Riley G Hits The Beach

[SunKneeMarie]

Riley G Hits the Beach

We took our family vacation to South Texas this year. To Port Aransas, about 30 minutes beyond Corpus Christi. Riley Grace’s first real vacation.

We loaded up the Pilot (that’s actually our vehicle, not a euphemism for anything ) and headed out. I forgot how much more stuff you have to take when you are traveling with a baby. We had filled the roof cover storage thingie with the suitcases and the sunshade the night before.

After it was done I looked at it and wondered if it was going to clear the garage when we backed out, or whether we’d be doing one of those hysterical Griswold movie things where all of the stuff gets ripped off the car roof when they back out. Made me wanna slap my knee thinking about that fun way to start a vacation. But Mike checked and it was kind of tall, so he removed something and voila, we were granted clearance.

We left the house after dropping off the dogs at the vet. On the road about 7:15. The ride down was pretty uneventful. A few fussy periods from Riley. Sometimes Ryan (who was in the seat next to her) could calm her down and sometimes he couldn’t. When he wasn’t able to, I maneuvered myself from the front seat into the back seat (70 mph…don’t try this at home, kiddies, leave this to the professionals ) and began the task of baby entertainment. Ridiculous faces, silly songs, humming, etc. Glad no one was videotaping that!!

We did spend an inordinate amount of time plowing through hordes of butterflies. Anyone know what kind of migratory thing that was? Small black/orange butterflies in swarms that beat the snot out of our windshield and grill. The car is now plastered with butterfly carcasses. Ick.

We drove through all of the major Texas cities as we headed south, lucking out with the Austin traffic and got to the hotel about 3:30. That was with pit stops for gas (and nursing), lunch (and nursing), nursing (and nursing), etc.

Here is our turn off for Mustang Island and Port Aransas.


We checked into the Port Royal and asked at the desk if my parents had made it yet. They were coming and bringing my three nieces for the 4 days. I have one sister and two brothers and they each have one son and one daughter. Somehow each of the daughters was able to come, but none of the parents and none of the sons.

We got side by side rooms (they were nice enough to grant this request of mine) overlooking the pool. Here are two views of the pool and grounds from our balcony.



Here is our condo. This is the living room, with the kitchen in the background.


We unpacked and got into our bathing suits and went down to the pool. It was really hot, and even with Riley in her little shaded cabana, there wasn’t enough breeze to keep her cool, so we had her take a dip in the pool and then took her back up to the room.

Here she is in the cabana.


Here are the boys in the water.


My mom cooling off.


That night we ate hot dogs in the room and my mom took Ryan and the girl cousins swimming til 11 that night.

Next morning we all walked down the boardwalk to the beach. We set up camp (took a little longer than expected as we’d never set this sunshade thing up before) and Riley fussed for a bit and then fell asleep.

Here she is asleep on her blanket.


Mike and my dad discussing the merits of shade.



Here is Michael with my mom playing in the water. He can sit and play in the shallow water for an hour or more at a time.


Ryan and the girl cousins out in the water.


My niece (Briana) and Ryan


Everyone having a snack...



which of course attracted a few of these fellows (seagulls there are pretty aggressive—they will remove an eyeball to get to a Frito bag--freaked the kids out more than once when they swarmed them )


Eventually Riley woke up. She was a little disoriented, as you can see from the eyebrow furrowing.



Then Lauren came over to play with her and she perked right up.


We took her down to the beach and she splashed her feet in the surf for a little while. Here I am taking her to the water.


Here she is: her first time in the ocean. Ta Da!!


Then we (and by we I mean Mike) wrestled the sunshade down and we went back to the room for lunch. Ordered some pizza from the hotel lobby. Not great pizza. Not horrible, but not great.

After lunch, Mike watched Michael and Riley in the room while I took Ryan to the pool. My sister was with the husband at a conference in Corpus Christi, so she came over for the afternoon. We swam and had fruity drinks at the swim up bar. This pool is huge. It has water slides at the deep end and three sections that are separated by small waterfalls that you “drop” down over to get to the next section. The kids love it.

Here is a view from the pool. Third room over on the first level was ours.


My toes with the swim up bar in the background.


After a couple of hours, I was feeling the sting of the sun on my back, so we went back to the room. We all changed and went to dinner at Snoopys, a little seafood restaurant on the water.

Here’s a pic of the restaurant from the highway as you drive over.


My parents were following us and I swear that one second they were right behind us and then suddenly they weren’t. We parked and Mike called them on his phone and I heard him say, “He did WHAT?” (which is really never a good sentence to hear) and found out my dad had misjudged the median and whanged the car, injuring the front left wheel/tire.

