Life's a Beach

We decided a nice little family vacation is what we all needed, so we planned a great little get away with Galyn's family ... Mimi, Aunt Trisha, Uncle Matt and Amy and us. We decided we would go for a nice long weekend. We couldn't quite decide where we wanted to go, but pretty quickly we all agreed that the beach would be a great place to relax. We were trying to decide where we would go, what coast, what beach?

Probably because of all my very fond memories of my family vacations growing up I was quick to suggest South Padre Island. I told them all about the great little condos we stayed at. They were right on the beach, it had a grassy area and a pool ... it would be prefect. Well needless to say(being a great salesman) Sangria Condos, South Padre Island is were the vacation was planned.

Once everything was booked is when I started getting a little nervous. I started to think and realized that it had been at least 10 ... maybe 11 years since I had last been there.

Hmm ... there is a lot of stuff that can happen in 10 years. Not a problem ... I'll just check the website I'm sure the pictures will reassure me that everything is peachy keen.

This place is a rather small condominium complex ... and their website was also small. And, best I could tell, the pictures were taken 10 years ago ... So, I asked my parents. Surely they had been there more recently than I had. Turns out they hadn't been down there in about 10 years either.

Now, I'm really starting to get nervous about this. What is this place going to look like? I may have totally over sold this whole trip.

Well, it turns out that 10 years didn't make much difference to the place. All that worry for not. It was just like I remembered it ... little beach condos, complete with tacky beach decor, right on the grassy area with a walkway leading down to the beach. It was great (minus our incredibly hard bed)! We had a wonderful time.

Here are some (okay, okay ... a bunch of) pictures from out trip:

Loaded up, leaving the condos heading down to the beach!

It was pretty much like moving anytime we went down there.

Mmm, this sand is SO delicious.

Tyler about to catch a few waves.

Ryan and Mimi chillin' in the ocean.

Amy ... So Cute!

Ryan and Mommy hanging out by the water.

Ryan taking a break from all the sun.

Uncle Matt, Aunt Trisha & Amy.

The Gafford Boys

Tyler getting ready to hunt for some sand crabs.

Thanks to the bed that's harder than I like, I was able to catch the sunrise ...


We all went out one night and found this great go-cart track!

Luckily, since Tyler is a giant 3 yr old he was able to make the 42" height requirement to ride in the go-cart. He LOVED it! First he rode with Daddy and Aunt Trisha and Uncle Matt went too.

Then he got to ride with Mommy ... Uncle Matt loved the go-carts as much as Tyler & he went again with us.

Feeding the sea gulls. We tossed bread up to one sea gull and within seconds there were 30 flying over us, swooping down catching the bread in mid air. Galyn wasn't as excited about Tyler tossing the bread since it kept hitting his head and the birds still would swoop down to catch it. He got some really up close views of the sea gulls. Tyler and I thought it was funny!

South Padre Island '09