Surviving Dolly

We were so excited to take Lydia to South Padre Island. This year marked the 37th year our family has made the trip to the southernmost tip of Texas. Necon and I missed last year because it was too close to Lydia's due date. We were desperate for week of laying around on the beach...needless to say that didn't happen. We arrived at the beach on Sunday, and after church, lunch at Pirate's Landing and the traditional shopping trip at the grocery store, we were finally off to the beach.

Daddy helped her into the water


And no surprise...she LOVED it

We had no idea what monster we were creating when we introduced her to the sand...

She ate...

And ate...


And ate!!

Proud Grandpa and Annie

Monday

Too bad this was the only time she used the float...she looks pretty sweet!!

New grandparents with their sleeping babies

Lydia had fun digging a hole with Jeremy and Aunt Becca




And, no surprise, eating MORE sand!

First signs of the hurricane brewing.

LOTS of these large pieces of wood started washing up on the shore.

And Lydia is still eating sand...

The almost finished product of a day's hard work...


TOTALLY buried...


What a cute beach bunny!!



She loves her daddy

More signs of the storm...waves are getting bigger, and the water is quickly coming further up the beach

But there are still plenty of other crazy people planning on riding the storm out

Tuesday

The beach usually ends somewhere around the third set of waves...

The last glimpses of sunshine we would see...

Wednesday- WELCOME DOLLY

Hurricanes aren't TOO scary

The water was all the way up to the resort by the time we woke up

Naturally Dad, Necon and Nathan went out to see what it was really like

The waves were huge, and the sand was blowing around pretty hard

The smarter members of the family stayed in the condos.

Lydia and Cooper were in for an adventure

Necon and Nathan feeling that wind...

If you have ever watched the Weather Channel while they are covering a natural disaster you have notcied there is no shortage of two things: dramatic broadcasts by the anchors, and stupid people trying to get on TV. In the following case, we have both!!

(In case you can't tell, the stupid people on TV are Necon and Nathan)

If you look between the two palm trees, you can see the beginnings of damage to the condos just behind us. This is still early in the storm...

The wind was much worse coming around and in between the two buildings of our condos than it was out on the water. Its like it was creating a wind tunnel...

Parking lot is beginning to flood. We moved our vehicles into the underground parking deck. It was a wonderful decision, because most of the cars in this pictures wound up with several windows blown out.

The indoor pool officially became an outdoor pool after the roof landed in the hot tub

Lydia is glad Grandpa decided to stay inside with her for a while

The beginning of the aftermath. We had water on and off, but power went out just as Dolly was really picking up, and didn't return for almost a week. We were forced to leave because of this...

Thursday night

We moved the party to San Antonio. On the drive up we didn't see any signs of power for almost an hour north of the beach. Many of the towns were severely flooded, and we realized we had made the right decision in leaving. This did nothing to deter us to continue with Rebecca's blessing. It is a tradition in our family to "bless" each grandchild when they turn 13. Rebecca won't actually turn 13 until next summer, but because we are going on a trip to the Holy Lands next summer, we did her blessing early.

Friday

To SeaWorld we go

The Shamu Show...Lydia was actually kind of scared

We finally found the play place for Lydia's size kiddos

Waiting to see the dolphins...Mommy's favorite

Lydia had skipped both of her naps...she thought she would sneak one in since the dolphins were spending most of their time on the other end of the pool

Finally they made their way over to us

We also went to see the sea lion show. By far, the most impressive part of the show was when the enormous Walrus showed up at the end...

And started doing sit ups!!!

Lydia and Cooper had done VERY well on a VERY hot day

Lydia was nice enough to share some of her Lemon Chill with Mommy

Ross, who Lydia affectionately refers to as "Ro," poses with the Shamu puppet he bought for Lydia. She now can't sit still in her carseat with out it!!

We went out to the River Walk for dinner and stopped by the Alamo while we waited on a table

Tia shared her Mexican Food with Lydia, and Lydia was of course greatful for food!!

The next day we went outlet shopping in San Marcos with Ross and Jenny, but I apparently took no pictures. We were fortunate to get our plane tickets transferred to San Antonio and flew off the next morning without a hitch. Lydia was absolutely perfect on all four flights and seemed to enjoy hanging out at the airports. She practiced her newest trick...walking. After taking her first steps when she was 8 months, she finally decided to take off completely when she was 10 months old. Yay!!! Mommy is very happy not to be facing the possibility of having two babies that cannot walk...