A pic of Brian and I from our condo after a wonderful night out(complete with dinner and dancing on the beach:)!)
Some sand dunes on Padre Island
Sunset from Indian Pier
Horseback Riding on the Beach! 
Brian and I on Padre Island
Taking a riverboat tour of San Antonio
Carriage Ride down by the Alamo
The AlamoThis semester has gotten off to a busy and eventful start. One of my most recent highlights was going to Texas with Brian. As Brian has tons of time at work to play on his computer:) and I am too lazy to write another discription about our trip... I'll let Brian tell you the story from his perspective. Don't worry...I read through and made sure that he didn't make too many crazy exaggerations:)
Our Blessed trip to Texas:
The trip started early Thursday morning (4:30am). Now flying stand-by, I’ve recently found out, is an adventure. We ( Kennetta Kathleen Aune and I ) didn’t make our 6:30am flight so we went back and took a nap, and since there was no room for us on the 11:00am flight we got some gyros for lunch and were able to get on the one o’clock flight to Salt Lake City. Here is where it got a little interesting… We had missed our morning connection and they told us the evening flight didn’t look good. So we played cards, walked around, and trusted that God was in control. It didn’t matter if we had to stay in Salt Lake or not, we were on vacatio’n (you have to say it with a French accentJ or at least a partly French accent). Amazingly enough they had room for us on the flight, so we were on our way to San Antonio! I had called the rental car place and told them that we were going to be late and they told us they could hold our reservations until midnight. However, we got into San Antonio a little after 11 and the rental place was closed. Thankfully, there was one rental place open and we were able to get a car for only a few dollars difference. Now we had a two and a half hour drive to Corpus Christi TX. We grabbed some Jack n’ the Box ( Kennetta’s first time) and started driving. We got to our condo at 3:30am. We were tired but had to take a quick walk on the beach. We got up about 9:30 the next morning and stood on our balcony staring at the ocean and thanking God for bringing us to this beautiful place.
The next morning we slept until about ten and then decided to go for a drive down by the ocean. As we were enjoying the views I made a quick right and found that we had just passed one of our vacatio’n requirements. We got out of the car and walked over to a 20+ foot statue of “surfing Jesus”. We took some pictures and decided to go get some lunch. Now this was no average lunch at T.G.I. Fridays, we found, as Kennetta would later call it “one of the perfect foods”: fried macaroni and cheese! After basking in the glory of God blessing us with fried macaroni and cheese we decided to go to Padre island, an 110 mile island that runs along the coast with 80 miles of national park. On our way to the island we passed a horse back riding stable and said that might be fun. When we got to the park we drove down to the beach took off our shoes and went for a walk. We stopped to take some pictures and a park ranger stopped by and asked if we wanted him to take the picture for us. He pulled his truck over took our picture and began to tell us about the park. He said about 4 miles down we could drive our car on the beach and that the horse riding stable we saw was a great place to take rides on the beach. We had just added two events to our itinerary. We went back to the condo, changed our clothes, and were off to ride horses. Now Kennetta was raised riding horses, but this was to be my first time on a horse. So they give me this big horse named Star and Kennetta gets a horse named Dr. Pepper ( now if you don’t know Kennetta’s view on Dr. Pepper, ask her and she will assure you that there will be Dr. Pepper in Heaven ). We went for an hour long ride on the beach. It was awesome I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to go again!
Again we decided to go for a drive by the ocean as the sun was setting I spied a p.o.i.( point of interest) called Indian pier. It went a couple hundred yards out into the ocean. We got some great pictures of us and the sunset. After our busy afternoon we were hungry and decided to go to the Olive Garden. There was a 45 minute wait so we walked over to the mall and found some size 5 shoes on sale (which is as difficult as trying to find my size 14’s on sale)! Dinner was great ( this turns out to be a theme for our vacatio’n J ). After dinner we went to Wal-Mart and got supplies for our picnic on the beach.
Saturday morning didn’t start too early, we went about a half mile down the beach to the U.S.S. Lexington, an aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. It was big and it’s interesting that 3000 to 3500 men were on that boat at one time. When we had gotten our fill of winding around the intricate decks and hallways of the ship we decided to head off to the beach again. It is a cool thing to drive your car down the beach, find a spot you like, pull over, and lay on the beach. As we were reading and catching some sun ( it was in the 70s I got a little sun burned J ) this nice old gentleman walked up and started talking to us. He told us about the sand dunes that were just behind us and about sea kayaks on the other side of the island. So, after he left, we decided to find these sand dunes. But you had to walk through some brush. He said he had been coming to the beach for 30 years and had not seen a snake but that they were there. So we spent some time finding a nice trail because we all know Kennetta’s love for snakes J . There is just something fun about jumping off of sand dune cliffs and rolling down the sand. After that, it was time for a swim. The ocean was a little cold at first ( about 70 degrees or so) but once you got in it was great. After some more time laying around in the sun we decided to go check out the sea kayaks. We got over there about 4 and the place closed at 5. There was a 2 hour minimum but the guy said we could take the double kayak out for an hour and he gave us a good deal. We paddled out and visited a few islands ( my first time and we were a little sore the next day J ).
After our kayaking adventure, we went back to the condo and got dressed up for a nice dinner. We found this nice steakhouse downtown. We had the filet mignon and au gratin potatoes for another great meal. Then we drove down to the beach and Kennetta got out her ipod. We each put a headphone in our ear and danced barefoot on the beach. The moon came out and it was gorgeous ( we got some good picturesJ ).
The next morning was Sunday and we had to get up and drive into San Antonio to go hear Max Lucado preach. On the way we had to stop and try a Whattaburger ( this is a restaurant that is everywhere in Texas and I don’t know where else, but it was good for fast food ). Max is a very good preacher with an amazing church. When we left the church we checked into our hotel rooms and got changed (shorts were needed as it was in the 80s ). Then we set off to the Alamo-which we found out started out as a mission before it was turned into a fort. By that time we were starving so we went into the mall and had lunch at Chili’s on the river. There was a band playing songs from the movie “The last of the Mohicans” (Kennetta’s favorite movie ). After lunch we decided to take a river boat ride through downtown. It is a very beautiful river that runs through all these shops and restaurants. After the boat ride we grabbed some milkshakes and went for a walk. On our walk we found a horse drawn carriage that takes you on a tour through downtown ( the horses name was Marshmallow). Next, we walked to the Tower of America, a 750 foot high tower with a restaurant and observation deck on top. It also had a beautiful water garden at the bottom. There was a fun 4-D movie about Texas we saw there too (good except for the part with the snake J ). It was a great view from the top but we were getting hungry. On our walk back downtown we saw this gazebo out on the grass all lit up. When you see something like that there is only one thing you can do, Dance! After a few minuets of dancing we remembered we were still hungry. So we found this good Mexican restaurant on the water and had dinner. After dinner we were serenaded by mariachi’s singing “Guadalajara”. We walked down to this Texas steakhouse on the water and had a piece of cheesecake in the shape of Texas. By now it was getting late and we had to be up at 5 in the morning to catch our flight.
The next morning the lines were really long but we were able to make it on our flight to Salt Lake City. When we got to Salt Lake we found out all the flights to Missoula were overbooked. This nice Delta agent suggested flying into Kalispell, and we decided that it was a great way to get home that day. So we flew into Kalispell and rented a car. We took the nice drive through Bigfork and stopped at this great little Italian restaurant. More good food, we didn’t want this vacatio’n to end but ultimately… it had to.
As you can clearly see, God continued to bless us whether it be through people on the beach or the airport, the gorgeous weather, or the time to relax and simply enjoy His creation.
