Feliz Lunes y como esta ustedes?

Initially, I was going to rise with the sun on Wednesday and get some fabulous beach shots, but I missed the mark by about 15 minutes, preferring to stay snuggled in bed. We were making a point of going with the flow, not adhering to any particular schedule. When I got up, it was a snap decision to take a walk at that point and see what I could see. Coming back, I passed Dave on his bike, he had decided to go get some exercise as well. I never found any hamburger seed pods in the dunes the whole trip, trust me, I looked everywhere!

The pictures are all on Facebook, so I will just show a couple here so I don’t use up so much media. There were lots of clouds, a mostly empty beach, due to the restrictions and curfew, so my pictures were mostly of those and a few shots of flora and fauna, some ongoing construction due to the last hurricane (Harvey), and a sand mermaid someone had left from the day before. Only one sun shot was good, so that is the one I’ll share here.

That evening, the kids and I were entranced by the moon and stars, and Becky and I practiced getting a good shot of the moon, mine was taken through the palms on the porch. It was kind of a half-moon with a shadow filling in the rest. Her pics were better because she had a real camera and I was using my phone, but I don’t have her pics to share here. What I’ve always thought was Venus, she corrected me saying it was Jupiter.

Thursday, we rose early (not unusual for me) and hurried to get in line for the fishing trip. The kids were nervous about getting seasick, but they did fine. We all took our Dramamine, so we were fine. The waves were an easy 2-3 feet, and we all ate a small meal for breakfast before we went. The ride out was very long; 2 1/2 hours, but the captain put us on snapper, so we were happy. We knew this was what was in store, because the days before the trip, we checked out the pictures of what everyone had been catching all week from Deep Sea Headquarters. The pictures a stranger took of us holding our fish was in front of the new Pirate Cruise ship, a new addition for the kiddos.

That night, we were beat, so Becky whipped us up a delicious dinner of chicken and squash with a salad and we heard the news of the impending tropical storm. What a bummer! Dave immediately got nervous and said we would decide in the morning if we should leave. Well, as you know, we did. Hanna was due to make landfall around midnight Friday night, which would put us trying to pack and leave in driving rain and 65mph winds. He was a hard no on that! So, Friday morning, the kids and I packed our clothes, went to say goodbye to the beach for a couple of hours, then returned to pack up the rest of the stuff and deal with the food. Dave had most of it done, so we actually got out of there around 1:30 instead of two. We made the decision to eat lunch together on the way out, then we would go ahead and leave while Chris and Becky stayed back to finish up her shopping. They were about an hour or two behind us coming home.

As soon as we got across by ferry to Aransas Pass, we started getting hurricane warning alerts on our phones. That means we made a very good decision to leave early, however, we later found out the storm made landfall further south and only minor flooding occurred on Port Aransas, still, Dave would not have been a happy camper packing in the rain! All in all, we had a nice vacation, despite the storm and all the snafus that tried to wreck it for us. Our attitude was one of gratitude we got to go in the first place! COVID-19 restrictions could have kept us home, but we went and made the most of it. We ate delicious food, Becky had a lot of firsts, and Chris got a much needed break from work, as did Dave.

We finished out our vacation at home, Dave made burgers and dogs for the family Saturday afternoon, and took me out to eat last night at Mexican Inn, now its back to reality! Time for work, study, and taking care of family. Josh starts working with Chris’s friend Adam today and Sean started a new job while we were gone. Yea! May the force be with us all! Have a good week everyone!