The rest of vacation

I will forget a bunch of stuff, but hopefully will remember the good stuff.

New hotel worked out great. Never heard a sound while we were there. We stayed at the beach as much as we could. Seemed like 7-10 hours a day. We would get up, eat breakfast, pack lunches and snacks, then head out to the beach for the day. Leave just in time to go get cleaned up and go out to eat supper. Then to bed, or fishing for me. I caught a couple more sharks on Thursday night, while fishing all by myself. Karen and Mark were waiting for Mark's son Mitch, and his fiance Victoria, to show up, and I had headed home by the time they came to look for me.

Wednessday, Mark and Karen went deep sea fishing. I didn't go because the trips were all full. Karen finally caught a shark, and a good one. I will post a picture of it at the bottom. Way to go Karen, took long enough!!!

It rained for 2 days straight, can't remember which ones, but who cares. One day, we were scheduled to go bay fishing with the kiddo's. But, we got rained out, so we went to the Texas State Aquarium instead, with Bill and Barbara. We stayed long enough to watch the dolphin show twice, once from the stands, and once from the underwater viewing place. While this is all well and good, the most important thing is that we found our old favorite restuarant. It has been gone for a while. Frenchy's used to be under the Bridge on SPID (South Padre Island Drive), but it was sold, but we stumbled across it on the way to the Aquarium. What luck! Even though nobody was hungry, we just had to go in and eat. I don't think anybody was disappointed that we did, including Brayden. Their food is still awesome.

We rescheduled our Bay fishing trip, and had a good time. We got rained on a couple of times, but that was a blessing, because with no wind, it was hot. I had a bad feeling about the trip, but it turned out ok. Matthew and Natalie both caught fish. Matthew caught the most fish on the boat, and Natalie caught the biggest. Matthew caught a Spade fish and a piggy perch and a hardhead catfish. Natalie caught a Spanish Mackrel, what a pretty fish, and it tasted good too. We ended up being given all the fish that were caught on the boat, because there were only 6 keepers and 3 were ours. Nice people, and they were fun to fish with too. I'll put a few pics of the haul on here too. Oh yeah, we got all the fish, and the total weight was 4 POUNDS, just 4 pounds. We did have them all cleaned, and took them to the Pelican and had them all grilled. I thought they were wonderful, and the kids were proud for feeding the family.

Lots of beach time, family time, and fun times. Especially when Angie went to wash some clothes and almost got kicked out of the laundromat(sp?). I had to do the laundry from then on. We use the laundry down there to save us time when we get home, and also so we don't take so many clothes with us, saves space. Brian asked me when we got there, "You have enough stuff in there for 12 days for 5 people, and nothing on the roof?" ABSOLUTELY!! Angie was very proud of her packing, and I have to say, I could not match her when I packed up to come home, Matthew lost a little seat space, but all 3 seats reamined up and nothing on the roof.

Ok, I took my work phone to bed with me every night, and got calls almost every morning. I set it to vibrate and put it under my pillow against the wall, so it would wake me up and nobody else. Well, Saturday night, I said "That's enough, no phone tonight." I got up and had 13 missed calls and Angie had 4 on hers. WOW!
So I checked my voice mail, only had one, and it was the president of my company, saying "Call me, it's urgent", so I did. Well, my new gut, Bobby, TOTALLED my Dodge for me. It was not his fault at all and he and his family are OK. He was going home, after working Saturday, all day, when about a mile from his home, a car ran a stop sign coming from his left and Bobby never saw them. His wife Jackie was with him and said, "Bobby, they are not stopping." So, Bobby glanced her way, naturally, and there was a car, stopped at the stop sign, but she was looking his way. She started screaming, he hit the brakes and the car at about the same time. Hit a Chevy Cavalier in the passenger door at 65 or so MPH, with a passenger in the seat. She is still alive, but that is about all I know about her condition, I hope she recovers. The couple was lost, never saw the stop sign, and were headed home from their daughter's wedding reception. What a tragedy. Anyway, I'm walking to work now, or at least riding with Eric, till we get a rental from the other insurance agency, which I will keep until they settle for the cost of my truck, whatever that may be. P.S. The airbags did not deploy!! When I get the pictures of the truck, I'll post them, and you will agree, they should have gone off.

Ok, that's all for now

Here are some pics, I won't post them all, I'll leave some for Angie.

Jim