Surfside!

 What seems like many moons ago, but was really just June 23, we took the girls to the Texas Coast.  Every year of Lydia's life we have return to Port A, but this year we did something crazy and went to a new place!  Caleb has LaQuinta points so we searched for the closest one to water and got Lake Jackson & Surfside!  The Sea Center (a Texas Parks & Wildlife place) is there and we began our trip visiting their wetland, touch tank (above) and pretty cool aquarium.

 In a funny turn of events, after we booked our hotel, Caleb's cousins asked him if he wanted go fishing with them in Surfside this same week.  The group of them had a condo on the beach for the whole week.  We enjoyed playing with cousins!  The older sisters were into creating sand art, the younger sisters enjoyed playing with the critters they caught.  They let us borrow their river rafts (floaty with mesh bottom) and I took the girls out one at a time into the waves.  This also showed their personalities, Lydia wanted near the shore but Gloria was thrilled to go out deep (me too it was better on my back than bending over in the shallows) and held her breath when the breaking waves crashed us.  It was fun!

 

 Sweet sissies (most of the time)

 And in Lydia we now have someone to take our picture too!

 As always Caleb brought nets and caught fish, not any big ones or shells here but they still enjoyed making a home for the minnows.

 Most meals we had gourmet treats of pb&j, chips and fruit but we did go out to eat once sitting over the beach at the Pirate's Alley Cafe.   LaQuinta's have great breakfasts!

 We walked to the very end of the jetty!

Another tradition, feeding the sea gulls!
This evening we stayed for dinner at Rex & Beth's.  They did fajitas, on the late drive home, our car went off the edge of the bumpy beach road and we busted two tires.  Didn't get the kids in bed until 11.  Gloria slept the next morning until 10:45 while Caleb got new tires.  The fishing trip got canceled due to rough seas....

but we had one more nice afternoon on the beach with the mermaids before heading home.
One of the funniest moments of the trip was the girls remarking how this hotel was the best ever!  We have stayed in some pretty nice hotels, and even the Omni in Corpus.  This LaQuinta was fine but it was motel style with peeling paint and worn carpets, but I like the girls attitude-whatever we are doing now is the best ever!  Also each time we came back from the beach they swam in the little hotel pool, they liked going underwater better than splashing in the waves.  When asking what was their favorite part-the pool!