port aransas, part III

On our third morning, we decided to take the kids to see the jetties. Their Uncle Joe had left early that morning to go scuba diving with some of his friends off of a pier by the jetties. We were able to meet up with him just as he was getting out of the water.

We traditionally take a family picture together in Old Navy flag shirts. I really like this one of Jim and the boys. There are other good ones of the whole family, but I'm not a fan of my windblown hair in them. You can see in this picture that the jetty is made out of huge pieces of pink granite; in some places, it is covered over by concrete or asphalt to make the path more even. Ben, our rock lover, enjoyed investigating the rocks, finding some of the concrete had seashells embedded in it.

One of the best things about our walk down the jetty was getting to see some of the wildlife up close. This crane landed about 15 feet from us and was very nervous with us close by, so it didn't stay long.

Ben was really fascinated by the water bugs that were crawling all over the rocks. We saw fish eggs in the shallow waters by the jetty. We watched people fishing and catching fish, and we checked out the little fish and shrimp that they used for bait. And on our way back, we ran into this pelican, who wasn't overly spooked by us being close but kept trying to decide if he ought to fly off or not. He eventually let us walk on by.

After we left the jetties, we had promised a trip to the souvenir shop. This giant shark is outside one of them. It's a tunnel you can walk through to get to the front door of the shop. The boys thought it was really cool. Grandma Hazel had given the boys what she called "mad money"--$5 that they could spend on whatever they wanted. They LOVED having their own money to spend. Will ended up buying a package of sharks' teeth and a shark tooth necklace; Ben bought two stuffed animals: a horseshoe crab and a chihuahua (he's a bit fascinated with dogs right now).