SPI!

Greetings from South Padre Island!  I have the misfortune of having to attend a work conference here (boo-hoo!), so brought along the girls and Mimi.  After a nine-hour drive and a short meeting for me, we hit the beach for an evening walk.  The girls really loved discovering sea creatures -- ghost crabs and coquinas clams along the shore.  You would have thought we were the only people on earth to have seen the little clams dig themselves back into the sand as the waves uncovered them, which led to many experiments when we returned to the beach this morning -- piling them into the sand sieve and watching them try to dig themselves through the plastic being one of their favorites!

We spent about an hour on the beach before my conference started, and then Mimi took over with beach and pool duty. 

After lunch, we had great fun at the SPI Birding and Nature Center, walking their boardwalk and seeing lots of birds.  Since Maya's class did a section on birds for Science this year, she's been bird-obsessed.  We saw great blue heron, little blue heron, willet, red-winged blackbird, tricolor heron, and who knows what all else!  Oh, yes, we also saw an alligator!  Zoe was pretty pleased since she was apparently the first person of the day to spot one at the center. Forgot the camera, so you don't have to suffer through more pictures of that!

On to dinner, and then probably more pool and beach time this evening.  Tomorrow morning is when my real conference work begins, and then over by noon and more fun in the sun!  I'm pretty sure Zoe and Maya approve!