Port A ~ Weekend Get Away

The birthday girl.

For Lisa's 30th, we left the kids & headed to Port Aransas. We stayed in an awesome hotel that was right on the beach, and it had a really cool 4 tiered pool! It was AWESOME!!

Here is my 10 favorite things about our jaunt to Port A:

1. Melanie on Dramamine. Mel does not drink & she definitely does not partake of illicit drugs; however, dramamine gets her HIGH: red eyes, the giggles, incoherent statements, drowsiness. Drug addicts are funny.

2. Chicken Fighting. What can I say? It was Lisa's weekend & she wanted to chicken fight. I was pretty embarrassed at first, but then I realized we were invisible to the teenagers! It was fun acting like a kid. You know who won.

3. $8 shots!! This was not so funny. Seriously. The pool had a swim up bar, and we thought we would be fancy and get some shots. The lady working the bar had obviously never had a drink in her life, because she did not know how to make anything. Finally we asked if she could make a buttery nipple, and, after consulting her book, she assured us she could. So when she set the 5 plastic cups with varying levels of chunky liquid on the bar and proceeded to say "$40", I almost had a heart attack! Needless to say, Jake & John ended up drinking (chewing) all of the shots. I wish I had taken a picture of those shots, because no one is ever going to believe how nasty they were. Chunky...not like the soup, more like throw up.

4. Being able to enjoy the car ride. Texas is really green right now, and it was great to be able to look out the window and participate in adult conversation.

5. Helping Lisa enjoy her birthday. Getting old sucks. Period. So our gift to Lisa was helping her ease into her 30's. It is always nice to celebrate those milestones by having a really great time!!

6. The guy who ate his steering wheel cover. We were stopped at a light, and a guy in a jeep pulled up next to us. He was jittery, and acting all sorts of weird. But when he pulled a piece of his steering wheel cover off, and ate it that is when we lost it. It was hilarious. I'll say it again: drug addicts are funny.

7. Best Burger EVER. I am not exaggerating, Port A Brewing Co. has the best burgers on the planet. Texas Monthly does not lie. This place rocked. No burger will live up to it's standards. If you go to Port Aransas, do not miss eating at this place.

8. The Dolphins. Thank you John for waiting in that long line for the ferry!! Seeing the dolphins swimming out there reaffirmed that we humans have not destroyed everything cool (yet).

9. Hanging with my family. I love my family. We are a close knit group, and it was so awesome to spend time together without all the daily distractions. We love our kids, but sometimes their needs inhibit us from really interacting with other people. It was really nice to talk to each other, and be able to listen.

10. The fact that we made it back, and we still like each other. Hey I know I said we are close knit, but even we can fight. So it was great that we didn't!!

Lucy's First ER Visit

That's right. Lucy upped my adrenaline production this week. She slipped , and her mouth began bleeding. I got it to stop fairly quickly, and thought nothing more of it. Well when I went to take her out of the car she opened her mouth, and I almost fainted upon seeing a gaping hole in her tongue! I rushed her into the school & the nurse confirmed my fear..we were off to Dell. Thankfully the dr. did not want to stitch it; the wound was just under 50% of the width of the tongue so it should heal better on it's own. But she is on a soft food diet for 7 days, and I gotta tell you she does not think highly of pureed food.
I wince whenever I catch a glimpse of the "canyon", but I did make a valiant effort to get photographic evidence. However everytime I tried she would duck her head. Ethan says it is because Lucy does not want her wound on the blog. He may have a point.
On a side note, I found it disturbing that "down syndrome" was one of the medical conditions that the nurse listed on her medical form. Is DS a medical condition? Can they fix it? Does it make any difference in her care? I think not, and if I had not been so freaked out I would have argued that point.

Lucy having a brain freeze after eating a huge chunk of Otter Pop.

Chillin

Look at these monkeys on the couch.


But where is Red? Finishing homework.

Camp Mabry Army Fun

This weekend Camp Mabry hosted an American Hero Celebration festival. There was a helicopter show, weapon displays, reenactments, mud, and so much more. The boys could not have had more fun, seriously. The 40 min. WWII reenactment was pretty spectacular, and the boys were in heaven when they were allowed to go out and collect the spent brass casings! For a boy that wrote a fan letter to R. Lee Ermey, this event could not have gotten any better.

Rhys actually doing work.
He'll help dig a fox hole, but complain when he has to pick up legos.

Who's in that ghillie suit sniping?

Lucy earplugs.

Excuse my language, but these guys look pretty bad ass. The thing that blows my mind is that all the vehicles were privately owned!

Bluebonnets!

Spring is one of the best times of the year in Texas (albeit short). The weather is gorgeous, and if we had enough winter rain we are rewarded with beautiful wildflowers. Well folks we had a lot of rain, so there are wildflowers EVERYWHERE!! Of course we had to take the traditional bluebonnet pictures, how could we not?

Ethan Rocks Math Pentathlon!!!

Ethan is on the Windermere Math Pentathlon team, and their tournament was today. I was not sure how Ethan was going to do considering 1) this was his first year, 2) we did not practice as much as we should have, and 3) he didn't even realize today was the tournament (mom did)! The team had 5 different games to master, and during the tournament they would play each one. Ethan won all 5 of his games! Pretty cool! I am very proud of him. I was also happy (read relieved) that he acted like a good sport. It was a great day!

Easter!!!