Day trip to the beach

This was our second day trip to the beach this summer. The first trip was to Corpus Christi by the Texas State Aquarium. We left San Antonio early and went to a Mexican food restaurant that had awful food and the bathrooms were horrid. That last comment came from me. I had to hold my breath while I was in there. The beach was just around the block from the diner. We found good parking and staked a claim on the beach. I could not find the chairs with umbrella so needless to say it was a bit warm. Actually, it was damn hot! The wind was blowing and the surf was rough. The kids did not play in the water at all. Ashley and her friend walked the beach and Christopher just stayed hanging with Mom and Dad. Needless to say we did not stay very long. We left the beach by 2 o'clock. This time we found a different beach to go to, Rockport Beach Park. We got up early and packed the Fit and were on the road by 7 o'clock. It was a nice drive down. We arrived at about 10 o'clock. Mary, my TomTom , put us right at the park entrance. It was 10 dollars for an annual pass and we proceeded to the first big pavilion and carted the chairs out to a HUGE umbrella that we had all to ourselves. Then I took the ice chest and food to a pic-nic table and we made sandwiches. That was so much better than the food last trip. We even had guests join us for lunch. The kids and I played in the water and walked the area. This is by far the best Texas beach that I have been to. It was very clean and it had everything I wanted at a beach. The bathrooms are very clean and they had showers. there is also a foot wash station by the parking lot. The water is still only knee deep three hundred feet from the shore. While we were out there, Christopher let out a blood-curdling scream. Everyone on the beach stopped what he or she was doing to see what was going on. Christopher managed to find a jellyfish. The jellyfish stung both legs. I walked him out of the water, Melanie cleaned his leg and put on caladryl lotion, it helped very little. I ended giving him a painkiller and he got very drowsy after thirty minutes. We stayed for about an hour longer and then packed up the Fit and headed to the fishing pier. We saw some hermit crabs that had gathered. Christopher wanted to bring some home but I put a stop to that idea. We saw lots of fish from the pier, and a crab that was as big as a dinner plate. That picture didn't come out . On our way out of the park we passed the fish cleaning station. there were several pelicans that had set up camp waiting for the catch of the day.

The house zoo is getting smaller. I still have the four dogs in the house but that is all. The hermit crab that Christopher won at the Halloween carnival three years ago finally died. Crusty wasn't too much trouble. I gave him his weekly bath, changed out his food every other week and took him for walks around the kitchen. We would watch TV together and we liked the same shows. I miss him terribly and cry myself to sleep at night. Well, not really. But I do miss the little guy.
The second critter that is no longer in the house is Teddy the Toad. This is another acquisition of Christopher. While we had one of the dogs at the vet, Chris asked if he could go look around the pet store. We finish up and as we are walking out Chris comes running up with a little box. I believe it was actually a Chinese take out box. Chris stated that he had 5 dollars and he really wanted it. Well, IT turned out to be a fire belly toad. That 5 dollar toad was eating 5 dollars a week in crickets. We had Teddy for almost 2 years. Thats a lot of crickets. Nothing bad happened to Teddy. I just decided that Teddy could catch his own crickets outside and it would not cost me 20 bucks a month. I moved his house out by the pond and put Teddy in it. The next morning I looked in the house and he was gone. I'm not sure what happened to him. I like to think that he is living it up at night and moved in with a girl friend. Who knows, in the spring I may see some sort of hybrid toad hanging out by the pond. Then I'll know that he survived being out in the wild.