Today, we hurried out to the beach early in the hopes that not many people would be out and that Charlie could have a run. Charlie got a good run and Chase chased his ball in the ocean waves. It was a great sunny day with light winds. Then, we headed to Port Aransas and the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center where we found lots of cormorants and pelicans, ducks, herons, grebes, coots while the spoonbills hid behind a section of cattails. We did see several of them fly in and out while we were there. Next, we found the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center. They had a nice variety of exhibits, inside and out, along with a nature trail and wetlands. Rich and I ended the day with dinner at Jalisco's.

Today was Sierra's last day in Corpus Christi. She wanted to do some last minute shopping, mostly for her students. I found a neat shark book that had a plastic model of the shark, inside and out. She got a shark puppet, some hand puppets, shark teeth, and a few other little gifts for them and a friend that took her to the airport. Then, she wanted to have lunch one last time at Snoopy's. We had some time left before she had to be at the airport, so we drove around looking at houses that were for sale on the island laguna madre side. After dropping Sierra off at the airport, we headed down to the jetty at Packery Channel. There we saw lots of young green turtles and more pelicans. It was also a popular spot for fisher men and women. The majority of their catch seemed to be sea trout and a fish I had never heard of called a sheepshead. I talked to one of the fisherman and he said he used live shrimp for bait. He also said the fish was excellent eating! To end the day, Rich wanted to get a pizza from Island Italian, one of our oldtime favorites.

Today, we woke up to the rolling waves, packed up our tents and sleeping bags, headed back into town to pick up G'ma, and started on our way to Port Aransas for our dolphin outing. On the way, we saw a large flock of Roseate Spoonbills and I got some good photos. While waiting for our trip, there were some pelicans hanging out at the boat dock hoping for some leftovers from the fisherman. We had a great dolphin excursion, saw lots of dolphins including 3 newborns. They came up to the boat and surfed when when we got some speed. Later in the day, we went shopping at the "Shell Store", had lunch at Snoopy's Pier, and took Sierra for another group ride with the locals. We ended the day in downtown Corpus Christi at the "Executive Surf Club"

Today, Sierra and I started off the morning with a bike ride. Sierra headed into the wind towards Port Aransas with the goal of riding out for an hour and then back. I headed for Bird Island where we all would meet around 11:30 for Sierra's windsurfing lesson. She did well (must have been the years watching us when she was little) and was worn out by 2:30. Then we headed back to Snoopy's for lunch and more pelican watching. Tonight was our tent camping on the beach night. We left G'ma at the hotel and headed out on the island for a wonderful night falling asleep to the sounds of waves rolling in on the beach.

Today, we took Sierra for her 7:30 AM ride with local cyclists. After that, she was ready for Starbucks and shopping for some beach supplies. Then, we went to Snoopy's for lunch and headed for the beach again. We had a great time boogy boarding and playing on the beach. Later in the afternoon, we checked in at Worldwinds to see about getting Sierra windsurfing lessons. We had dinner in Port Aransas at the Crazy Cajun where we had the "Hungry Cajun" or "The Dump" as we like to call it. It is shrimp, crayfish, crab, sausage, potatoes, and corn on the cob dumped on your butcher paper lined table. Dig in!

First thing today, we had to go find some pedals for Sierra since she left hers at home. We found some and also found a ride for her to go on tomorrow morning. Then, we headed for Snoopy's for lunch. After that, we spent the afternoon at the beach where Sierra and Chase had a great time playing in the waves. The last time they were here together was 9 years ago when Chase was a puppy and Sierra was 15 years old. For dinner, we headed to another favorite - Jalisco's, were we all had burritos, chips, and salsa. Sierra had her favorite strawberry shake, Jailisco style, Mother and I each had a tasty margarita, yumm, yumm!

We arrived in Corpus Christi and were at our long time favorite restaurant, "Snoopy's" by 1100 AM today. The temperature was in the 80's and I got a message from a friend that it was snowing at home! We spent the afternoon lounging at the beach. Charlie got a run in with me on my bike and Chase played catch in the ocean. We picked Sierra up at the airport at 1130 PM.

To finish up packing for our trip to Texas, I wanted to use these chair cushions for Charlie to lay on in the raised bed we made in the truck. But first, guess who will have to move?

Mother sent me this photo today from the hail storm last Saturday. WOW - the water is almost solid splashes from the hail hitting the water!

I am glad to see my garden look like this now. I'm happy that I was able to get a little work done before leaving for 10 days. I know that everything will be popping out of the ground by the time I get back from Texas.

Sierra raced in Ohio yesterday at the Deer Creek Road Race. She sent me the previews of this photo by Jeffrey B. Jakucyk. I had to purchase the image from him! She won the field sprint and got 5th overall. 1st through 4th place were teammates with several more on the same team in the field. Sierra felt good about her finish.

Rich is putting the finishing touches on a board in the bed of the truck for our trip to Texas later this week. This will let us pack our luggage under it and the dogs can sleep on top or on the floor in front of it. He cut out a section so 2 bikes can fit also. I'm thinking that this will really help make more useable space for everyone.

Credits: Blended Template from Rosey Posey

Today, I was cleaning out the garden in front of the house. Little Miss Camo came out to help. I had mowed the weeds and then was raking everything into piles. She was having a great time playing in the dried grass. She is such a fluffball. It was a windy day, so her fur was nice and full.

