Memorable Vacation

Well, my family and I had a very memorable vacation. We'll start from the beginning...

First and foremost, this was my nephew Conner's first trip to the beach (he'll be 1 next month!) and it was very interesting to see how an 11 month old likes the sand/wind/water/pool, etc. :) He's so incredibly adorable and an explorer!

Second, there have been many accidents on 361 that I've heard of... (this is the main drag of all the condos/beach houses/hotels that are on Mustang Island/Port Aransas beach). This was the first time I've seen one... and it didn't look good at all. It looked as if 3 cars were involved in the accident... one of which was a pretty large truck... and it was flipped over and the tires were up in the air... not to mention there was a TON of emergency personnel there... and lots of people being attended to on stretchers and gurneys and such. It was definitely a moment that you hope all the idiots that repeatedly like to speed along that stretch and try and pass people by on the shoulder, etc. take notice of the scenario... and that they internalize that they are not immortal and it could be them. This was Saturday... our first day there... Kinda puts a sting on the mood... but only temporarily... this is because....

Sunday was Mother's Day... We all ate some breakfast and hung out in the condo... we tried going down to the beach but it was WAY too windy for any of us... the wind was blowing the loose sand onto us and it felt like little needles! We ate an early big meal around 2 (which I prepared) of loaded spaghetti, salad, and fresh garlic bread. It was delicious... and very fun to watch Conner try spaghetti for the first time! :)

Monday my Dad and Rob went down around 7:00am to go fishing... my Dad came back up around 9 to check a print out of different kinds of fish because he had caught something he'd never seen before... turns out he caught a GREAT fish (Florida Pompano) which ended up being a delicious dinner the next evening... in total the two of them caught 6 keepers on Monday. After they cleaned and cut them they returned to the room... my brother was showing my the fillets in a baggie and asking me if I thought they looked good... my response was... "are they supposed to smell like burning?" We then noticed that the smell was coming directly from the AC vent above us... so I quickly went and shut off the AC unit. When I turned around and looked back at my brother... I could see SMOKE flooding out of that AC vent in the sunlight in front of me!!! We called the maintenance guys... they came up and immediately made sure that the thing hadn't caught fire.... it was (obviously) really smelly and smoke-filled in there... not to mention HOT and HUMID because there was no AC... so we were quickly moved just a couple units down on the same floor... So, the rest of our morning til about 11ish was spent moving all of our luggage and refrigerated things to the other unit.

We had a fairly uneventful rest of the vacation... Later on in the day Monday we went down to the beach with Conner and he played in the sand and in the water... and then went to the pool and had a blast... and then that night we watched Dan in Real Life (which was better than I expected it to be). Tuesday we went to the beach and pool with Conner again and then went to play our annual mini golf game... then that night was our fish fry... well... fish and chicken... Kathy (my S-I-L) isn't too big on fish either... so the 2 of us mostly had some broiled chicken and tried some fish... everything was pretty delicious!

Wednesday morning Rob, Kathy, and Conner headed home... and my parents and I went to try a new restaurant in Port Aransas and then went and spent some time in town at the shops and at one of the public piers. We headed back to the condo and just relaxed the rest of the night and vacation.

On our return we stopped at another restaurant in Port Aransas we had never eaten at before for lunch... they're on the bay/in the docks... they had quite possibly the BEST shrimp I've ever had. Then when we got back in town we went and picked up all the animals from boarding. So... all in all... catastrophies aside... we had a spectacular, fulfilling, and relaxing vacation!