The family that road trips together, stays together. (Or something like that!)

One June summer, my sister and I decided that we would take a road trip with our kids plus a niece. That's a total of 5 kids! Oh yeah, and we can't forget my other baby... Bella, my prized pooch!  We loaded up the 7-seater Dodge from top to bottom and headed to Holland, Texas to visit our aunt, uncle and cousins. 

The estimated drive was going to take about 15 hours and the plan was that we, my sister and I, would take turns driving. Somehow, I ended up doing most of the driving because someone...(clears throat)...kept getting tired every time she got behind the wheel. (And honestly, as crazy as everyone  thinks I drive, I still only trust my own driving!). It was a LOOOOOOOONG drive, but we all made it. No tickets, no missing hairs and no fights. Very sleepy, but alive and thankful.  Even Bella made it all the way with no incident.

We stayed a couple of days in Holland and then we were to make our way to a beach house that our aunt and uncle had rented for the week in Port Aransas, which is near Corpus Christi.  This was another 4 and a half hours away from Holland.

On the way there we made a stop in Goliad to visit the Presidio La Bahia, a national historic landmark.  We also got to tour Our Lady of Loreto Chapel and read a little about the history of many battles that were fought on the grounds. 

Pretty interesting if you're into that kind of stuff.  I think my uncle and aunt may have enjoyed it more than all of us. The kids looked bored and I think I was hungry. But when isn't that the case?

Anyway it was a good spot for some great pictures and it was only $4 for adults and $1 for kids, (children under 5 were free).  If you want to learn about this place, here is a link: http://www.presidiolabahia.org/index.html.

 

Back on the road, we finally get to Port Aransas.  It was dark, hot and humid, but the house was beautiful and huge!  It was a two unit rental; my aunt, uncle and cousins had the downstairs. Me, my sister, our kids and Bella had the upstairs unit. 
 

 

 

Plenty of room for all of us and a short walk to the beach.  It was located in a small community with no traffic or noise.  If you want to escape, I would recommend this area.  I'm sure that during Spring Break it gets pretty crazy being that it's so close to Corpus Christi, but at this time of year it was a perfect little getaway with the kids.

They enjoyed playing in the sand, boogie boarding in the Gulf of Mexico, finding dead jelly fish (gross!), building sand castles and collecting shells.  All that fun stuff you do when you visit a large body of water.

Because the house had two kitchens and was fully furnished, we saved money by buying our own groceries and making our meals.  We rented DVD's, brought board games and books. There were gift shops and other local stores so we made trips there a few times to look around the city. This is definitely a tourist town so there are plenty of hotels and motels to stay in. I personally loved having the house. So if you can manage it, maybe get a few family members to chip in, I'd look at renting a house as an option.

 

 

 

Finally, the time had come to leave and we got to ride a ferry out of the city. This was something that we had never experienced before and the kids were very excited about it. It took a little while to actually get going, but that can also be because we were leaving on a workday morning. 

The trip was pretty inexpensive, created some lasting memories that the kids still talk about today and was a good escape for all of us. Pretty much what you would want from a family vacation. It was a fun week, and I recommend everyone do a fun road trip at least once in your lives!  I just don't know that my buttocks would ever be able to take another 40 hour road trip!