I was really hoping for a great view of the "super moon" tonight but it was cloudy here. Here's what National Geographic says about it: The monthly full moon always looks like a big disk, but because its orbit is egg-shaped, there are times when the moon is at perigee—its shortest distance from Earth in the roughly monthlong lunar cycle—or at apogee, its farthest distance from Earth. Likewise, because the size of the moon's orbit varies slightly, each perigee is not always the same distance away from Earth. Tonight's supermoon will be just 221,566 miles (356,577 kilometers) away from Earth. The last time the full moon approached so close to Earth was in 1993, according to NASA.

I arrive home today to find Rich on the sofa with a huge ice bag on his knee and crutches! Evidently, he woke up this morning unable to walk due to pain in his knee in addition to the back injury he knew about last night. He went to see a doctor who is sending him to a physical therapist to determine if there is any major damage.

So, Rich has been working on cutting this large branch from the tree on the right. Yesterday, he had told me that one of his saws was caught because the branch did not fall as he expected. Today, he cut part of it off and it still would not come down. He was standing about where he is in this photo and heard a noise. The branch fell and knocked him down. He came inside and asked me what his back looked like. I saw a large scrape but it didn't look serious.

Sierra sent me this photo today. The new touch screen computer was set up in her classroom today. She and her students are look very happy to have this educational and FUN tool in the room!

I found this photo on my phone today while syncing it on the computer. It is so hard to get a good photo of Chase so I think this one is pretty good. He is getting so gray, he is almost 9 1/2 years old.

Rich had the day off today and it was much warmer than my weekend days off! He began his yearly spring time chore of burning the dead grass from the ditch. He started on one end and had to move because the wind switched while he was working.

Rich took the cans to the redemptiom center today. We’ve been saving the refund for our trip to Texas. This stash will buy a lot of shrimp and fish at our favorite restaurant, Snoopy’s Pier!

Sierra sent me this photo of her bike race team. They left on Thursday for a spring training camp in Franklin, Tennessee. They will head home tomorrow.

The earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan at 2:46 PM local time and 12:46 AM ET today. It is the fifth largest ever recorded and the largest ever in Japan - magnitude 9

I was downloading the photos off Rich's camera today and found this pic of the silly dogs at the dog park. I don't remember what day this was but Rich thought that he wasn't quick enough to get this photo and never looked to see if it came out. It is too bad that the picture doesn't have the sounds that went along with the game these three were playing. So many growls and ferocious sounds until two would give up and the game would start again.

Today, I was due for my trim with Kim. She decided that I was to get a curl today and here's what she came up with. Believe it or not, that is my hair. Needless to say, it won't look like this tomorrow!

I got home late last night so didn't unpack my bags until today after work. I managed to avoid the $70 baggage fee by having only a carry on and my backpack and had to be careful what purchases I made for fear that they might not fit for the trip home!

It was time to head home today. Here's the famous horned toad at the airport, I always wonder how many times it has been photographed. I took Maggie to the airport early this morning and then drove back to Boulder City to deliver a note from Becky to her friend Angelica. I also checked in the park one more time in hopes of seeing a Roadrunner or the Gambel's Quail that hang out there. It was windy and cool this morning so I think everyone was hiding out until it got warmer.

Today, we went to Hoover Dam and then down to Lake Mead marina. This Redhead duck, along with several others, were waiting for a treat. We had saved some crackers and the ducks and fish gobbled them up. Then we headed back to the Hacienda's movie theater to watch "The King's Speech". After that, we went back to the strip to see the wildlife habitat at the Flamingo Hotel. We also watched the Bellagio fountains again and walked down the strip to the M&M store. When the sun went down, we drove to Fremont Street for the first light show at 7PM.

Today, we traveled 3 hours north to Zion National Park. They just had 10 inches of new snow last week and a lot of it hadn't melted yet. It brought a new view for me of Zion; one with snow on the rocks and runoff creating seasonal waterfalls scattered through the park. I tried to get Maggie back to the hotel before dark so she could go for a run but we got caught in the Nascar traffic leaving the speedway. We had dinner at the Hacienda's buffet and then went to a movie, "The Little Fockers".

Today, we headed for Death Valley. The temperature was a very nice 80 degrees. I had read in the airline magazine that this was a perfect time to see all the wildflowers in bloom but that it was very dependent upon the rainfall received in previous months. We did see a few wildflowers but not as many as we would have liked. We did visit the dunes near Stovepipe Wells. We hiked in Mosaic Canyon, where the walls were narrow at times and were polished marble. On our way out of Death Valley, we visited Bad Water and found most of the flowers near Jubilee Pass at the south end of the park.

First thing this morning, we checked to see if the raft tour from Hoover Dam had room for us. We were in the river by 10 AM. The highlight of the day for me was seeing a large herd of momma big horn sheep with new lambs. We had a nice lunch on the shore of the Colorado River and ended the tour at the newly renovated Willow Beach marina building. We were back at the hotel around 3 PM, and headed to the strip around 5. We parked at the Bellagio because we had Cirque du Soleil  "O" show at 10 PM. As always, it was a wonderful show but we were worn out from site seeing on the strip!

After work today, I headed to meet Maggie in Las Vegas. We originally were going to attend a BMX race but it was canceled just 3 weeks before the event. Maggie had not been to Vegas before so we decided to go anyway. Instead of staying in Primm as was planned, we switched to The Hacienda hotel in Boulder City.

A photo from the weekend - this is the old outflow tower at the lake. It was so foggy that you can't tell where the water meets the sky or the tower meets the water.