Fun in Texas!

 When we found out our stuff was going to take a long time to get to us we decided to go buy a tv and dvd player, you know for my sanity.  We've always been a one tv family, but have talked off and on of getting another one, back when we had two family rooms, but our new house only has the one living space so the tv will go to our room.  I've never been a tv in the room kind of person, but for now it will be just fine.

Those black mats you see are what the kids slept on for the time we didn't have our things.  We borrowed them and a few kitchen items from ACS (Army Community Services---cuz everything in the military is an acronym).  Trent and I had an air mattress. We brought the one we had but it is awful, by morning we were sleeping on the floor.  Our neighbors lent us there's and it was much much better.

We have been blessed with amazing neighbors everywhere we go and this has been no different!  We live in a duplex and met the adjoining unit before we even got the keys and moved in.  The day after we got to San Antonio we drove out to Fort Sam and found our house.  When Trent went to see if the doors were unlocked the neighbor came out and we introduced ourselves.  She was kind enough to allow us to see inside her unit.  They have been amazing! When we did get keys to our house we only had what was in the cars.  I needed to run get the basics; soap, toilet paper, paper towels....and they brought a big bag over with all that in for us as soon as they found out that is what we were needing.  They brought over a wicker chair and ottoman so that I would have a place to sit down and put up my hugely swollen feet that wasn't on the hard floor. What a blessing to have good neighbors again.

While we were waiting in an empty house for our things to come I decided we'd better go check out the beach. After all it is only just a little over 2hrs away.  A perfect little day trip! So after Trent got home one morning we took off.

Corpus Christi wasn't exactly what I was thinking of when I think 'beach.'  I didn't realize that Corpus was in it's own bay and not the ocean and that to get to the gulf of Mexico we'd have to drive about 45 mins more, and then take a ferry across a very tiny stretch to get to more beach.  Here is a little map of the area:

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                   Line of people waiting behind us.                                                 Line of people in front of us.

Waiting for the ferry to take us across the tiny stretch, seriously it took more time to load and unload the ferry boats than it did to ferry across, was long.  It took us about 45mins to wait for the ferry boat and the line was loooong.  But it was fun and the kids LOVED it!  It was a highlight of the trip for sure.  If we had gone the other way, toward Padre Island, we wouldn't have had to take the ferry.  We opted to take that way home instead of waiting of the ferry boat.

 on the ferry

It was so worth the drive to get to the other beach in Port Aransas!  It was so beautiful; clear blue water, soft sand, and the water was bath tub warm.  It was heaven!  The kids would have stayed forever!!

The water didn't start to get really deep for a long time.  The kids could walk pretty far out and still be up to their knees.  Trent would take them way out there and play in the waves.  We could see fish swimming under the waves.  Carter and Hanna loved to wave jump.  When Hunter first saw the sand he said 'oooh big sand box!'  He was in dirty boy heaven.  My only complaint, it is windy there.  Always.  And not just breezy, but rip the sun umbrella apart windy.  We are so excited to live so close to the ocean!  We plan to visit as often as we can.

 A few days after the beach we took the kids downtown to see the Riverwalk.  We live only about 5 minutes from downtown and thought that it would be a place that they would really love. It is realllly busy on the weekends, so we went on a Thursday evening.  Not too busy at all.  It makes me a little nervous as there are places along the Riverwalk that do not have any sort of rail, just the walkway and then the river.  I made sure to walk in between Hunter and the edge at all times. We took a riverboat ride.  I thought it was pretty interesting as they explained what all the buildings were downtown, but I think kids got a little bored, especially Hunter.  It was REALLY hot, and he just wanted to look for ducks, none of this sitting in a boat business.  Best of all, my camera lens decided that it was a good time to start having issues and it no longer was working, so there are no pictures of our downtown adventure.  But I'm sure we'll go again sometime, and then I'll be sure to get lots of pictures!