(Traveling) South Padre Island

I am incredibly blessed with the best in-laws ever… for the past several years, they have coordinated a family beach trip for the whole fam-damily and each year gets better and better.  This year, we made the five hour trek to South Padre Island, Texas to enjoy some fun in the sun.

Aforementioned awesome mother-in-law had these shirts made for each family, all in different colors, so we all headed to the beach one evening for family pictures.  I think a lot of the family christmas card photos will include these shirts…

We spent quite a bit of time doing the beach thing with the whole group, but we were able to do a little exploring of the island on our own.  We ventured over to the bay side of the island one morning in search of hermit crabs… and I must say we were quite successful.  (Don’t worry, we let them all go.)

While Mr. home.made. went fishing on one of the days, the girls and I headed over to the Sea Turtle Rescue, located on the northern side of the island.  We all enjoyed learning about sea turtles and seeing the many rescued turtles that were receiving treatment at the facility.  We were also lucky enough to see a baby sea turtle that had just hatched… but that’s not all.

I followed Sea Turtle Inc. on Facebook and checked in during the night to see if any hatchlings would be released in the morning and at 5:30 in the morning, I woke up three sleepy kiddos (and hubby) and we drove to the beach to watch this amazing site:

Isn’t it incredible?!  These little guys are Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, which nest in southern Texas and northern Mexico along the Gulf of Mexico.

The rescue staff let us get an up close look at these precious babies before they made their journey into the water.

The crowd that gathered on the beach waited as the tide rolled in, until the last baby made its way into the water, head peeking out as if to say “goodbye!”.  We let out a congratulatory cheer.

It was pretty awesome.

And what would a vacation post be without a little mention of the great food?  We made most of our meals (so we wouldn’t break the bank) but we also hit up some local eateries, chock full of fresh seafood for me and mini corndogs for the littles.

We had such a great time relaxing, soaking up the sun, and spending time together as a family… which is really what’s it all about, right?  These two chicks had a blast…

And so did this hunky man and I.

I already can’t wait until next year… even if it always feels like we need a vacation after the vacation to recover.  (Do ya’ll feel that way too?  Sheesh!)

Have you been on any fun trips this summer?  Tell me where you went – I’d love new ideas for future vacays!