Rockport Part 1: The Shark Whisperer

Our annual Schweg-tastic trip to the Texas Coast was in early June this year.  We rented a house with Grandma and Paw on Copano Bay that had a super-long private pier, a great second-story porch, and fantastic views.  But even more exciting than that -- it had BUNK BEDS (the kids were literally yelling "BUNK BEDS!!!" at the top of their lungs in this photo).

Chilling in the rainbow chairs on the back porch on our first day.

Walking to the end of the pier ...

... and back again.  That's our house in the background.

Kids dipping their feet in the water at the little "island" near Hunt's.

Once we were back at the boardwalk at Hunt's, Max started to get really serious about sharks.  He'd already been talking about sharks for weeks (sharks, waterfalls, and pumpkins are his current obsessions, the subject of much conversation, and the punchlines to almost all of his jokes, but I digress).  Max busted this move for me, and when I inquired as to what he was doing, he informed me he was "being a shark."  Obviously.  What was I thinking?

I made the gentle suggestion that he looked a little more like a porcupine than a shark, and taught him this more obvious shark fin pose.  Once he mastered the pose, he started chanting "shark, shark, shark" for dramatic effect.

Carefully looking for sharks.  And speaking of porcupines, check out his hairdo (including the little blond skunk stripe on the back of his head).  After it got dark, Max announced he was no longer looking and calling for sharks because they were sleeping.

The first night in Rockport also happened to be Game 4 of the Spurs/Heat NBA Finals.  With that many die-hard Spurs fans in one place, you will not be surprised to hear that someone built a large wooden screen (you can see the edge in the top-left corner of the photo below) and rigged up a projector so we could watch the game beach-side.  Here's Paw trying to work out a technical difficulty.

Scarlett, however, was more interested in picking flowers than watching the game or searching for sharks.

Inspecting some tiny beach snails that cousin Ryder found.

Hours later, long after Grandma, the kids, and I headed back to the house and went to bed, Chris and Paw arrived home with big news (I was actually still awake, but I'm told Paw woke Grandma up to tell her, much to her delight I'm sure) -- Cousin Lindsey CAUGHT A REAL LIVE SHARK off the Hunt's boardwalk after we left.  Paw can't recall anybody catching a shark in the last 20 years, so this was a rare event.  We figured Max would be super excited/impressed when we showed him the photo the next morning, but his attitude was more "yeah, what did you expect?  I told you there were sharks out there" than the "OMG A SHAAARRRKKKK!" that I was expecting.  Clearly, the poor shark just couldn't resist Max's siren song shark call.   

The next day, Grandma and the kids and I headed to the Rockport Community Pool while Chris, Paw, and Uncle Greg went fishing with a guide.  The pool is new, and it's awesome (we will definitely be back).  There's a big pool on one side, and a separate kiddie pool on the other, complete with sprayers and toddler-friendly slide.

It took some coaxing from Big Sister (who went down the slide no less than 50 times), but Max finally made it down the slide by himself like a big boy!