Family Vacation, and other goings on

Well, I finally got some vacation pictures on the blog. Yay. Sorry for the long wait. Aurelia has decided that she needs to wake up in the middle of the night again. I'm sure it's from all the things she is learning to do these days. Everyday is something new. As a matter of fact, right now she is trying out her singing voice instead of sleeping. She's started using the back of her hand like a trumpet mute, and creates some fun sounds. She's started clapping. We've enjoyed that one. She loves to hear other's clap, especially when we listen to live music. She loves dancing, too. She is cruising along the couches now and stands herself up with the help of anything and anyone any chance she gets. She loves when we read her books and loves turning the pages all by herself.
We are a tired bunch today. Last night I forgot to open the laundry room door before going to bed, and Blink needed his cat box at about 3 in the morning. Usually, if he wants something, he will come in our room and meow until we get up or kick him out of the room, depending on how tired we are and how pressing his need is. Last night he bypassed us all together and pushed Aurelia's door open. I heard his cries and her squeals of glee through the monitor (she loves her kitty). He knew that waking her up would get us out of bed. He's quite the clever cat, but it made for a long night. She wanted to continue to play with the kitty instead of go back to sleep.
We went on our first family vacation recently. Port Aransas is about 5 hours south of Spring, just outside of Corpus Chrisit on a barrier island. We had heard that the beaches were nicer there than in Galveston.

There was a lot of seaweed and trash on the beach that the city cleans up regularly but if you go down when they haven't cleaned in awhile you can find some pretty scary stuff in the seaweed. Among the treasures we saw: flip-flops, strings, food wrapping, pieces of clothing, toys, syringes (no needles but still not something you want to see at the beach). Fortunately, the trash was only bad the first night we went down. It was all cleaned up for the rest of the trip, and the water cleans a nice amount of beach to safely walk and play on when it is bad.
It's odd to see so much scaffolding on the horizon. We counted three or four oil rigs and a number of barges coming and going. There are lights dotting the horizon at all times.
Aurelia loved playing in the water.

She is definitely a water baby.

Yep, she even ate some sand without me knowing it. Yuck!
The condo we rented was nice, once we got the right one. There was a bit of a key mix up in the beginning which was not a pleasant experience. The place we initially opened was a smelly dirty disaster with a cockroach the size of a small dog dead in the entry way. Apparently they had recently fumigated that one. It was scary. Once we talked to the rental place, we figured things out and got into the right condo, which had been remodeled and was so much nicer. Still, I don't think we will be going back to that place now that I know what's on the other side of the walls. Still gives me chills.
The rest of the vacation went smoothly. Aurelia adjusted to the travel bed and new surroundings like a seasoned traveller. I think she was ready to stay at the beach for good. We took a trip into Corpus to the Texas State Aquarium, which was a lot of fun. Aurelia enjoyed all the people more than the fish. At one point she had otters doing flips right in front of her but she couldn't take her eyes off of a woman in a tie-dyed shirt. It was cute. She is quite the flirt.

We saw a dolphin show and Aurelia loved it.

 Heading down to the beach

 Playing in the water with daddy!