Port Aransas '08

We left late Friday night and took advantage of a sleeping baby in the car- or so we thought. Turns out Beth prefers to stay awake in the car, lol. She slept from 7-9:30 then was up until we got there at 11:00! So traveling at night doesn't work for us anymore!

Unfortunately the seaweed was terrible this year but the trade-off was the million olive snail shells we found! They all had snails in them so we threw them back each night, but we all still had fun collecting them and letting them crawl all over our legs. :-) Beth surprised me and was totally fine with picking up and touching the snails (I guess it's only bugs that bother her) and she was totally fearless with the mounds of seaweed (ick!). She preferred to play in the sand instead of the water but was fine when the tide was low and she was able to sit around in some of the small pools of water. I guess she just didn't like the waves. I actually didn't go past my knees in the water this year, probably for the first time in my life. I just didn't feel like getting beat up by the waves since I'm moving a little slower these days, plus I *hate* the excessive seaweed. Ryan went in deep a few times, a couple of times to fish and he caught quite a bit of fish! We threw those back too but he had a fun time catching them!

My goal was to not let Beth get sunburned at all- we succeeded! Beth actually tans pretty well considering how white her parents are (ahem) but she did NOT get a burn! It helped that she wore her surf-shirt in the heat of the day and covered her shoulders and neck. And she wore her hat at all times too! I got a little pink on my back when the stuff wore off and Ryan a little red on the back of his legs. Overall not too bad!

I thought this was a cool pic of my youngest brother.

Mostly olives, a live sand dollar, a dead crab and a couple of sharks-eye snails.

Sweetness!
He caught a fish!


Worn out
Luke's first trip to the beach...sort of!