Last month, in keeping with a longstanding family tradition, we journeyed to South Padre Island for five fun-filled days. We were joined by my parents and two other families we're good friends with, both of whom by wonderful coincidence have 3 year old sons and baby daughters.
We expected a great trip and were not disappointed. Daniel, Alejandro, and Noah enjoyed playing on the beach and building sand castles. Daniel enjoyed running out into the ocean too until he'd get hit with a face full of salt water. But after a minute he generally was ready for another round of it, and we had to keep a close watch to make sure our fearless little boy didn't run out into the water by himself!
Our little beach boy
As for the baby girls, 10 month old Gabi enjoyed crawling around in the sand but 4 month old Rebecca and 7 month old Layla were just observers this trip. Because of differing nap schedules we didn't all make it down to the beach at the same time very often so I didn't get a lot of pictures of everyone. Next year though the girls should all be down to just an afternoon nap so we'll get more group time on the beach together.
In 5 days there this was the only beach outing Rebecca made it to. She was napping the rest of the time!
Rebecca spent so little time down by the water I wasn't able to get a picture of all 4 of us together but here are the 3 of us:
My parents enjoyed the time with the kids and they enjoyed seeing Mimi and Baba. They celebrated their 40th anniversary on the trip and were gracious enough to include all of us in their anniversary dinner.
One night the 6 30-somethings left the kiddos with babysitting grandparents, teen daughters, and cousins and treated ourselves to a night out. We went to Gabriella's for a delicious Italian dinner. We arrived with high expectations and left stuffed and satisfied. We started with an appetizer of mussels. The broth was so good some of us might have been tempted to drink it up...
The trip was fun and enjoyable except for our last morning there. I had gotten up early that morning to call to ask about late check-out. No sooner had I gotten off the phone than I heard a thud from the kids' room. I knew Daniel had fallen out of bed even before I heard the cry so I ran in to get him. I assumed he'd have a big bruise but was shocked when he pulled his hand from his forehead and it was covered in blood. Apparently falling face-first onto a tile floor from bed can give you quite a cut on the forehead. I knew it was "just" a cut and was thankful it wasn't worse, but I also knew immediately that he needed stitches.
And just like that, our concern that day wasn't about getting one last swim in, it was about an unplanned trip to the Harlingen hospital. I woke Kevin up to take Daniel while I stayed with Rebecca and finished getting us packed. 5 stitches later they were discharged from the hospital and on their way back to the island to meet us for lunch. Fortunately the cut is healing well, though he's still got quite a knot on his forehead a month later. If you had told me before the trip that one of the kids would need an ER visit I have to admit I'd have bet on it being Daniel-the kid is fearless. But ironically his first ER visit of his life wasn't because of playing hard at all, he was sound asleep!
After lunch we had a few hours till our flight so we checked out the turtle rescue center on the island. It's not a big place but Daniel was really interested so we wound up spending about an hour there going from tank to tank looking at the turtles. You can't see it in the picture but he's got stitches and a bandaid on his forehead.
If the whole falling out of bed thing took anything out of him he wasn't letting on about it. That night after we arrived back at Love Field and were waiting for our bags, he and Alejandro were jumping around like frogs to the amusement of our fellow passengers.
Injuries aside it was a great trip and I'm already looking forward to Padre 2014! Such a wonderful time with family and good friends. I hope someday Daniel and Rebecca are excited to take their own kids to Padre and continue the tradition of happy times there.
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