Dressed for Spring!

As is tradition now, Becky buys the boys some Spring/Easter outfits and we take their photos. Usually, we drive up to Rockport to the Fulton Mansion, but this time we weren't paying attention and since Easter came early, the mansion's Easter egg hunt also came early, and we missed it. Either way, since the Clayburn girls were here and had Easter dresses, we took them all out to the beach for the photos. Here are some shots from the day:

They were back again!

Granny G always seems to turn back up again when we're least expecting her... ok, we've come to expect her at least a couple of times a year. The last few Aprils she's shown up around Easter time and she's started bringing along a couple of the boys' cousins with her. This time Brooke and Sophie tagged along and hung out with us down here in sunny Texas (as apposed to the frigid cold they left behind in Montana this time of year). They did all the usual stuff, hit the aquarium, hit the beach, and just hung out doing kid stuff. Here are some pictures of their shenanigans...

 

Decorated some eggs for Easter!

Over there! We're coming over!

If you're in Corpus Christi, it's hard to miss the U.S.S. Lexington, the World War II aircraft carrier permanently anchored in the bay. It was once called the Blue Ghost by the Japanese, but now it's lit up in blue lights as it sits at the entrance to the port. We'd checked it out before of course, as it's a pretty cool museum to walk through, but we got the opportunity a few weeks ago to sleep on board with the scouts, so we did just that. It's a pretty massive ship to explore, but we saw most of it, due to the boys getting to compete in a scavenger hunt and going through all of the upper and lower decks to find the answers. After doing that, the boys were too scared to listen to the ghost stories, but they had plenty of fun before sleeping in the old bunks like the sailors used to do back in the day.

Surviving the high winds on the flight deck!

Beautiful sunset over the bay...

Shooting down the fighter planes!

Just a couple of ghosts with the big Blue Ghost!

Our sleeping quarters for the evening. Not as bad as I thought it'd be, as I've honestly had worse nights' sleep. Definitely a fun experience!

Sand vs. Snow

Since we didn't make it to Saguaro National Park on our trip as we had intended, we decided to at least check out something else cool along the way. Outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico is White Sands National Monument, an enjoyable place to stop if you don't mind the missiles flying overheard. Ok, not really, but there is a missile testing ground nearby and apparently they close the road from time to time so tourists like us don't get blown up accidentally. The monument is a section of the otherwise bleak desert where quartz sand forms a large group of pure white dunes. It made for some beautiful scenery, and some sand sledding - which we weren't able to do last summer when we went to the other sand dunes in Colorado. We didn't have a lot of time to stick around, but the boys did get some sledding in and had a blast doing it. Since we don't often get snow this far south, it was the next best thing!

That's a big cactus...

While in Phoenix for Spring Training, we had a little time to look around the place. We had intended to travel to Saguaro National Park near Tucson on our way out of town, but ran out of time. That park is famous for its giant cacti, which I was excited to see, but we got to see plenty of them outside of Phoenix. We took a short drive to South Mountain Park and took the winding road up the mountain for an impressive view of the city.

Did a little rock climbing...

That's a big cactus. Paul wanted to give his new friend a hug...

It didn't work out well...

Nolan tried to save Adam from making the same mistake as Paul...

It didn't work out well for any of them...

Adam conquered the mountain, and his older brother...

Not sure what else to say about these three... they definitely had a good spring break though.