Monday, April 29, 2013

Texas Vacation: Part I

I'm BACK!  

Did you miss me? After we finished calving season, our family was ready for a little rest and relaxation.  We put the cows out to pasture, found people to feed the horses, chickens, and dogs, and peeled out of the gravel driveway in a rental car, headed for warmer weather. Tropical breezes, sand, and warm ocean waves were on the horizon.

Destination: South Padre Island

This trip was filled with friends and fun from beginning to the very end.

Day 1: We drove 6 hours to arrive in Las Cruces, New Mexico.


Day 2: We stopped in El Paso, Texas for a morning of shopping at one of my favorite trading posts.  I fell in love with so many things in that store, but the trunk of the rental car had only a millimeter of space left in it. I would have put some purchases in my lap, but with over 40 hours of driving round-trip, that would have been brutal.  Sadly, I left it all behind for another trip when we can drive the truck.

Here's what I saw:


Aren't these stars pretty?!?  



They had tack galore, and beautiful saddle blankets. 


Did I mention that they had an entire warehouse of nothing but western furniture?


They had these bar stools, too. I'm not sure those would go well with the decor in my house...

Oh, and there was this fake, two headed steer from Mexico. We decided that it looked better in El Paso than it would in our living room.

From here, we went to the boot outlet and then made the 8 hour drive into San Antonio.


Day 3: San Antonio! Here, we visited fabulous friends that my husband grew up with.  We met for breakfast at a lovely bakery downtown, and the time just flew by.  San Antonio is GORGEOUS this time of year! Afterward, we drove an additional 5 hours to the island.



Day 3-7: South Padre Island, Texas! It was the perfect set-up: we vacationed with some of our dearest friends from home. Our three kids, and their three oldest kids are around the same age, and play nicely together. Our friends gave us the bottom condo, and they took the top beach house, and we spent the whole week together on the island.

Here we are at the beach at sunset.

These are our fabulous friends.







Day 4-5: We played at the beach. The gulf water is so warm that the kids stayed in it for hours at a time.  It was so relaxing to walk along beach and play in the sand.


Day 6: The guys went fishing!


They were able to keep 14 of the fish they caught that afternoon.




That night we had a fish fry at the house with their catch of the day.  It was delicious!


To be continued.....










7 comments:

  1. Ahhhh a much needed R&R! When we were done calving, we took a 3000 mile round trip road trip. Was relaxing and awesome. Done branding too! Well except the dinks. The bulls are turned out. Now the yard and garden need some TLC.... Looks like ya all had fun! :)

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  2. Looks like a wonderful getaway! So glad you all got to enjoy it.

    Those barstools cracked me up! I wonder just how many of those they sell in a year?

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  3. Looks like you had a lot of fun. My family and I went to the beach one year. It was a blast!

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  4. Looks like it was so much fun! I'm gonna have to see if Jaelyn can get us hooked up on those stars, those are TOO cute!!

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  5. So fun! I want to go now! I know the store you are talking about in El Paso and it's so cool.!You know El Paso is right down the road from you know who! Haha!

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  6. I think a trip to El Paso is in the near future for us, and yep, that will definitely be a store we hit up! Hubs loves that place, we just usually order over the phone or online with them.

    Glad that all was fun!
    You guys weren't but about 70 miles from us, once you left El Paso on to San Anton.

    We loved Padre when we made that trip, oh, it's been a couple years or pushing seven now. ;)

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