy hit the pool.  Ledger seemed a little too nervous to try the new kiddie splash pool, but he made a lot of friends in the shallow-depth pool!

After a light sandwich lunch, Ledger was ready to hit the beach.  He took a stack of sand toys and said he was ready to DIG!  I didn't bother getting all decked out in a swimsuit because I just planned on watching him build a sand castle, but when we actually arrived at the beach, he wanted to get right into the water.  He and I chased the waves in and out of the ocean.  We had a great time!

After a while, we were joined on the beach by my cousins Amber and Valerie and their families.  Ledger was especially excited about playing with the "big kids" and Alanah, Kennedy, Logan, Nate, and Aubrey were all SO good with him.  Alanah and Kennedy introduced us to bean clams -- these little mollusks that wash up in the tide.  We had seen them previously, but thought they were just shells.  As it turns out, if you take them out of the water and place them on wet sand, they will bury themselves down into the sand -- pretty cool!  Oma also brought down bread to feed the seagulls and it was really cool to watch the birds hover around the "feeders" and catch the parcels.  Locke continued to play in the sand and Ledger just wanted to be in the water as much as possible.  I love that he loved the ocean.

You guessed it... we all hit the sack pretty early.  We were worn out from a few days of travel and one big day of play!