Summer Vacation 2011 **** South Padre Island ,Texas

I have decided to start writing these posts in English, since I am going to have it printed in a book form as a keepsake for the kids, and they, or at least their spouses and children, might not be able to read the Afrikaans in 20 years time anymore.

We had a fantastic time in Texas end of May, beginning June.
It was a 20 hour drive, but worth every cramped, pain-in-the-neck-are-we-there-yet-who-farted-OMG-open -a-window-I'm-going-to-throw-up mile of it.

 Speaking about throwing up, we had our fair share. Strydom filled up a plastic bucket (that we luckily had on hand) on the way there, and Danille did the same with a grocery bag on the way back. Both times I did what any good mother would do...
I hung out the open window and held my nose.
Niel stopped and disposed of the stomach contents next to the road. I pitied the guy doing community service cleaning the side of the road the next week. Better him than me though.

As soon as we crossed the Texas border, Danille felt she had to get into character, with cowgirl outfit and Texan accent galore. It was funny at first (the southern Texas accent) , but it got old fast, and she only stopped after serious threats from me, which might, or might not have involved a sock, a mouth and duct tape...

We loved Texas. The people were friendly, the water was warm, 

..the beach was clean

                                                    and it was not too crowded. The seaweed in the picture only washed up on the last day, but even that was clean and not gross and full of fleas.

The Island looks like this

and is connected to the mainland by a long bridge...

We did not even get to do half of all the fun things there are to do. But then, we prefer to just chill and lie on the beach , read, braai, etc.

We definitely want to go back again, and next time we will try more things.

We did get to try out a few restaurants,

If you want to read more about my "interesting" hair, go here.

and Strydom and Danille got to go in this scary thing. 

It was fun to see Coenie and Suzanne again, who joined us from Washington for a few days.

The last day we got to drive up on the beach  to a remote place.We made hotdogs on the beach,

took pictures of the birds, and had the best time.

And then we had to face the 20 hour drive back home again....

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Don't ask...Strydom being Strydom