Enchanted Rock and South Padre Island

This is old news by now, but we had a lot of fun seeing some Texas sights. 

First, we went to Enchanted Rock with my BFF. It was a cold day. We had to bust out all of our extra sweaters. The little one in Amanda's family was tied up in a sweater that was too big for her. If she had fallen, she would have landed right on her face. But she was warm! It was an easy hike, perfect for kids.

We also finally took a much longed for beach trip. We decided to go six hours away to what is supposed to be the best beach in Texas--South Padre Island. And it was beautiful! We don't know if it was the best yet because we haven't been to any other beaches. I have seen the ocean, and I even went to Hawaii, but I don't feel like I've really done a beach trip before. The Hawaii thing was the week after Aaron and I got married, and we were distracted with life and being married and worrying about money. And on our Hawaii trip, I mostly remember the water just being soooo salty. And there were also lots of rocks. It was hard work to walk out into the water.

The beach at South Padre was perfect and sandy. And the water was salty, but not unbearably so. And I had so much fun boogie-boarding. I loved it! It made me feel alive! I'm a beach person. I like beaches. I didn't know!

We went to the turtle rescue center while we were there. This little lady had had three of her fins ripped off as a baby. They made a prosthetic for her to be able to swim around. I've never gotten emotional about a turtle before. But I was like, wow, life can be really harsh sometimes! Way to keep swimming, sister!

William and Heather got in on the boogie-boarding action, too!

Cousins watched lots of movies!

Lucy had a birthday!

And we did the dolphin watch, as per Annie's request. It was fun! But very cold and windy!

The first day at the beach was pretty good weather. But the other days were kinda cold. The kids were glad we had a pool and hot tub at the airbnb to go back to when nature got a little too nature-y at the beach.

Miles and Aaron are still BFFs:)

We bought WAAAAY too much food. I bought six half gallons of ice cream for our three day stay. We made a determined effort, but we ended up throwing a lot of stuff away. My brain was not functioning properly in Walmart.  

This dead jellyfish was one of the few creatures we saw in the water. It would be fun to find some tide pools the next time we go to a beach.

Ahhh, the hot tub. Burned our already sunburned flesh. Hurt so good!

Brother bonding at the beach. So special.