My parents and the three girls made it over in their limping car and we went in to eat. After that, Mike and Ryan went to change the tire of my parents’ car. But the spare was flat. So we loaded everyone up, except my parents, and drive back to the hotel. Mike then went back to the restaurant to take my parents to get an air compressor or something for the tire to make it drivable so they could take it to the dealership in the morning. The kids watched a movie in our room til more adults came back, then they went for another pool swim.

Here they are, transfixed by some Disney chick movie.


And here is Ryan, reading in our room, refusing to watch the Disney chick movie.


Next morning Mike got up at 6:30 (ugh, on vacation—what a GREAT son in law, eh? ) and followed my dad into Corpus. When they were almost there, they pulled off because the spare was being beaten up by the misaligned wheel and rim. So Mike changed my dad’s tire and put the original tire back on because it was better than the spare that was about to explode. (He asked me later “What’s the most number of tires you’re supposed to change on vacation??” I think the answer is seven, but you guys can let me know with an official ruling )

A few hours later I called my mom while she was at the dealership and asked what the status was. I guess there was pretty extensive damage to the rim and some other things (Mike said it was driving pretty wonky the whole way) so they just decided to scrap it, trade it in and get a new vehicle. I asked what they got. She said, “Oh. A Pontiac something-or-other. It’s a small minivan.”

Ah, the ever popular 2006 Pontiac SomethingOrOther. An unforgettable vehicle.

Turns out it was a Pontiac Torrent, which is a very small SUV. I guarantee my mother will be telling her friends all about her new “minivan” all week.

So we chalk this whole episode up to my parents’ misfortune on family vacations. They have a history of unfortunate events: one vacation my mother got taken to the Emergency Room to find out her blood pressure was through the roof (this was the first time found out she high blood pressure and –oh!—is that what that tingling and numbness in her arm was all about?); another vacation their car battery died when they were ready to drive home one year, forcing them to be towed in and getting a new alternator; and at a lake vacation my dad was prostrate on the floor for 2 days when he wrenched his back when the boat we were on took a really big bounce. But I think having to buy a brand new vehicle because of a driving accident is a new high.

I mean, seriously, most of us just get T-shirts as a souvenir.

While my parents were out doing the car thing, we spent some time at the beach again. I reached in my bag to get the camera out, since my sister was joining us again and I wanted to get some more family shots. And the camera bag was all wet. And so was the camera. I mean WET. Sure enough, it blinks on and then off. Dead. One of the water bottles we’d brought full of clear water to squirt the beach water off our hands and faces after swimming had turned upside down in the bag and drenched a towel and my camera. Just bad positioning.

It was my Canon A95 that I bought as a Christmas present to myself a year ago. Dead. I couldn’t believe it. I was just glad the memory card made it alive. We went into Walmart that afternoon and picked up a new camera. Not the same kind, but pretty close.

That afternoon, the girls all went shopping in Port Aransas (or Port A as the locals call it). We wandered around, in and out of shark’s mouths. No less than 3 shops had this shark mouth thing going. Good marketing, this shark mouth gimmick.

See, here’s my sister (Julie) and my three nieces (Hailey, Lauren and Briana) in front of one shark mouth.


And here am I with my three nieces inside another shark mouth.


I found a cute skirt outfit—gauzy with some gold and silver threadwork, but I had to leave pretty quickly as I was on a short lease since Riley is still eating every couple of hours or so.

(Have to continue in another post as it's getting too long and I'm going to get that error message)

[kgargr]

Pretty pictures and memories! Looks like a great time.

[roni]

Nice report. Nice photos. Thanks.

[SunKneeMarie]

Thanks. I'm gonna print this out somehow for Riley's book.

That night we took the advice of Christy (Louden48 on this forum) and went to Pier 99 for dinner. It was a bit of a long drive, but worth it. The food was wonderful. Yummy shrimp. My parents stayed back with the two younger cousins, but Briana went with us for dinner.

Riley G didn’t want to sit in her seat, so I put her up on my shoulder to look around and for some reason she began laughing hysterically at the man sitting in the booth behind us. He was on his phone and I don’t know if she thought he was talking to her, or just liked the sound of his voice or what, but she was just crowing with excitement. We were all cracking up.

Here are Ryan, Riley, Mike and Michael at Pier 99.


And here I am with Briana


Ryan took the picture of Bri and me. He’s a bit of a prankster and the first picture he took, he spent the longest time adjusting the camera. We kept smiling and smiling and finally he grins and says, “Here I think this turned out pretty good.” And hands us the camera. Turns out he was zooming in, in between Briana and me, and taking a picture of the man on the phone in the booth behind us. It was so unexpected, I cracked up laughing. I had to delete the picture, though, as the memory card that came with my new camera only held 10 pictures! TEN!

