South Padre Island with Special Visitors!

We are excited because we have special visitors. Our youngest son and his wife flew in from Oklahoma City to see us here in South Texas!

Blake has been to the Rio Grande Valley many times as a child on family trips to visit his grandmother--Denisa's Mother. He wanted to share this place with his bride, and we're so glad they came to spend time with us! We picked them up at the McAllen airport, and decided to head straight to South Padre Island for the rest of the day.

It was a cloudy day at the beach, and the wind was chilly coming off the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. But we still had to have our barefoot walk down the beach.

They caught a super-early flight this morning, so we are a little surprised that they had the energy to be jumping on the sand dunes. From their jumping form, you might be able to guess which one is a graceful ballerina and which one is a geeky engineer.

Their alarm went off at 2:45 a.m. this morning, so they were understandably tired. A little nap in the sand felt good.

Mark caught a picture of the ocean to the horizon. But what's Denisa doing today on the beach?

She's doing what she does at beaches all across the country. She's picking up pretty shells and then using them to leave behind a local message.

Denisa chose that word because we are at South Padre Island today. But we have learned in our Spanish class that the word "padre" also means "father." So it seemed appropriate that Mark would pose with Denisa's shells today.

When we visit the island, we often drive to the end of the road. Padre Island extends 113 miles from its southern tip (where we are today) to its northern tip near Corpus Christi. Most of those miles aren't accessible to motor vehicles because there is no road. A few miles north of town the road is drifted over by sand. We drove that short distance to show Claire the official end of the road.

At the end of the road we also caught sight of a para-glider zipping across the sky in his giant-fan-powered flight.

He wasn't the only thing in the air this morning. We also spotted a flock of pelicans making a low flight straight overhead while we were at the beach. It was our wildlife picture of the day.

Since our guests haven't had a meal in hours, our next stop needed to be lunch. We tried a new-to-us restaurant on the bay side of the island.

This is the brightly painted "Painted Marlin," and we are glad to see that the clouds are breaking up. Our outdoor table is now bathed in sunlight.

We don't usually take food pictures, but our table was so full of yummy sea food lunch specials that Denisa couldn't resist. That's a shrimp mango wrap, shrimp stir fry, shrimp cakes, blackened mahi fish tacos, and an appetizer of avocado fries.

With its purple cabbage, bright orange carrots, and deep fried noodles, the stir-fry was as pretty as a picture.

Moments after we got up from our chairs, the resident birds were quick to swoop in to inspect for leftovers. While they didn't bother us while we were eating, we had six birds at our table while we were still gathering our things.

Another stop that we always make is to the South Padre Island Visitor Center. They have a semi-permanent sand castle outside, and we have watched it change over the years. This one was built in 2018, and then glazed with a layer of elmer's glue and water to protect it from the elements. We see some signs of aging, but it still makes a good back-drop for a picture.

This holiday season we also get a special treat. A temporary sand village is open free to the public, and we are appropriately welcomed to come see the creations that have been totally formed from sand. Instead of a snowman, they celebrate Christmas with a sandman here on the island.

Instead of Santa, we called this guy "Sand-ta."

It's interesting to look closely at the detail that makes the textures of this holiday icon.

We are also reminded that besides celebrating Christmas, the New Year is not far behind. It looks like 2019 is rolling around to 2020 on this sandy clock guarded by the New Year's baby.

Before we left Padre Island, we had to check out a couple of the souvenir shops that line the main drag. It was a shopping mistake, as Blake and Claire were almost eaten by a shark as we entered this shop. As you can tell from their poses, they were certainly frightened!

We made our last stop at our favorite fresh fish market in Port Isabel to buy a couple pounds of large gulf shrimp that were caught earlier that day. That will make some deliciously fresh shrimp cocktail tomorrow. 

It's always fun to return to Padre Island, a place we have visited many times. But it is especially fun to return to Padre Island with people we love. We brought our son here almost every year since he was a baby. It was nice for us to see it through the eyes of our daughter-in-law, who has never been here before. We are blessed by their visit as we wander the wonders of one of the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico one more time.