Festival of Sand...

It’s been quite a while now, but sometime a few weeks ago we went to Sand Fest up in Port Aransas, an annual festival of sand sculptors carving out pretty impressive designs in the sand.  They had a handful of professionals and a lot of amateurs making all kinds of castles, mermaids, and sea creatures out of sand… and there were tons and tons of people.  The parking got so out of control that by the time we got back to our car, about twenty people had double-parked us in.  So we just had to sit around and wait until those wonderful people came back and decided to move for us.  Awesome.  But the event was cool, and probably something we’ll go back to.  It was pretty impressive what some of the artists were able to do.  The boys and I are already practicing for next year's contest! 

Other than that, things have been beautiful on the sunny Gulf Coast.  Been spending a lot of time at the water, but what else would you expect?

Life on the Beach

So our new favorite place in Texas is the Rockport Beach Park.  It’s only about fifteen or twenty minutes up the road, and the park is beautiful.  Palm trees, sand, and clear warm water… what else could you need?  The water is shallow for a long way out off the shore and doesn’t really have waves, so it’s perfect for the kids.  Apparently they groom the beach in the mornings, and there are plenty of picnic tables and shade tiki-umbrella-type things to get out of the sun.  So we’ve gone up a couple times already and I’m sure we’ll be up there quite a bit this summer.  Here are some pics of the boys enjoying the beach!

The water boy.  Thinks he's pretty funny with a bucket of water to throw on my back while I'm not looking.  I guess I started it though.

 Why so serious?

There we go!  That's the Nolan we know.

And this one could sit here and do this all day without complaining.  Not going into or near the water quite yet, but the sand he loves.

That's a Big Tree

If you hadn’t noticed, I try to find random, off-the-road places to drag Becky and the boys so that we can make these blog posts.  So what better thing to go see than a big tree?  And that’s exactly what this thing was… a big tree.  They even call it “The Big Tree.”  Of course, everything here in Texas is bigger, so that’s no surprise.  I’d have to say, I have seen bigger trees, there was one in Jacksonville that was bigger than this, and I’m sure there are plenty in California that are much bigger, but I guess for this type of tree, it’s pretty big.  The more interesting thing for me was the age of the tree.  Since I tend to be more drawn to historical landmarks and the like, this was cool because it’s estimated to be over a thousand years old.  A thousand years!! That’s unbelievable.  It has survived dozens of hurricanes and the burning of the nearby town during the Civil War.  Think of everything that’s happened in the past thousand years, and all the while that tree has been sitting there.  If you could live to be a thousand years old, imagine what you’d see in your lifetime!  Well, if you were this tree, I guess you’d just be staring at the same bunch of other trees around you for a thousand years.  Sounds pretty awful. But either way, here is the Big Tree in Rockport, Texas.

The Big Tree is so exciting, that they had to put a fence up around it just to keep the masses of people from climbing on it.  Surprisingly, there were several other cars of people there to see it.  It looks small in this photo, but it's really 35 feet around the base... so that's pretty big I guess.

See how much fun we're having?

Even Adam liked the Big Tree... but then, how could he not? 

Already three years old...

In some ways, it doesn’t seem that long ago that Adam Michael joined us… back in our Maryland days, but in other ways, it’s hard to remember what life was like without him here.  This kid has an overly large heart, sweet and caring, and always willing to give what he’s got… but then you turn around and he’s rotten to the core.  He’s got this smile that you can’t help but laugh at, especially when he’s up to the least good.  He can sit quietly by himself and be entertained for hours, but he also loves to do whatever it is that Paul’s doing.  He loves Bad Piggies, and is especially fond of dancing to the theme song.  If he’s eaten anything in the last hour, chances are it’s still on his face, especially if it was chocolate.  He can’t help but make you happy, and he’s our favorite second son.  And now he’s three years old…

That's him...

He was afraid the balloons were going to make him fly away into the sky... too much Bad Piggies I guess.

The Happy Birthday kid!

What better way to spend a day than at the aquarium?  This was sort of Adam's pre-birthday fun thing to do... we spent a couple hours seeing the fish, turtles, dolphins, and assortment of other creatures they had.  And they have a pretty cool splash park for the kids, so we'll be back!