Corpus Christi/Houston Vacation: Part 1

A couple of months ago, Randy was granted access to use the last 5 days of his vacation, so we started planning for a short, simple vacation...somewhere just to get us out of The Valley. We had no idea where we wanted to go: FTW, Houston, San Antonio, etc., until Randy spent a couple of days in Corpus for CME. He couldn't say enough wonderful things about how his hotel overlooked the USS Lexington and was located right on the beach. I was sold. Corpus was just far enough away to "get away" but it wasn't too far where the kids (or me) would have to sit in a car for 10 hours just to get there (not to mention getting home, which is always worse). So we booked the same hotel Randy stayed in during his CME course.

We left Sunday after church (Randy was on-call on Saturday so we couldn't leave any earlier), arrived in Corpus around 4PM, checked into our hotel, unloaded the car/changed diapers, and then headed down to the street so the kids could take in the water/sand/gift shoppe where the entrance was through an open shark's mouth/entrance to the USS Lexington. The kids were SO excited about being in the hotel room...somewhere different, I guess. They were excited about the small balcony, small fridge which contained their special juice, and closet safe (the buttons beeped when pressed, which they LOVED, of course).

At the entrance of the USS Lexington:

It's not a very good picture of Josiah on the anchor, but we just thought it was hilarious that it came from the Norfolk, VA Navy Yard (something also from VA having been transplanted to TX).

Once we filled all of our tummies first thing Monday AM, we headed over to the USS Lexington. It was an overcast day (translation: not as hot), so we thought it would be a great day to use at the big, for-the-most-part unairconditioned ship.

Josiah and Laney LOVED all the buttons.

And the telescopes.

Josiah trapped in the Brig.
It would be nice to have once of these at home sometimes.

Laney and Randy's turn.


No significance of the picture other than the name listed in slot #41....
my not-so-common maiden name--Good.


On the flight deck

Me with my babies (All 3 of them)
(Laney fell asleep soon after making it onto the flight deck)

Josiah taking a seat on the Bridge
(where the Captain would have been seated).

Sadly, I don't know much more about the Lex after spending 5 hours walking through her bowels than I did before stepped aboard (small children just don't allow time for much reading). But it was really cool to see the berthing areas (did you know the Lexington could sleep more people than the world's largest hotel?), the ER, isolation room, barber, kitchen, engine room, and Captain's Quarters (he was the only one with a private escape port).

After dinner, we headed to the beach to spend the remainder of our day. Josiah loves the sand and water (his first experience was VA Beach in 2007) but we just don't make it over to South Padre Island very often. This was, however, Laney's first experience since being old enough to be excited about it (the last time we took her to SPI was in November when she was 7 months old). She was SO excited...and had no idea what to think of the sand.

Laney just plopped down just where the waves came up to greet her.

She thoroughly enjoyed splashing in the water.

About an hour (and a face full of salty water) was all it took before Laney decided she'd had enough...then it was time to watch the birds before heading inside to take a shower followed by bedtime.