Also, some of my friends were away visiting family, on holiday and what-not, but that Saturday Goreti, Robin and I went out downtown. We started out a really nice restaurant on 6th Street called Louie's 106 and went to a few bars and then a club. We were all having a great time eating, drinking and dancing ... until my drink got spiked in the club and I was very, very ill! So, my birthday this year was not really something I was inclined to write about.
Then our cat was very ill and almost died. Tico was once a boy; but is now a girl cat after having to have his man bits removed!! Traumatic for him yes, but he's alive!! :-)
So all in all, despite the 100 degree temperatures, we didn't feel like we had much of a summer and we certainly needed a bit of a holiday so last week, kind of at the last minute, we took ourselves off to the beach for a couple of nights. (Earlier on in the summer we had talked about it, but it was touch and go as to whether we'd be able to for a while, because of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike totally ripping up the Texan coast)
On Wednesday morning we drove down south to Corpus Christi and stayed on Padre Island which is right on the Gulf of Mexico. It took 4 hours to get there. The weather was lovely, hot but not too hot, and we stayed in a Holiday Inn courtesy of Emerson sending Geoff away all those times and building up his corporate points balance! :-) It was right on the beach.
The beaches weren't the BEST beaches in the world, but they were still pretty nice and were perfect for us as all Thomas and Charlotte wanted to do was play with the sand rather than lie on it! The water in the Gulf was warm and lovely to paddle in and on more than one occasion Thomas went in right up to his waist and I had to drag him back to stop him getting washed away! (I stupidly forgot to pack enough swimmers for the kids, as I'm not used to them going into the water in a beach - so they got very wet, sandy clothes! :-) but next time I'll remember).
Crab fishing in the sea
On the Thursday morning we played on the beach some more and in the afternoon went for a drive up to Mustang Island which is a little bit further north on the coast. It lwas only a very short drive an looked exactly the same as where we were staying! Except here you could drive right onto the beach and set up camp for the day, as a lot of people had done.
Friday morning we got up and Thomas was limping ... but strangely didn't seem in pain. After close inspection we decided his ankle was swollen so off to the emergency clinic we went. They x-rayed him, strapped him up and prescribed ibuprofen, but he was fine, and by that afternoon he wasn't even limping anymore.
That afternoon we went to The Texas State Aquarium in the centre of Corpus Christi before driving home. It was so much fun! The kids were amazed with and loved seeing and touching all the animals - which ranged from birds to raccoons and anteaters, and aquatic animals such as fish, turtles and dolphins - and Geoff and I loved it too. Unfortunately the otters weren’t around that day (no idea where they had gotten to!), but the dolphin show I particularly enjoyed. It was pretty cool to get up close and personal with a hawk too …
Some reptile I didn't hear the name of ...
Raccoon type creature ...
Ant-eater
Jacqui - the american hawk
Seval
Dolphins!
One armed turtle
Pelicans
Weird big freaky buggy thing ...
Steve Irwins nemesis!
The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington is also docked at Corpus Christi, right next to the aquarium. This was bombed repeatedly in WWII and amazingly never sank – earning itself the nickname ‘The Blue Ghost’ from the Japanese. We didn’t have time to go and look properly, and the kids might have been a bit bored, but there was a great view of it from the aquarium, and as far as ships go it’s pretty impressive!
