Connor: SPI: Day 12

Today we went to the Sealife Center on the mainland.  We saw a cephalopod, some aquatic reptiles, some non-aquatic reptiles, a few crustaceans, some birds, lots of fish, some seahorses, and a few abandoned animals.  The kids enjoyed holding the crabs and starfish.  Gabe loved looking at the abandoned bunnies, which stole the spotlight from the actual marine animals.  We watched an octopus attempt to eat a crab, unfortunately the crab was taken out of the tank before the octopus got to eat it.  It was fun to see each of the interesting animals.  Here is a picture mommio took outside of the kids sitting with a fake pirate.

                        Here is a picture of me holding a star fish.

The rabbit's were real attention hogs, or rather attention bunnies.

Mommio: Sand Castle Contest Entries

Since Daddio could not make it on our trip with us he asked the kids to each build him something special on the beach and send in photo entries for his super-special sand castle contest.  Here's what the kids built over the last two weeks...

Mommio: SPI Day 11

Yesterday was our last full beach day and we took advantage of the great weather and calm ocean.  We flew our dragon kite, and then lost it- but that was pretty exciting too!

Max finally perfected his hot tub time machine and all the kids hopped in.

Grandma found a completely intact, large crab (dead) on the beach for us to check out.

Connor finally really enjoyed himself at the beach for the day and even got to jump some waves since the water was a lot more calm.

Kiki and Max spent a long time burying Mason in the sand.  He didn't want to come out.

And a good time was had by all!

Mommio: SPI Day 10

Yesterday we took a little break from the beach and headed over to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center.

It was a really nice place and they had a great photo scavenger hunt for the kids to do on the mile long boardwalk through the marsh area.

We found all but one of the birds on our list and we even found the alligator- look right below the kids on the boardwalk!

And, we went up to the top of their observation tower- which included a bonus view of the neighboring water treatment plant (not so pretty- but very educational, they even had a sign up that explained how it all works).

In the afternoon we spent several hours playing in the pool.

Followed by lots of laying around, we really did need a break from the waves!

And last night some of the older kids and I walked  (one easy block) to the little island theater and saw 

MIB 3.  So much fun!

Marney: SPI Day 9

Yesterday at 6 me, Gabe and Ava went on a walk and it was at sunrise.
We walked about 3 miles to a gaint building and back, it took us
three hours.

There were 5 sea slugs that were super gross.

Half way there Gabe found a phone in the water.

We finally got there and had to walk back, which was tiring.

On our walk back we found a portuguese man o' war and I bravely scooped it up in to a bucket to take home and investigate.

And we used a spoon and messed with the jelly fish and 

we named it No Name.  We learned that it is made up of all different animals and is not just one animal.  We also learned that if you get stung by it and got to the doctor you can't call it a jellyfish because they will give you a wrong treatment, you have to call it a portuguese man o' war.

Then we went to the ocean to have fun, played in the sand
and jumped waves.