Hello again! December sure did fly by. We were blessed to travel to Texas to visit my parents for Christmas and had a wonderful time celebrating with them. Our time there was packed full of food and fun. It seems like every time we go we try to do everything and eat everything in Rockport and the surrounding areas. Our time there went something like the following...
DAY 1 Picked up in San Antonio by my folks, treated to "the best bar-b-Que in Texas" at the original Rudy's. Good food, interesting atmosphere, I expected a restaurant, was surprised to see a gas station with a smoke pit and some picnic tables. This was followed by a rousing 3 round game of laser tag where we discovered why the pack of teenagers we played with wore black. We stepped into the "briefing room" to discover they couldn't be seen under the black lights, meanwhile we were all glowing like Fourth of July fireworks. Needless to say- we lost, but had fun doing it.
DAY 2 Fishing for the boys out on the bay, they caught lots of sheep's head and a few other varieties as well. Girls went to the city "Corpus Christi" shopping, grandma bought Emma a new Christmas dress.
DAY 3 Christmas Eve The girls were treated to pedicures. That evening we went to Candlelight service at the church, followed by our traditional finger food dinner, Gram pa read the Christmas story out of Luke and we opened gifts.
DAY4 Christmas Day We went to the National Sea Shore and found more cool sea shells than we could count, among them more than 30 sand dollars! Walking along the sea shore and seeing all of the beautiful and interesting things the Lord has made for us to enjoy was humbling. The God who made and possess all of that, humbly came to us more than 2000 years ago, to live in flesh so He could sacrifice Himself on our behalf that we might have a relationship with Him. Oh, how He loves us!
DAY 5 Time to re-group. A much needed day of R&R, hung out at home.
DAY 6 Sunday - We went to church with my parents and were encouraged to worship with other believers who we had never met, some who have been praying for us on our adoption journey. After church we went to lunch and headed out into the gulf on dad's boat. We spent some time fishing for sheep's head and caught a few, what a strange fish! There were some dolphins that swam close to the boat, maybe because we were chasing them, but hey it was fun. At one point we noticed a bunch of birds and dolphins on a feeding frenzy and decided to take a closer look. Only we got a little too close and hit a mud bank that resulted in James cartwheeling off the boat into the water. Needless to say he was the only one who swam in ocean this trip! That afternoon we celebrated Emma's birthday with an ice cream cake, she is growing up so fast, can't believe she's 8 already!
DAY7 Our last day in Rockport we went to the Aransas wildlife refuge where we were sure to see lots of coastal wildlife, and we did! Deer, alligators, wild pigs, all kinds of birds, whooping cranes, and even a tame-wild armadillo. James and Clancy ended up petting it, that was weird and unexpected.
DAY 8 We began our long trip home. Mom and dad took us to San Antonio to catch our flight home. We had intended to go to the zoo, but the cold rainy weather didn't cooperate. So we spent some time on the River Walk and went to the IMAX. Afterwards we said our goodbyes, and mom and dad dropped us at the hotel and headed home. We couldn't help but think about our next trip to Texas, Lord willing we will have grown from 426!
