Ahoy, South Padre Island!

 I want my boys to look at life as the great adventure that it is. 

So When we have a break from work and school and all of the things we have to do that finance our needs and make us responsible people, I want to go on as many adventures as possible. Be it big or small. So when I got the boys back after the new year, that's exactly what we did. None of us have been to South Padre Island so I decided we would go on a small sized adventure and explore it.  And comparing this road trip adventure to my solo one a couple of years ago that was much further away, I quickly learned that adventuring with kids is way more expensive. If I had enough assets to file bankruptcy on, I would probably need to. And it was all absolutely worth it.  

The day we arrived, we were greeted with 30 degree temps, 24 mph winds, and rain. And the breaker that ran one of the heaters in our cabin was out and needed to be completely replaced. Thankfully we were supplied with space heaters to get us through until the breaker was replaced. So we hunkered down and had indoor game night. If you have not played the game, Speak Out, I highly recommend going out and purchasing it immediately. So. Many. Laughs.

  

The next day was still chilly but dry, so we ventured out. Apparently South Padre Island is the sandcastle capital of the world and is home to the largest sandcastle in the U.S. We took note of the name of the guy who built said largest sandcastle, Andy Hancock, so we could look him up later.  We also learned that there are about 40 businesses that have smaller sandcastles throughout the island. So we got a list of who had the sandcastles, and went on a scavenger hunt. The boys had a great time and got so excited every time they found one.

This was just a cool wall painting that we saw during our scavenger hunt..

Piracy was the theme of a big chunk of our trip. It started when we ate at a restaurant on the pier that was a sister restaurant to another pirate themed restaurant. It stuck and we went with it for the rest of the trip.  

We ended the day watching this gorgeous sunset and then going for a night swim in the hot tub. The boys were crazy and went swimming in the pool also. I was not that stupid....er, I mean brave. I also learned that I should take the boys for a night swim from now on any time I want to get information from them. When I pick them up from school in the car and ask how their day was and what they did, I get something along the lines of, "It was good I guess." But in the hot tub, they told every stranger that was there our entire life story.  Either I need to invest in a hot tub, or I need to start bringing strangers with me to the school carpool line.

The sunrise was just as beautiful as the sunset. Excuse the swim trunks hanging out to dry from the previous night's hot tub swim.

Across the bridge at Port Isabel, there is a restored lighthouse you can go inside. So we did. And holy cow, the view was AH. MAZ. ING.  The sandcastle hunt was free and this was only $9 for the three of us, so I was still feeling pretty good about the cost of this trip too.

Fake pelican picture just for fun. We saw plenty of real pelicans too, which was cool. But we never saw them dive for food and show off their cool beaks that can hold 3 gallons of water, so that part was a bit disappointing.

Oh look! More pirate stuff! I think they make pretty decent pirates.

Open fires aren't allowed on the island but we could use this communal gas fire pit to roast s'mores. So that was cool. Then the boys headed to a playground for the important business of palm tree rock wall climbing and a friendly but semi-vicious game of tetherball. Logan may or may not have intentionally let himself keep getting hit by the ball. What can I say? He's a thrill seeker. Or a masochist. I'm really not sure which.

Did I mention the sunsets and sunrises were amazing? Because they were.

One thing I was really looking forward to was the possibility of seeing wild dolphins. Seeing them in Charleston had been a highlight of the trip and I wanted the boys to experience seeing them too.  I thought they might show up in the bay in front of our cabin, but towards the end of our trip, we still hadn't seen any. So the first large cost of the trip came when I booked a private tour to go out and see the wild dolphins. It was incredible and worth every penny. There were SO many of them out that day and we got to see a couple of them ride the wake in front of shrimp boat which was pretty cool. The boys also thought it was cool that we made it just 6 miles away from Mexico on the trip. These pics don't do any justice at all to what we actually got to see that day. On our last morning on the island, we finally saw a couple of dolphins in the bay by our cabin also, which was the perfect way to end the trip. I'm still not sorry I spent the money on a tour though. It just made it that more exciting whenever we spotted dolphins throughout the rest of the trip!

I personally enjoyed watching all of the birds in the mornings when the tide was low and they were out searching for food. One morning, the boys decided to feed the seagulls pieces of their leftover grilled cheese from lunch the previous day. I'm not sure if grilled cheese is an acceptable part of a seagull's diet or not, so hopefully there wasn't a group of dead birds on our patio for the next group of people that checked into our cabin.

One of the places we came across on our sandcastle scavenger hunt was a sea turtle hospital. We tried to go inside and visit but it was closed because the staff was out looking for stranded turtles that had been affected by the cold weather. Luckily we were able to go back a couple of days later when it warmed up some. It was pretty neat reading all of the stories about each of the turtles that were there.

And of course, more piracy! This was outside of the main pirate themed restaurant that we also ended up eating and spending way too much money at. Worth it.

We ended the trip by dropping some more dough on a pirate themed cruise. To board the ship, we had to walk down the longest fishing pier in Texas which was pretty neat. And long. We also saw more wild dolphins. Bonus. The signal to start boarding the ship was a cannon being fired and that alone pretty much made the boys' day. Aboard the Black Dragon Ship, the boys got to have sword fights, hear tall tales about pirates, go on an on-board treasure hunt, sing and dance to pirate songs, and we all got pirate mustaches painted on. It was so much fun and the boys said they will remember it forever. So again, it was worth every. single. penny.

After we debarked from the Black Dragon, we stopped for ice cream. The very kind Aussie that scooped our frozen treats told us we should take one of his flyers and check out his YouTube channel on sandcastle building. Turns out, he was THE Andy Hancock who built the largest sandcastle we had visited at the beginning of our trip! He complimented us on our awesome pirate mustaches and showed off his own pirate earring. Such a fun surprise for the boys. So of course we asked him for a picture.  

This truly was a trip I will always remember. Nothing outside of our lodging was planned when we first arrived. We just showed up and explored as we went, which was such a fun way to vacation. That's part of what made it feel more like an actual adventure. And we ended up seeing and doing so much! And sharing these adventures and memories with my 2 favorite people in the entire world made it worth everything. 

On the way home, we had to go through border control. Luckily, I still had my painted-on-very-realistic-looking pirate mustache so we made it through without any trouble. Maybe from now on I'll wear a mustache on every adventure.