Friday, September 30, 2011

Charlie turns 5

I can't believe my baby boy is five! All I can say is time flies when your chasing Charlie. On Monday we had Charlie's great Aunt and Uncle out for a little dinner and some birthday cake. This coming Saturday is his birthday party with his friends. It was so cute on Monday when he woke up he came out to the living room and a little while later i came in and he was sitting in his chair and looked pretty sad. I asked him what was wrong and he told me. Mommy you made a mistake you forgot to set everything up for my party.  I explained to him that that was his birthday but we were having his party on the weekend so his friends could stay longer and later with having to get up for school.

Last Day of our Road Trip...

Well it's the last day of our Summer road trip. First stop is Dodge City, which turned out to pretty much closed. The visitor center isn't open on weekends, which I think is pretty darn stupid! And you couldn't get in to the Boot Hill till 1PM. The Boot Hill is a recreated western town. We seen several  other visitor's to the town who were also disappointed. But Charlie did have fun climbing on a train engine that was parked there but we don't know why it was there since there was no information on it.
Back up plan if we couldn't find anything to do in Dodge was to go see Fort Larned. Which when you think of a fort you think of a cluster of buildings with a wall around, turns out not all forts had a wall around um.


Last stop  Capulin Volcano. It was real cloudy and while at the top of teh Volcano we could see it was raining in the distance.  But the view was still amazing you could see for miles all around you! The hike up and around the rim was beautiful and not that difficult. I was kind glad it was cloudy so we weren't burning up on the walk up and around the rim. The walk down into the volcano was nice but after the walk around the rim it just couldn't compete with the views

Monday, September 26, 2011

HaPpY 5TH BiRtHdAy ChArLiE!!!


Charlie just a couple of days old

Charlie last week
I can hardly believe my baby is 5 today!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Charlie fell asleep on the way from the Caverns to the Mountains so we stopped at the sign for some picture but we let him sleep....but on the way out we snapped some with him.



New Mexico

Next stop is Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico!



The drive thought the park to get to the cavern was beautiful! There had been a fire in the park, which I just goggled and was in June of this year. It is amazing to see how quickly plants start to regrow after the fire. while there I thought the fire must of been last year judging by the regrowth, I was wrong. I was not thrilled when Chaz wanted to add this out of the way place to an already long road trip, but I am glad we went the cavern was huge and interesting. I wish we would of hiked in thought the natural entrance after seeing some picture of it. But we enjoyed a walk in the Big room and then lunch before pushing on to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Next Stop on the Road Trip Odessa, TX

Where Moppy got to see her Bear Friend Nancy and Nancy was finally was able to meet CAB4!! Nancy and her husband Jim (who it was great to finally meet after years of seeing picture's!) took us to dinner at this great place called The Barn Door!! Thank you so much Jim and Nancy! Odessa was diffidently not what I expected! I always pictured it as this little bitty town, which it wasn't!





That night one of Chaz's friends that ended up in Odessa came by the
 hotel to pick Chaz up so they could go have a few beers. 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

My Little Angel

Yeah I need to get back to blogging about our trip but I've been busy and Charlie has had a cold and been clingy.

Friday, September 16, 2011

A Day in San Antonio

Lunch at the Old Mill the on the the hands on museum, a swim in the pool, dinner at a ice house (oops forgot to take picture's)  then the Alamo and  Riverwalk after dark. What a fun filled day!!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Dolphin Watch / Eco Tour (Even More South Padre)

So part of our Hotel package was a Eco tour, which we weren't too sure would be anything to talk about but it was awesome!! We had a great time and seen lots of dolphins. Part of the tour is they drag this net behind the boat then pull it up and see what they have caught and tell you about it and let you touch what you can. I think we all enjoyed this tour very much!!

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Next Stop is San Antonio!! To spend a little more time with Jen, Jason, Carter, Piper and Jason Parents. After the boat ride in the morning and the car ride the Boys were pretty whipped so it was dinner , some play and bed time. Jen, Jason, Chaz and I sat around talking till around 11 then off to bed because we had a full day planned for tomorrow. 

More South Padre

We meet Jen, Jason, Carter, Piper and friends at the South Padre Island Birding Center and Nature Center, Which is a series of walkways over some swap land, that doesn't sound so great but it the perfect place to see all kinds of water birds!! At one point I was so close to a Great Blue Heron that i had to backup to take picture of it!! Needless to say I would sugguest that if you get a chance go and check it out!



