Vacation - Day 2

Okay. So Jack wakes up at 7:00 a.m. and works on his kite (he got it at the souveneir shop yesterday). At 8:00 he wakes us up because there's one part of his kite that he couldn't get and he was hungry. So we all get dressed and go to the lobby for the continental breakfast. He eats 3 muffins and then becomes argumentative because he wants to go to the beach to fly his kite...now. A struggle, of sorts, ensues between Jason and Jack. Jason wants to enjoy his breakfast, while Jack wants to go to the beach...now.

We finally get to the beach and Caroline goes straight into the water. Jason helps Jack get his kite up, and with the constant breeze it's not hard. Jason then goes into the water and I get everything situated in terms of where the towels go and putting the buckets near where Caroline said she wanted to build her sandcastle. Then I take a few pictures to record the moment and then join Jason and Caroline in the water. Now, apparently this part of the Gulf is known for having a plethora of jellyfish. We were warned yesterday that a guy had been stung by a small one and Caroline and I saw one on the beach last night. So, we kept our eyes open. Jack, knowing that there were jellyfish somewhere in the ocean, refused to get into the water. He worked his way in, swam a little bit and then got out (his fear had become too much). Exasperated, Jason and I continued to swim until we saw a jellyfish floating in the water. Then we got out. It was a cool looking jellyfish though. I've only seen live jellyfish in pictures, so I thought it was cool. It was about the size of a softball and moved just like I've seen in videos. It had red squiggly things inside which I thought was cool. But that ended our ocean experience for the morning.

Jason and Jack went to the hotel pool, while Caroline and I made a sand castle. We ended up going to the pool for a couple of hours and just enjoying the morning. Right before lunch we went to the local Walmart to pick up some groceries (interesting place) and on the way were subjected to Jack, The Thundercloud. He was negative the whole way (mainly because he'd done a lot on only 3 muffins and was hungry). Jason got him and Caroline some popcorn while I went and picked up a few groceries that we needed. When we got back we had lunch and prepared to go see the Lexington.

That was a really awe-inspiring museum. Jack and Caroline had a grand time. There was tons of climbing and NO air conditioning during the first part of the tour. Jason quickly tired from the heat and the climbing, so after the TOTALLY interesting film on Fighter Pilots he went back to the hotel while the kids and I finished the tour. We visited the flight deck - with an example of each type of aircraft that ever served on the USS Lexington (The Blue Ghost -- not the Lady Lex. That one sunk in the Pacific during WWII). Then we went and watched the video. It was cool and dark in the theater so Caroline promptly went to sleep. I was surprised that she stayed asleep especially due to the fact that it got REALLY loud when they blew things up. After the tours we went back to the hotel and rested during the heat of the day.

For dinner we went to a place called Johnny D's. It was on Padre Island, which brought back memories of family trips I had taken with my family back in the 80's. Again, we had to endure Thundercloud Jack. He complained all the way about how far it was and often pointed out other options for dinner that were closer. When we were at our wits end with his complaining and about to lose our tempers we pulled into the restaurant's parking lot where Jack promptly said, "Wow, that didn't take long." OMG!!!!! It was a good restaurant. We ate very well and then came back to the hotel. We put our suits back on and headed to the beach. Jason went with us because the sun was setting and it was cool. I do have to say that Corpus Christi is one windy place. We stayed on the beach and built a really cool sandcastle with a moat and a drainage ditch to help keep the water off. Jack came back to the beach after awhile and helped us build a guard tower for our castle. We went to swim in the hotel pool and finally came in at 9:15 p.m. Jack promptly went to sleep and Caroline's not far behind. All in all it was a good day. Tomorrow is our last full day here.