Off to Corpus Christi

Ever since moving to San Antonio, we've been excited about getting down to Corpus Christi to see where Katie's parents survived hurricane Celia in 1970 (still talked about today by both her family AND most of Texas as it was the last hurricane to date to directly hit Corpus Christi).  While Katie's dad was in the Navy he was stationed in Corpus Christi and her parents spent their first few years of marriage there.  So, on the last Friday in April we loaded the kids in the car and made the 3 hour trek down Texas to the Gulf of Mexico.  In case you were wondering....there is NOTHING between San Antonio and Corpus Christi.  After 2 dozen "are we there yet?"s and a few "I'm hungry"s (...the girls and Katie complained a little too...), we finally arrived.

We were able to stay right on the beach but the wind was so bad most of the weekend that we didn't get to enjoy the beach until Sunday morning before checking out.

Our first stop was to visit the USS Lexington.  This was an aircraft carrier that was commissioned in 1943 and decommissioned in 1991.  Tokyo Rose nicknamed this ship "The Blue Ghost" because on 4 different occasions the Japanese reported that it had been sunk.  When my parents were living in Corpus Christi the Navy would periodically bring the ship into the bay for Navy pilots to practice landing.  My dad always wanted to go aboard but the only way on was to ride with one of the practice pilots.  Since it was not uncommon for them to miss the ship and crash, Dad wisely decided it was not worth the risk!

We spent over 3 hours touring the ship and the older 2 girls were disappointed when it was time to go!! They had so much fun exploring all the various decks and learning about the ship.  We were pleasantly surprised at their interest!  We took too many pictures to post so here are just a few:

Girls manning the guns

F-14 Tomcat

F-18 Hornet

Abbie has had it with the big sisters...."you're going in the brig!"

"Off we go, into the wild blue yonder..."

Britta takes it all in from the comfort of the stroller

 After our tour of USS Lexington, we decided to drive around Corpus and ended up taking a Ferry boat to Port Aransas.  The girls were very excited that our car could ride on a boat!!

Sadly, I did not get any other pictures of our visit.  We were able to explore the Navy base a bit as well as Mustang Island.  We were hoping to get more time playing in the sand but it was too windy and many of the beaches were a bit disappointing....very smelly and full of lots of washed up rotting seaweed.  We do feel there is enough to explore to warrant a return trip so stay tuned!!

**When we finally began our trip back home, we got a flat tire about 30 miles north of Corpus Christi.  It was 5:00 pm on a Sunday night!  Thankfully, Wal-Mart automotive was still open and so we were able to walk around Wal-Mart with the kids while we waited for our tire to be repaired.  3 hours later and we were back on the road and headed for home.