Merry Christmas 2014!

Another year over, another Christmas has passed us by.  The boys had a great Christmas, though it wasn't very white and snowy.  The last time it snowed in Corpus Christi was 2004... so it doesn't happen very often.  But there were too many presents and too many Christmas cookies to be eaten around the house, so it was great none the less.  Here are some pictures we took a couple of weeks ago for our Christmas card... Merry Christmas to all!

We hope everyone's Christmas was merry and bright!  And here's to another New Year about to begin!

Visitors from Keytesville

We had some visitors for Thanksgiving, all the way from... where do you think? KEYTESVILLE! (As my nephew Rowan would say).  They came down to eat some turkey, walk the beach, and otherwise enjoy the still decent weather in South Texas.  We saw the usual sites, and even drove down to the Rio Grande Valley to get some of the citrus that's ripe this time of year.  Here are some of the highlights:

Watched the surfers and walked the beach out on the gulf.

Took a stroll down by the bay.

Checked out some old houses downtown.

Learned something.  But nothing too exciting.

Ran around the fountains.

Ran away from a random buffalo, barely escaping with their lives.

Followed the rules.

Picked some fruit.

Seedless fruit.  No wait, there's one big seed in there.

Went to Arlington National Cemetery again.  Wait, no, for some reason the original mold of this statue is in Texas?

And then got chased out of town by an angry tank.  Good times.

We're glad the grandparents could make it down, and hopefully they'll be back this way again soon!

Release the Turtles!

When Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Jim were here, we drove down to Padre Island National Seashore to watch the national park people release a bunch of sea turtles back to the sea.  Apparently, the turtles were a little stunned a few weeks ago to find the water a little colder than they expected, and had to be rescued by the people working at the park.  There must have been more than fifty of them, and one by one they came down the line for everyone to see, and then were chucked back into the gulf.  Ok, gently put back in the water.  The boys enjoyed seeing the little turtles, though the crowd was pretty thick at first.  And as always, you can't beat the sunshine and sand in November.

An after-turtle-release refreshment!

Pause for a picture, Mr. Turtle.

No idea what's up with this kid.

Really no idea what's up with this kid.

So congrats to all the turtles who made it safely back to sea.  Hopefully the water stays warm this time!

Catching up from fall...

Some of these pictures are a few months old now, but they've been sitting in the folder to go in a blog post for some time now, so I figured I'd just throw them all in together.  These are a few pics of the boys and the things we did this fall. Check it out:

We made the mistake one night of trying to cross the field behind our house after it had rained the day before.  Let's just say the mud gets a little thick around here and it will literally tear the shoe right off of your foot if you're not careful.  Paul got a little muddy.

Back in October we did our first Cub Scouts camp out!

Sharpshooter with the BB gun!

And an archer!

Did some sling shotting... obviously shooting things was a theme.

Stretched out for gymnastics.

Then we took a little trip up to the wildlife refuge in Aransas Pass and saw an actual Texas gator!

Checked out the view from the observation deck!

Did some bird watching.

Goofed off as usual.

Nolan was not too thrilled to be getting his picture taken by this time.

Just some ordinary things with some extraordinary kids!