10 year trip

Jonathon and I have a little tradition, though for the life of me I can't remember the conversation that set it in stone. I am soooo glad that we did. Usually our anniversary is nice, but it's not a production. So every 5 years we do something bigger. On our 5 year anniversary we took advantage of Jonathon's parents and went on a cruise.

This year we wanted to go to Hawaii. Unfortunately it was a bit out of our price range so we opted for South Padre Island. It was so fun to get out and spend time together without having to worry about the kids. My mom and Tony were sooo nice and took our kids on the adventure of a lifetime. (I will post about that when I get the pictures, though if my mom posts I would peek over there to get the first hand scoop!)

We took a sand castle building lesson. You would think that everyone knows how to build sand castles, but this was so fun. Out teacher "Sandy Feet" is a professional sand sculpturer who has won competitions and travels around the world doing what she does. We learned a lot of tricks and by the time we were finished felt like we could do a few things.

Us with our teacher.

My tower. (The one with the ball on top. My nice pointy top broke and this is how we fixed it.)

Jonathon's towers. He did two. The one with the big staircase and the one with the gables on top. (And the squeeze forest in front!)
We went to Sea Turtle Inc. which is a really little building that houses and rescues stranded and injured sea turtles until they can be released into the ocean again. They have a few permanent turtles that will never be able to survive in the wild because of injury. There were several there that had floated ashore because they had been "cold stunned" and needed to be gradually warmed up and checked before returning home. They even had a few hatchlings in there that we got to feed.
This guy is HUGE! Probably 6 feet long and 4 feet wide.

Isn't this one beautiful?

Saturday morning we tried a new beach. Not to swim, it was too cold for that, but to try our budding skills at sand castle building. There were also some really amazing kites.

My tower. I have a major problem with roofs. They just don't stay on. I think I've got stairs worked out though.

The front of Jonathon's tower.A view of Jonathon through his sand castle window.

The back view of the castle.
I don't know why but we seem to have hit black sand when we built this one.
The kites. Many of them bigger than a van!

We got up early Sunday morning to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful!
Sitting on what used to be our sand castle. Someone destroyed it :(
(They left their drink behind as a monument to the destruction.)

As you drive onto the bay bridge to get to South Padre Island this sign is flashing.
The port Isabella lighthouse. It's right in the middle of things. I was expecting it to be a little more like the ones on the outer banks and be closer to the shore.