your on the scene correspendent, BP gulf spill
with all the news coverage of the BP disaster, we felt it was our obligation to do an investigative field visit to report first hand, the beach conditions along the gulf of mexico, or at least the south padre island section of gulf of mexico...
this is how you keep kids occupied for nearly seven hours in the tow vehicle. I just noticed #1 son has a nintendo ds (blue) in one hand and his itouch (red) in the other... I'm not sure how that works but he doesn't bug me with questions so I don't bother him with any.
crossing the bay to get to the island.
set up the airstream. she enjoys the mister hang from the zip-dee awning.
we played bean-bag toss. #2 son decided he would lay over the target board... it became a game of whack the baby.
kat took the older two kids on a sea safari and dolphin watch.
dropped a net and pulled up some stuff for inspection, then released it. they did see dolphins but didn't get any pics.
meanwhile back in the 1968 airstream...
we had nice nap.
with five people living in a small space, clutter can creep up fast. I am devising a plan for future airstream excursions. it involves actually putting the food items in the large pantry instead of all over the counters. I think that is a reasonable start. and I will try to keep my shoes under control.
the beaches just north of town were less populated. no oil there.
operations HQ, some core samples were taken by digging down into the sand.
HQ also made for a nice nap space.
we had intended to go to SPI for the daughter's birthday, but rescheduled for better weather (hurricane alex). she had chosen her favorite restaurant for the birthday meal, the padre island brewing co. she LOVES their beer bread and we don't complain about their wheat beer.
her beer bread smothered in real butter.
kat found a pool table upstairs and taught the kids how to play.
they had smores back at the koa.
beautiful sunset, pic taken from iphone 3gs
we did not know that one of the kids favorite parts of going to SPI was stopping at the blue marlin grocery store. they sell betty & veronic/archie comics at the check out. they had been looking fwd to going back to stock up. I noticed archie comics has an iphone app so I loaded that on her iphone. she was happy to find the app has a store locator and she now knows where to get her archie comics in austin as well.
taking water samples. no oil.
dug more holes, still no sign of BP oil.
happy hour at pier 19.
oysters on the half shell from port aransas, did not taste of crude.
we may have spilled a bit of bratwurst oil on the beach... grilling our lunch. we love this little grill we got for $20. we also use it at home since it is so efficient.