Camping at Padre Island

We had a last minute camping trip idea at the last minute around the 4th of July. Paul was getting to come back from Mexico on the Thursday before the 4th, but he had to be in Alice, Texas to work.

So we decided that we would just rent a camping trailer and camp in a town near where he would be working and then take the long holiday weekend to camp out on Padre Island.

It was really last minute, so we were very lucky that someone had cancelled their reservation for a trailer and we were able to rent one. We were also lucky that Hurricane Alex landed further south than some of the forecasted tracks.

We did have to take a couple of detours to avoid some flooded roads to the campground. But since the storm had already landed we had pretty good weather for the most part. The left over clouds were welcomed to avoid the blazing sun we enjoyed the last day of our trip.

The first night and day we stayed at Wilderness Lakes RV Resort. It was a nice place to be while I was there with the kids by myself for part of the day while Paul worked. The place is a big destination for Snow Birds in the winter. They had a nice big air conditioned building where the kids could do puzzles and arts and crafts. We got to see some old people getting get their workout on to exercise videos in the morning. I guess every Thursday night is country night dance night and every Friday is barbeque night. We weren't there for either of those, but I bet it is pretty fun for the old people there.

As you can see some of the snow birds have made it more of their permanent residence. We went around the entire campground and the kids said this one won for best decorations.
So I had been driving around the kids in the golf cart through the campground. Every time we went past this lake Jake insisted he needed to get out. I told him I would let him get out and look when we had seen everything there was to see. So when we had seen everything I stopped the cart. He got out and ran as fast as he could into the clearing in front of the lake and started looking all around in the bushes and by the lake. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "The sign said that there were animals here." Sure enough there was a sign with a bird on it by the road at the front of the lake that looked like a wilderness sign. It was just put their for decoration though. Poor kid. He thought he was going to get to go on a real wilderness adventure chasing animals.
Here is good Ol' Yellar that we drove around in. I'm so happy they offered it up for us to ride in. It was much easier than walking with all three kids around to all the lakes.
I decided I need to get me one of these things to ride around all the paths in The Woodlands. It may take me longer to get to the grocery store, but at least the kids would have fun and I wouldn't have to do up 3 car seats. =)
Here is Madelyn enjoying her nap in the camping trailer. Now this is a true vacation napping pose.

Jake slept on the bottom bunk. He is such a nice younger brother.

Hannah chose the middle bunk to sleep on.

After Wilderness Lakes we headed to Padre Island. We were a little worried it would be closed due to Hurricane Alex, but it was open. As you can see in the picture there was quite a bit more seaweed than usual on the beach and the waves were a lot bigger and choppy due to the hurricane that just went through. Nothing like camping on the beach the day after the hurricane lands. We have the best ideas. =) Luckily it turned out to be a great vacation.
I enjoyed walking Madelyn to sleep on the beach with the waves washing over my feet, making a nice calming rhythm for Madelyn to sleep to. She looks like a little marshmallow. Good thing she likes to be cuddled. It would be too hard to resist. I love Madelyn.

Madelyn liked the sand. She even managed to not get too much in her mouth.

Nothing like good strong sea breezes to bring out a happy smile.

We were so happy to have Paul all to ourselves for 5 days. It was SO NICE. We had ALL his attention 24 hours a day. I love this guy and just can't get enough of him! We couldn't have had a better vacation.
The kids had fun trying to "sneak" water from the ocean and then run back to the beach before the tide got them.

Looks like the ocean got Jake a few times.

We had this part of the beach all to ourselves for quite a while.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures.

The kids loved jumping the waves. They had the more fun with Paul, because he would take them deeper than I would.
As tough and adventurous as I like to be, I have to admit that fish and sea creatures swimming around me aren't my favorite things. So when I could see the fish swimming in schools in the crests of the waves crashing around me, I would point it out excitedly to the kids but be thinking (ew!!! Please don't touch me, please don't touch me!!) So I was a little glad the water was stirred up from the hurricane. It made it easier to try and not look at everything swimming around me.

Hannah was ready to move to the ocean.

Hannah going for a morning run in the ocean.

If you look really close in the background of this picture, you can see a fish jumping out of the water.

I love my little Hannah.

The birds on the beach were pretty cool. People would fed them and they would just fly around them in flocks. We helped some people feed them Pringles one day. There were at least 50 birds just hovering over our heads waiting to catch some chips. It was pretty cool. If only I would have had the camera.

I love my big Jake.

One of our favorite things to do was dig for clams. The tide would bring them in and then when it would leave the clams would dig down in the sand as fast as they could. We had fun grabbing them before they dug down and even digging out the ones that were in the sand. We had more than 100 live clams in this bucket. The kids thought they would make good pets and I thought they would make good chowder. We ended up dumping them back in the sand by the ocean and watching all of them dig back down into the sand.
This dump truck was one of the best investments. Who knew it would provide hours and hours of entertainment. We had fun making castles, sea turtles, and dig big deep holes.

Day 4 of vacation and still going strong. Hooray for vacations!

Jake had fun, but by the last day had started to miss his bed and his toys.
Hannah was pretty content just living in the camper and playing on the beach everyday. She probably would have been ok with another couple weeks of living in the camping trailer on the beach.
We had one great spontaneous vacation. We are so glad that it worked out that we could go.
We would recommend Padre Island for a good place to visit in Texas. I'm sure we will be back.