Looking Out the Window

Big Bend National Park has been on my list for... eh, almost the entire time we've lived in Texas. The problem is that this state is so BIG. I guess they do say everything is bigger here, and the drives from one place to the next is an example of that. It was about 500 miles to get to the only major national park in the state, so it took us most of a day. But the sights and scenery were worth it. We stayed outside the park the first night and checked out the McDonald Observatory, which is located out in the middle of nowhere due to there being nothing else located out there, making the night sky perfect for looking at stars. The next morning we drove into the park, did a lot of driving, and did a couple of hikes. The first one up was The Window. Of the half-dozen or so main hikes in the park, this was one of them. It was a 3.6 mile round trip to get to a place where the cliffs come together and form a "window" that looks out over a wide valley. The trip to the window was all downhill through a canyon, meaning the trip back was of course, all uphill. But the kids did great, without almost any complaints!

At the trail head, ready to embark!

Paused for some rock climbing...

Took the stone staircases into Mordor.

The Window!

It's hard to see in these photos, but if you climb down into the window you can look around that other rock out into the valley. It's a pretty steep drop-off though, so we didn't let the kids get much closer than this.

And of course we took a break back at the trail head to grab some lunch...

Pause for a photo, Rebecca...

We ended up not having enough time to do the other main hike in this area of the park - because it was around 5 miles round trip. We were initially going to camp at the campground here, but the sites were pretty small for our tent, and the ranger told us it gets 10 degrees colder here than the other campgrounds. So we opted to head back down the mountain... more photos to come.

The Snow Fell Down

The last time it snowed in Corpus Christi was 2004. But since we already had a hurricane this year (and the last one of those was 1971)... well, why not? A couple of weeks ago the temperature dropped down below freezing and the storm came in, with snow starting to fall after midnight (which thankfully Becky was kind enough to wake me up to see). In the morning, it was still on the ground... probably about 3 or 4 inches of it. It was perfect, wet, snowball/snowman making snow. So we engaged in a snowball fight, and the kids had an all around fantastic time doing something that northern kids do every year. Usually we're building sand castles this time of year, so it was something different.

So based on current weather patterns down here, we should expect snow again sometime in 2030, give or take a few years. Better go buy a snow shovel now to be safe.

It's the Holiday Season!

It's that time of year again - the most wonderful time of year! The cold weather has arrived (and left and arrived again). This time of year it never stays too cold for too long. A week or so ago, Paul had a piano recital, so he had to dress in his Sunday best. Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to do so, Becky got the other boys dressed up as well, and we got some photos for our Christmas card this year. Here are the boys, looking fine and dandy:

And even though we got a lot of great smiles, this last photo sums up how they felt about their photo shoot... yeah. Merry Christmas!