In which we try to figure out how to fly a self-flying drone

Papa Kirk and Grandma Ella sent Connor a new drone for his birthday.  Minor mischief ensues.

Pilot in Training - Day 2

Join the Dark Side

Today Lex decided to learn how to fly his TIE Fighter drone.

He did pretty well, but he still needs a little practice.

This was a gift from Uncle Kris and Aunt Lauren from Christmas. (THANK YOU!)

Connor also has one; his is an X-Wing.  The drones apparently can battle one another, but we aren't practiced enough pilots for battle yet.

A Couple of KD5 Videos from Yesterday

This weekend was beautiful.  The sun was shining and the temperature was around 70 degrees.  It was also pretty windy, so Kevin kept checking the wind speed.  Each time the wind slowed down to only 10 miles per hour, he wanted to fly his drone.

I think he's getting more skilled with the drone flying and all the photography options KD5 has.  We haven't figured out why this one flight got separated into two separate video files, but I suppose it wouldn't have been too hard to merge them back into a single video.  But I didn't.  Because I didn't.  There's some pretty nice footage of the windmill for the cow field next door, as well as the geese in the playa.

Goliath Blizzard

Did you hear about the blizzard in Texas?  It was during the week between Christmas and New Years.  In fact, we cut our trip at the beach a day short so that we could drive across the entire state of Texas before the blizzard hit and we got stranded somewhere.

We made it home just in time.  Barely.  And of course, since we had been gone for vacation, our kitchen and fridge were bare when we got home.

The wind was blowing so hard that all of our patio furniture was scattered when we got home.  We rounded it all up and got it inside.  Our grill was up a tree.  It was a small tree, so it wasn't up very high, but still.

Anyways, because the wind was blowing so hard, there were places where there wasn't any snow at all.  And then there were the piles where the snow was blown.

I didn't take any good pictures until 6 days after the blizzard.  Mostly because I stayed inside as much as possible.

Here are the photos that I did take, 6 days post blizzard:

The boys were thrilled to be able to see over the fence, because that is normally very much out of their reach.

This, fortunately, is not our house.  Our side of the building didn't get any piles of snow at all.  Because wind.

I think the fence saved us from having our front door buried, because it looks like the piles were even higher on the other side.

Snow Puppy!

Connor = Football + Puppy

Lex and Daddy flying KD5.

So, while we were staying home and warm inside, I made myself a new hat and scarf.  Because that's what you do in a blizzard.



Kevin bought me this wool yarn as a gift, and I had the hardest time figuring out what I wanted to do with it.  I love the colors he picked.



I made an infinity scarf, and I love it.  It's very warm, and easy to put on.

Night Flight

I decided that we needed to name our drone.  Like R2D2 or C-3PO.

I've decided to name it KD5.  I also like that KD sounds like Katie, and now suddenly, our drone is female. Well, sort of.

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.