Category: Travel

The red tide was horrible again so we headed for Sea Turtle Inc which is a rescue and hospital for the turtles around the island.

This is Allison. She has a prosthesis to help her swim multiple hours a day with a volunteer “watcher”. We got there in time to see them put it on her and swim around. The story of all the trial workups is really interesting. You can check out their website here.

I was trying to get a photo of this girl and she kept swimming by and splashing me.

The girls with Gerry who has been on TV as a representative of Sea Turtle Inc.

The girls wanted to take this photo, but they were so tired and the red tide fumes were so bad that it was becoming unbearable. After this we headed back to the condo so the girls could nap and we could start packing up. It was a really good trip overall, but no red tide would have made it perfect.

The red tide was so bad when Mike checked the beach this morning that we decided to head to one of our other non-beach activities. We drove off the island over to Port Isabel to go and visit the Sea Life Center. We basically had the place to ourselves, so the girls got a lot of attention and at closing time, Nadia even got to lead a tortoise back to his pen for the night. It was basically the highlight of the trip for her. The girls also got to hold hermit crabs and a starfish, plus they all fed the tortoise.

We had a really nice time and learned about the animals at the rescue center. The woman who runs it gave our girls a bag of very cool shells when we left which I thought was so sweet.

After the Sea Life Center we went next door for ice cream at this cute little place. We also bought salt water taffy and had a nice chat with the woman who owns the place. She suggested that we go across the street to her friends little shop called “Art Sea Gallery” and it was so cute! Mike bought the girls souvenirs and bought me the neatest stained glass light up sea turtle for my birthday.

We had a lot of fun wandering around Port Isabel taking photos before heading back to the island for dinner.

The red tide wasn’t too bad when we woke up so we headed for the beach!

After lunch they needed to do some indoor stuff for a while.

Etch a Sketch by Amelie and Nadia

After dinner we told the girls they could go for a night swim and suddenly we became the coolest parents ever 😉

The annual sand castle competition was happening when we were in South Padre so we headed out to see the entries one day. It is absolutely amazing and artists come from all over the world to this event and their work is so cool! Here are some of our favorites.