Before we left the area, we stopped at the USSLexington and took some pictures, which is right next door to the restaurant.

Here we are in front of the jet-on-a-pole.


And a closer version.


On the way home, we decided to go the back way and take the ferry. Big mistake. Apparently it was training day at the ferry, cuz no one seemed to know what the hell they were doing.

Here's the ferry entrance.


And Bri, Mike and Riley watching once the ferry FINALLY moved.


What are they watching? Another ferry.


That night we got Michael and Riley to sleep and my mom came to our room to babysit so Mike and I could take the kids down to the pool for a night swim til midnight. That was fun. Diving for coins, weird falling tricks off the waterfalls, fruity drinks at the swim up bar. And that was just me. I don’t know what the kids were doing all that time…. Heh.:p

Back to the room to pack up. We left about 9:45 on Thursday morning. We’d planned to stop in San Antonio and eat at one of the restaurants in the marketplace, but decided not to chance leaving the car with all of the stuff on the roof. Hate for my parents’ luck to latch onto us!

So we drove on… through San Antonio, through New Braunfels, through Austin, by San Marcos (we waved, sctx, did you feel it? ) Back through even bigger swarms of butterflies. Please, someone, tell me where they were going and why they can’t fly a little bit higher to avoid the kamikaze assault on our vehicle? I felt bad that we were smashing into them left, right and center. I’m sure they felt even worse…..

Riley had a big fussy period the last leg of the trip and my magic wasn’t working, so Mike pulled over and he got in the back to try some Daddy tricks while I drove.

Here’s Riley without a smile on her face. She just wanted OUT of that carseat!



30 minutes later, we hit major D-FW metroplex rush hour traffic. Ugh. We finally crept home at 6:45.

Everyone had fun, got a little too much sun, and will be happy staying out of the car for awhile! Happy Summer!

[itsmysecondtime]

Great trip report indeed.

Incredible feats of driving acrobacies, while multitasking between baby and road. My wife has also developed some creative solutions while on the road. While I don't necessarily condone that level of inovation, I confess to feel utterly inept at such nerve recking tasks, I somehow admire the versatility. Somehow this extra aptitude seems to develop exclusively among the female ranks, why is that?

Funny about the tire thing, it always seems to happen on vacation, some sort of an unspoken rule.

The most memorable was a double flat out in California after ignoring a wrong way/ no trespass tire puncturing barrier on the way to a local beach area, somewhere in LA. Funny to see some of the less desirable parts of town while the convertible Mustang was being towed to some nearby garage. But have had to change spares and the actual tire while in the Mayan Riviera a few years back as well.

That hotel/resort looks like a decent place indeed, very tropical appeal. Great pool also. And that beach looks just great. Thanks for correcting my misconceptions about the beaches along the Texas coast.

But most appealing is the clear impression that transpires of the great family you've got there, nothing can beat that.

Thanks for sharing. Kinda makes me re-consider our vacation experiences earlier this month in the Mayan Riviera. We have a three yo toddler that simulates the demands of 10 kids and burns us out in a matter of minutes, not hours.

[BonnyW]

Great report, great family, but I don't expect anything less

Very entertaining too...Thanks!

[MikeW]

I don't remember crawling into the back seat at 70 mph.
I do remember swapping drivers at 90mph.
Don't let your teenagers read this.

[Andiline]

Great report and great pics! Enjoyed reading this very much.

And Riley is a cutie!

[emc]

Thanks for the report. It was kind of a Griswold family vacation.
That Riley Grace is so cute and your boys handsome. You can certainly tell who their Daddy is.

[TAPPY]

Aaaaahhhh Family Vacations....nothing like some good ole Grandparents to help with the babysitting !!!

Great report and what a nice looking family you have. Riley Grace looks like she will be ready for Playa very soon !!!

[Tesla 573]

What a sweet family! Riley Grace is growing so fast it seems. You look great in you bathing suit.....not bad for post partum!

[cuffedlinks]

Great report!

[Eileencc]

Loved that report! What a great looking family, and that was a pretty nice looking resort.
Too bad about all the little (and big) mishaps along the way! We alwasy seemed to find the emergency room and/or make some kind of big unexpected purchase on our family vacations as well. I guess those are the things that make for funny stories later om in life.

Those pictures of Riley remind me of our first family beach vacation with our daughter Kelsey when she was just a couple of month old. So precious!

Thanks for a sweet trip report.

[MWC]

No need to hide behind the baby, mom, you're looking great!!!

Sounds like it was a good time, Riley is so cute!

[alwaysmissinpdc]

Thanks for the entertaining report! You look great and your family is lovely.