Where the road ends

There is one main road on South Padre Island.  The southern part of the road is the commercial part, with restaurants and hotels and gift shops and the like.  Our hotel was actually pretty far north on the road.  But, if you keep on driving north, you find a ton of huge sand dunes.  And then, the road just ends.  There is nothing but sand dunes and beach and ocean.  It's amazing.  So, we went out exploring.  Because sand dunes.





It was also the perfect place to play with some of our new toys.



Like Lex's new metal detector.



And our new drone.  It's basically a flying camera, so the videos and photos around here are about to go to the next level.  You know, once we figure out how it all works.

Uncle Kevin tried to find some buried treasure, too.

See how high the dunes are?

Connor used his new GoPro camera to record this monumental first drone flight.

Connor and Lex both got turns flying the drone.

Then the sun did this amazing sunset thing.  

Best Christmas Ever.  

Swimming on Christmas Day

We spent pretty much all of Christmas day at the beach and the pool.  The weather was perfect.  Sunny and about 85 degrees.



Poolside lunch?  Check.  (We ate more than chips.  Those were just a snack.)

We did clean up and attend a very nice banquet buffet in the hotel ballroom for Christmas dinner that evening.  But we had a ton of fun in the sun before that.

Connor and Lex recorded a ton of underwater videos with Connor's new GoPro camera.  They are actually pretty fabulous.







It turns out that an underwater camera is everything that I never knew I wanted.

BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!  Yes, I kept randomly yelling that out during our entire vacation.  Because it was.

Presents!!!

Of course, other than being at the beach, the best thing about Christmas is all the Christmas presents.  Right?

Our tree is so small because there wasn't room for anything bigger with all those presents to bring.

Lex and Daddy

Christmas socks.  These are necessary for when gifts are being opened.



Nana had beach-themed Christmas socks.

The first present is about to be opened.  How exciting!

I think the first several presents turned out to be books.  I swear we didn't stack them that way on purpose.



Lex loves Elephant and Piggie.  They are hilarious.

Legos!

I love Lex's pose.  He's so happy, and he doesn't even know what is in that box yet.



Grandpa and Nana.  Also pictured, one of Uncle Kevin's 9,654 cups of coffee that he drank while on vacation.



Connor asked Santa for two things:  a new case for his iPad, and a Nerf gun.  He got them both.

Many of our gifts were beach-related, like this metal detector.

Nana got a moose!  It isn't Christmas if there isn't a moose.

We all got wetsuits and body boards, too.  Connor got a GoPro camera and a mount so that he could put it right on his body board.  Stay tuned for all the body boarding fun.

Family Friday

I just found these photos on my other camera.

It was as good as when you find $10 in your pants pocket when you put them on.

I had totally forgotten that we took these pictures.

And now, without further ado:


Right before we left for the airport to move to Texas, someone suggested that we set up the tripod and take a family photo.



Here are both sets of grandparents and the one Ohio uncle.

(Sidebar:  Pssst!  Hey Kevin, you are now the Ohio Uncle.  Until Kris comes back, that is.)

I pushed the self-timer button on the camera for the first photo.

It is important to know that Connor pushed the button for this next one:

Moose face!  Silliness!

Now it is important to know that Lex pushed the button for this next photo:



Both of them had to have their turn with the button, you know.

Oh, and if it looks like Kevin and I just got back from a camping trip, that's because we did.  We woke up that morning, packed up and drove back to my parents' house, collected our kids and suitcases and then got onto an airplane.  It was almost that simple.  (That's a sarcasm, Charlie Brown.)

And did you notice?  The boys are both wearing their Texas shirts that Papa Kirk bought for them while he was visiting Dallas.  

Photo Dump: Flowers & Chocolates

Valentine's Day means flowers and chocolates, right? So, I took the kids on two little field trips earlier this week to celebrate.

First, on Valentine's Eve, we went to the Franklin Park Conservatory to check out their orchids exhibit. I would highly suggest that you go, too, and check out the glass orchids art exhibit. It's fantastic how beautiful the glass sculpture orchids are.


I didn't take any really great photos of the glass orchids, what as I was wrangling Lex at the time to make sure that he didn't break any of them. He kept negotiating with me to touch the glass art. "Just one finger, Mommy? Please?" So the security docent was right on our tail. I had to make sure we behaved. It put a small damper on my photography of the art. So, you'll just have to go see it for yourself.

Speaking of photography, Lex brought his camera along and took a ton of photos. Stay tuned for another post where we highlight some of his best work.

More glass art work. This one is a Chihuly sculpture. We watched a movie about his glass blowing techniques while we ate lunch.

Connor picked out his own outfit. All red for Valentine's Day.

On Valentine's Day, I took the boys to the Anthony Thomas Chocolate Factory. It was a surprise, and they didn't know where we were going until we got there. Afterwards, Connor said that going to the chocolate factory was the "best Valentine's surprise ever."


On Valentine's Day, the chocolate factory basically stopped its normal production of chocolate candy, and all their efforts were concentrated on making their Valentine's chocolate-covered strawberries. Which was perfect, because we had just gotten chocolate-covered strawberries to celebrate Valentine's day while we were at the Ohio Union a few days prior, and discovered that they are Lex's favorite dessert. So getting to watch them being made was a real treat.