After the Birding center we all headed to lunch at :

Then Jen and Jason's friends were heading home and Jen, Jason and Piper were going to pack up and head to San Antonio while Carter stayed the night with us and then the next day we went on boat ride and then headed to San Antonio.

We went and played on the beach went to dinner at Pirate's Landing Restaurant which was a fun restaurant very much geared towards the kids, there dinner came in a pirate ship. Then ice cream at Davey Jones Ice Cream Locker, which was very good ice cream and the owner was a very nice man! Both I highly recommend if you are every in the area!

South Padre Island

So we Arrive in South Padre Island at 10 AM, where we hook up with Jen, Jason, Carter, Piper. and friends at the beach.  The boys are having a great time with their boogie boards / Kites (it was pretty windy!!) The water feels great  but we are told the the tropical storm has it all churned up. That the water is normally  nice blue and much calmer. We spend a couple of hours at the beach with friends then head to check into our hotel with plans to meetup later. Well the kids are whipped from all the fun at the beach so Jen and I meet for a drink and girl talk at the hotel bar that evening.

The next morning we are all up so we head out to the beach to see sunrise and catch a few crabs. Then we went for a ride and climbed on the sand dunes but my camera messed up and i lost those pictures. :(

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MORE ON SOUTH PADRE  LATER.....

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Pals back together (South Pardre Island)

More on South Pardre Island soon!!

So much to do so little time! Corpus Christi, TX

We were up at sunrise and down at the beach, where we found  lots of jellyfish along the shore line.  Wondering if this had anything to do with the tropical storm?  After a walk on the beach we head to see to see what was around town. First to do on our list was visit the USS Lexington,  Texas State Aquarium and then North Padre Island.


USS Lexington



Texas State Aquarium

North Padre Island

The long drive day

So we wanted to get from Brandon Mississippi to Corpus Christi so we had a full day to do things in Corpus Christi. Plus Tropical Storm Lee was moving in and we wanted to get out of his path! We decided to take the scenic route and drove the Natchez Trace Parkway to it's end in Natchez, MS. ( we drove a chunk of this in TN and we really enjoyed it) Where we crossed the Mississippi River into  Vadalia, LA.  We did see some very heavy downpours but no flooding.  While driving we seen a sign for the Battleship Texas and  San Jacinto Monument, we had been in the car for a long time and we could use some time out so off the highway we go. Turns out it is a ferry ride over, which was a nice surprise.  Charlie loved climbing on the guns and exploring the ship.  We arrived late in the evening and only had 45 minutes to spend on the ship but we enjoyed it. Once back in the car Charlie told us Maybe he was wrong about this vacation after all. He had been telling us he didn't want to go on vacation.
Look at the Mighty Mississippi!

My guys

I love this picture of Charlie and I!!

HUGE TREE!



 Battleship Texas and San Jacinto Monument & Museum

Monday, September 12, 2011

A day in Mississippi

We started our first full day on vacation by visiting Vicksburg National Military Park.  It was a hot day and we walked some of the park but I think it would take days to walk and read all the monuments in this park. This also started a round of Charlie's questions of what happened to  the soldiers and why did they die. Which we try to explain to him but he just doesn't seem to grasp it.


That evening we enjoyed dinner and ice cream with out friends Donnie and  Sonia








Road Trip....

We have returned from our vacation to the South,  well and the Midwest after Chaz could stand to be this close to this and that without going to see it. In 11 1/2 days we cover 8 states and drove a total of 4215 miles. We seen temperatures from 103 to 54

 Day One Chaz worked half a day and Charlie went to school so we didn't hit the road till 12:30. We made it to Brandon,  MS. PLan was to go for a uick swim have a bite to eat and for Chaz to hang out with Donnie. 
Well we got ready to go swimming after checking with the front desk at check in that the pool was still open. When we get down there the gate is chained closed so we go back to the front desk where we are told if we want we can go over the wall and go swimming, so we head back to the pool. We go over the wall but i keep feeling this pain on my foot, when I get to some lights I notice ants on my foot no big deal right? Oh wait Mississippi has fire ants!! Let me just say OUCH!!  Oh and a couple also bit Charlie but he never said a word, so it was benadryl for us.  The next morning Charlie's spots were pretty much gone mine hung around for days!


Planning to do a post for each day we were gone but we'll see how that goes...