End of Summer Vacation Crunch

It’s just about over…summer, 2008. Where did it go? In an effort to cram a mini vacation in for the kids this week, I rented a mini van, invited a girl friend and two of her kids (who are the same ages as my eldest grandchildren) and we headed for Corpus Christi for two days. Since school starts on Monday, it was now or never. Ignoring the impending bad weather (90% chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday and 50% on Wednesday), we headed south to the beach. After all, there was a slight chance it wouldn’t rain. Oh, and I made the mistake of making hotel reservations through an online bidding site last week and I couldn’t cancel the reservations. Prepared to be cooped up in a hotel room with five children we loaded down the van with lots of games, movies, and snacks. We left early to avoid the morning traffic as much as possible. It rained most of the way there. We had a while before we could check into the hotel and it wasn’t raining so we headed for CC Public Beach with thoughts of having a picnic. As we pulled up to the park, it started to rain. It was also very windy and very cool. Making lemonade out of lemons, the youngsters played in the rain and the sand and waded into the gulf. I stayed in the van with my friend and watched. Wimpy on my part but she had an ear ache and was wise to stay inside. As we watched them play, we wondered aloud why we didn’t think to have them change into their bathing suits. Oh, well, we had towels and dry clothes. After a bit, the rain stopped and the wind died down. We had our picnic lunch and headed for the warmth of the hotel. After that, the weather was great, even sunny. I’m glad we went. Oh, and I forgot the camera, so no pictures to post. But I am posting these pictures from my niece taken of my great-nephew on his first day of school, with his little sister, waiting on the school bus, and then climbing aboard. What a precious little boy taking such a big step!