family vacation 2011 day 3: the beach!

after spending some time at the beach last summer, we knew we wanted to somehow work that in again this summer.  when we initially asked the boys to choose between going to sea world or going to the beach, they without fail, would always vote the beach.  we were so glad that we ended up being able to do both!

we headed straight for the beach as soon as we woke up on the third day of vacation.  we grabbed a bite for lunch in corpus christi and headed over to rockport beach park.  we decided to pay the big bucks ($10, ha, ha) for the annual beach pass and proudly slapped that baby on our windshield.  i told john it was a sure sign that we are sentimentally tied to this place!  we changed into our swimsuits and promptly found a place to bask in the sunshine.

i was happily setting up camp on the beach while john and the boys made their way out into the waves.  just a few minutes passed when i could see (and hear) that noodle was upset about something.  i made my way out into the ocean to meet them and by the time i got near him, i knew what had happened.

a jellyfish sting!

poor noodle.  if it's going to happen to anybody, it will happen to him.  i had some antibiotic cream packed in a suitcase in the car so i tried to get him to calm down a bit by offering him a nice cold bottle of water.

that didn't work.  so i briskly made my way up the beach headed to the car when God provided my little beach angel jan.  she noticed noodle's drama and asked me as i passed if he had been stung by a jellyfish.  she asked if i had some medicine and recommended that if what i had didn't work, to make a run to the local walgreen's for some lanacane.  duly noted, i made my way to the car to dig out our antibiotic cream.  on my way back to noodle, jan remembered that she had some lanacane in her car and happily handed it to me.  i few sprays of this stuff and noodle was a new man!  we were so happy and grateful for her kindness.  noodle and i made our way over to where they were sitting to thank her again, and we learned that she and her husband were at the beach celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary.  we talked for a bit and she gave noodle a seashell she had found earlier that morning.  they were so kind and we were so glad that she came to our rescue.

well, it wasn't a few minutes after that when john and burrito came up from the water toting a nice little surprise in our purple sand bucket:

john told noodle that he caught the jellyfish that had stung him and noodle totally bought it! :)  this one was quite small and according to all the stings on noodle's leg, the one that stung him must have been pretty big.  we quickly discovered that the jellyfish population was quite large this summer, as we saw hundreds in the water and washed up on the beaches in the course of the 2 days that we were there.

i was so proud of noodle though.  after a little time out on the beach, he did end up going back in the water some and enjoying himself.

my parents, sister, and cousin porkchop joined us later in the afternoon (they stayed behind and went to the san antonio zoo), and it was equally fun to watch porkchop discover the ocean for the first time too.

porkchop chasing off the pesky seagulls

we ended up being there for over 5 hours that day and it felt like 30 minutes.  it is just so calm and relaxing and refreshing for our souls.  john and i have decided that we must be beach people because we are just so happy there.

so we all piled into our cars and headed back to corpus christi to check into our hotel.  we got cleaned up, dressed and headed out for dinner.  it was 9pm!  i don't think we have EVER taken our kids out for dinner that late before.  and without reliving the details, we won't EVER do it again, ha, ha!

one more day at the beach.  we were ready after a good night's rest.