Typical Tina!: Beach Trip to SPI!

Friday, June 21, 2013

Beach Trip to SPI!

This summer we took a trip to South Padre Island with friends and family. We stayed at the Marisol Condominiums on the beach, each family rented their own condo. Our room was really nice and the place even had a pool. My brother and SIL flew in Tuesday to join us. We left early Wednesday morning as it was a 6.5 hour drive and we wanted as much beach time as possible. We arrived around 1:30pm and couldn't wait to hit the beach, my parents/brother/SIL arrived around 4pm-ish. Vacation had official started once my toes were in the sand! Most of the time was spent on the beach or at the pool, with only one activity a day. Thursday we explored Gladys Porter Zoo for a good 2 hours, followed up with lunch at Senor Donkey and the beach in the afternoon. I loved this zoo, there were tons of babies, cool exhibits and I thought it was nicely laid out with plenty of landscaping and trees. We had a long day at the beach Friday morning and afternoon. Then Friday evening the majority of us ate dinner at Padre Island Brewing and then boarded a boat for a Fireworks Cruise tour, which also included dolphin sightings and the opportunity to hold sea stars, sea slugs and a butterfly ray! Ry and Emma had a blast holding sea creatures. This was the one time I remembered to bring my camera, all the other pictures were taken with my camera phone. We did see several dolphins but my camera wasn't fast enough to catch them, all I captured were a couple fins. The fireworks display was actually really good. Ry was a little freaked out at first with the loud noises and he ran to daddy for protection. However he watched the whole thing and by the end he started oohing and awing. Saturday morning we visited the Sea Turtle Rescue Center, Ry was fascinated by the turtles so I bought him his own plush turtle from the gift shop. Afterwards we had lunch at the Pirates Landing and then began our trek back home. The next day was Father's Day and the entire family went to Walburg for an early dinner. We had a great vacation, nice and relaxing and we spent it with extended family and friends! Can't wait to do it again. :)

Ry managed quite well on this trip. The car ride down was great, he watched Cars, Shrek and Ice Age the entire ride. The first 2 days he only took a 30 min nap and by Friday the lack of sleep caught up to him, I think he took a 3 hr nap that day. ;) The ride home he was a little more restless. I was hoping he'd nap longer in the car but I don't think he was very comfortable. As long as Shrek or Cars was in the DVD player he was fine. Evan signed up for some summer ACC classes and was unable to join us on the trip.