South Padre Island

Scott had a week off between academy and first day of work, so the first part of that week, we moved from NM to TX, and the second half of that week, we spent a few days on South Padre Island. Its about 1 1/2 hours drive from McAllen. They were very cold, windy days, but was still fun to explore and finally have some family time together!


View from our hotel room


We spent couple of hours in the hottub warming up from beach time, and all 4 of us got a very bad sunburn. Cloudy and cold, but still intense sun!


This is what one of the beaches looked like! No one was swimming here, but we watched the kiteboarders for a while.




We were wearing our sweatshirts to stay warm while taking a walk along the beach, but the kids still couldn't resist the waves :) Plus, had to catch the moment of them holding hands :) Those times are getting rarer, but glad the haven't grown out of it yet!!


A huge turtle! Went through a building where they help the turtles who are deformed or injured.


Went through a nature walk - watched 2 alligators for a while.




This was the entry to a souvinear store. The kids had a little fun pretending!


Devon at a restaurant we ate at

Our "Temporary House" in Texas

We were lucky to find some friends that had just bought a house, and were leaving to go back to MN for the summer months and offered to let us rent their house while we were looking for our own home. It worked out perfect! Here are some pictures of where we are now, just for another week or so.




Back of house


Back Yard


Back Yard

Our Welcome to Texas

We spent about a week in a hotel when we first arrived in Texas until our first house was ready for us. For breakfast in the hotel, we were treated to Texas-shaped waffles!


A couple of pictures of the kids in the pool at the hotel. They spent hours in it while we were there.

White Sands National Park - NM

This was a lot of fun! You wax the sled and you actually go pretty fast. It is really amazing - the sands are 275 square miles! We only went in about a mile and all you could see from the top of the dunes is sand in all directions. Its softer and whiter than any beach sand I have seen. Its actually gypsum and its just like powder!

Carlsbad Caverns

This was such a neat place! Pictures don't show really what it was like at all. Its one of those places that you just have to be there to see what it was really like.

‎The cave is 750 feet below surface. Largest Cave camber in North America. The biggest room stretches 14 football fields in length! Was 98 degrees outside, but 56 degrees down there. We walked 2 routes, 1 mile each. One route, an elevator takes you down the 750 feet in 1 minute, the other route you walk down from the natural entrance.








That is an original ladder installed in 1924 and goes down 90 feet like that! I sure wouldn't have wanted to climb down it - even when it was new :)