Port Aransas Beach Trip

This past week the kids and I went to Port Aransas, Texas with my dad. We went Monday thru Friday and stayed right on the beach in a nice 3 bedroom condo. David was not able to come since he took last week off to go to Scout Camp with the boys and we are taking off for our Utah vacation sometime this week. I guess he's got to work sometime, darn it!!

Port Aransas is about 3 1/2 hours away, straight south from us. It's a boring drive, but worth the destination. I had never been to Port A before, but it was a nice quiet area compared to South Padre or Corpus Christi. The beach there in Port A is open to everyone with a road that runs 7 miles along the beach. This came in handy as we didn't have to lug all our stuff to the beach each day...only back and forth to the car. Our condo was right on the beach, but still a ways back from the actual swimming beach. The dunes are positioned in such a way that when you are in the condo you would never know that there is a road and parking lot on the other side of the dunes you're looking at. Very cleverly designed!

The first day we checked in around 4pm and after we unpacked the car, the kids and I headed to the beach to "have a look". Of course we all ended up getting wet as we jumped in the waves and staked out our spot for the next day!!

Tuesday we were up and had a great breakfast before we hit the beach. We used plenty of sunscreen, but still managed to get quite red faced, and backed!! I guess the reflection on the water is really hard on the skin...even my tan Texas boys!! We spent as long as we could at the beach before we were REALLY hungry and went up for a late lunch. After lunch and a rest the kids wanted to check out the pool, so we had a swim before dinner. Dinner that night was BBQ which was pretty good. Everyone went to bed without any problems after that fun day!




Wednesday started out the same...THE BEACH!! We were still a little red so we had to cut it short and had a longer rest time...watching my favorite movie "What About Bob!!" After that we headed to the harbor for the dolphin watch tour. We were able to see lots of dolphins just playing in the water. It was fun to see them all around and watch them play and swim around and under the boat. Here's pictures from that fun trip:


While we were out on the boat (Ethan wasn't feeling well and took a nap...too much sun!!) Grandpa had gone to the kite store and bought two new kites to try out. We first tried flying them on the dunes by the condo, but there were too many different wind currents and obstacles, so we headed back down to the beach where it was very easy to fly the kites. At least it was easy to get the kites up. The kids decided they really liked letting all the string out and flying the kites really high...but they weren't so keen on the bringing them in and rolling up the string...so I ended up getting quite a work-out bringing them both in!! Fun, fun!!

Thursday's adventure included another good breakfast followed by an outing to the shops and an exciting ride in the parking lot:




Friday we were up and after breakfast had to leave. We rode the shortest ferry I've ever seen (literally 3-5 minutes max) across to Aransas Pass and then straight north for 3 hours back home. Now we're unpacking, doing laundry, trying to rid ourselves of sand and pack back up for our Utah reunion trip coming up this week!! Whoever said "lazy days" of summer was lying...I'm exhausted!!