Impromptu Beach Trip

Auntie M, Uncle Ryan, and cousin Ava welcomed their newest addition, baby Griffin, on May 13th. We have been so excited to meet him and had a trip planned for Memorial Day weekend to Dallas. Well...things never seem to go as planned for us. The week before our trip, the girls got a nasty cough followed by the sniffles. I was sure that it wouldn't last more than a few days so I never thought to cancel our plans to go to Dallas. By the time Friday rolled around, everyone was coughing and things didn't seem much better for the girls. Knowing that a newborn is just too fragile to handle all of our nasty kid germs, we cancelled our trip at the last minute. The girls were sad because they haven't seen their cousin in a couple of months and they were really looking forward to having a sleep over.

Instead of sitting at home, we decided to take our nasty coughs on a camping trip. We couldn't think of anything better than a fresh ocean breeze to cure what was ailing us. After several quick stops, including the grocery store and REI, we were on the road. It is nice to be just 3 short hours from the beach. It is also nice for the girls to finally be at an age that we can be spontaneous!

I hadn't been camping on North Padre Island since my father took me back in the 80's. I don't know what I was expecting, but the amount of people took me by surprise. The moment we pulled around the corner and onto the beach there were tents as far as you could see. Literally, miles. We were so busy thinking about driving past the masses and finding some desolate area to camp, we got the car stuck in the sand. Thankfully, there was a Park Ranger passing us that was nice enough to stop and help. Who drives a Lincoln Aviator onto the beach? Apparently us. Once we realized that we couldn't go any further, we stopped where we were and pitched the tent. Spencer and I grumbled at each other a bit but managed to get the tent up pretty quickly. We spent the rest of the evening cooking over the fire. Of course, our camp-out wasn't complete without smores. Emery headed to bed early and Abigail was so excited that she stayed up with us until midnight gazing at the almost full moon while listening to some tunes on the ipod. We had so much fun just hanging out and talking by the campfire. Spencer even enjoyed the numerous trips to the beach that he and Abigail took to skip in the moonlight. (But...I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone about all of the pulled muscles he had the next day from his wild skipping adventures.) Emery did not like sleeping in the tent. She tossed and turned and then finally woke up complaining in the middle of the night. She ended up finishing out the morning on our pallet. Both girls did enjoy the beach and squealed with delight when they played in the waves. It was a lot of work for just one night but definitely worth it!