(As was buying and eating candy in the factory gift shop. The photo above is a little bit blurry, but if you look closely you can see that Lex is smeared in both chocolate and lemon lollipop.)

...because it's Father's Day...

...and he asked me to...

Kevin asked me to blog about some websites so that we don't lose them.

If you are interested in camera lens rental, you may be interested in checking these sites out.

(Sidebar: We totally should have rented a lens or two for our camera for our recent trip to Canada! The next time we take a trip, I'm going to remember to rent a lens to take with us.)

LensRentals

RentGlass

Fred Miranda

And, for good measure, photo.net.

Happy Father's Day, Kevin!

in which we returned to the chocolate factory

My cousin's kids were on spring break last week, so they came to visit us. We showed them a good time (and how)!


We started things off with a quick tour of the chocolate factory. You know, to stock up on chocolate.

Of course, Connor's favorite "green machine" that wraps the individual candy bars was not running.

Nor did we get to see them make Buckeyes.

But they were using the line where they usually make Buckeyes to make an Italian Cappuccino Creme filled candy bar, and that was almost as good.

And we did get to eat the Buckeyes. And other assorted chocolates that I purchased from the gift shop where the tours (conveniently) begin and end.

In fact, Connor got so much chocolate on his guitar embroidered polo shirt that I had to burn it to change his clothes before we headed out to the Franklin Park Conservatory to see the butterflies.

Here he is before the chocolate incident. I mean, I only gave him one measley chocolate covered pretzel...

And here is the requisite picture of the little brother in the stroller. In his coordinating truck embroidered polo, natch.


Stay tuned for pictures of our next adventure!

Beware:: these are the first pictures from my new camera, which I have had for a week now, and have already shot 717 some odd photos!

People tend to knock Circuit City

...and I used to be one of them. But no more.

I wanted the Sony CyberShot W120 compact digital camera, so I shopped around.

It was $199 at Best Buy, Target and MicroCenter.

It was $184.85 at Wal-Mart. But, for $189.85 at Wal-Mart, you could get a package that included the camera, a carrying case and a memory stick reader (memory stick NOT included).

The package at Circuit City was $189.99, and it contained the same things as the Wal-Mart package, PLUS a 1 GB memory stick.

And, once I ordered it online from Circuit City, I only had to wait 24 minutes before going to the store to pick it up. (Waiting was fine, as Connor was napping anyways, and I had to wait for him to wake up to go.) I simply handed the order form to the lady at the counter, and someone had already put my order together for me. Piece of cake.

I'm going to go play with my new toy now.

New Camera

Kevin and I have been thinking about buying a new camera for a while now. We really like the digital point and shoot that we have been using, but we are interested in doing more and different things with our pictures now.

At first, we thought about a high end digital SLR camera. But, we never got around to buying it. There are so many to choose from. And so many lenses!

I've been eyeing a tiny little sony cyber shot in the stores whenever we go to look at DSLRs, and I'm going to go ahead and buy it. I don't think that it will replace the DSLR-fanciness, but I think I will use it in the meantime, and even after we buy the other one, just because it is small and serves different purposes.

Overheard: You can't mix Coke with Pepsi

For Father's Day, Kevin and I went to visit his family. It was a good time. His family from his mom's side joined us, including Grandpa, Aunt Ann, Uncle Jim and Uncle Peter. We played cornhole, and all the guys played basketball. Grandpa (who is 83!) ran circles around my father-in-law and Uncle Jim, and he kept up very nicely with Kevin and his brothers! I was certainly impressed. (In the above picture, Grandpa is wearing the straw hat and the plaid shirt.)

All the playing of basketball gave me the perfect opportunity to use the sports setting on our camera for the first time. If I held the button down, the camera would take 10 shots in sequence. I caught some really good pictures that way!

Last night when we came home from our trip, we thought that the kittens had left us. It turns out that they had just wandered from the bushes next to our house into bushes in the side garden. I pulled them out and we played with them for a bit.

I've placed the kittens on a waiting list with the Jack's Aquarium & Pets in Canal Winchester. Once they are 8 weeks old and at least 2 pounds, if they have room, the store will take them in and offer them for sale. I bought both my cats from the Jack's at the Graceland Shopping Center, so I feel comfortable with that.

My reading pace has finally slowed down a little bit, and I blame it all on the first book of the Illmoor Chronicles by David Lee Stone, The Ratastrophe Catastrophe.

I saw it in the library and thought it looked good, so I proceeded to check it out and begin reading it. It wasn't very good, and it was written for children in a way that adults just can't cope with. I read about half of it, and decided that it was a waste of time and energy, because I wasn't enjoying it. In fact, I ended up staring at the wall a whole lot when I was trying to read it. In short, I returned the book to the library.

Right now I'm about halfway through The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. (By the way, if you are going to go by three names, it's really cool if they are all a single syllable. That extra "D" at the end of Kidd really punctuates the end of the name, too!) Anyways, I've cried twice. The book should carry a warning label. But, other than that, I'm really enjoying the story of young Lily's life, and I really hope that things work out well for her in the end.