Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge

Another birding opportunity in South Texas, Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge!

As one might expect, not much birding can take place with a 3 year old in the group, so not too far down the trail, Olivia and Noah took one path and the rest took another.

Here's what it sounded like:

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A gazillion birds and the constant hum of the cicadas.

 

Here's why Olivia and Noah had to separate from the group:

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 It was super duper hot.

 Look, the only water we found. Everything else was dry as can be.

Just as they were about to turn toward the visitor center, Noah and Olivia spotted an intriguing sign that said "Tree House" with an arrow pointing the other direction. Of course they had to investigate.

 Ta Da! 

The best part of the ridiculously hot day spent outside? The Visitor Center sold ice cream treats!

To the Beach!

Noah and Victor had their first experience with the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. We found a nice spot near the USS Lexington Museum to splash.

Water Play at the Aquarium

Noah's most favorite part of the trip to the aquarium was the fantastic kid's water area they had. He had entirely too much fun.

 

At the end, we finally got him to go over to the big bucket drop. The bucket would fill and empty once each minute. He'd see it fall and run over, but get there too late. He would not sit still for a whole minute to wait for it to drop again. We finally started timing it for him and convinced him to get over there just in time. He loved it!

Texas State Aquarium

We drove out to Corpus Christi one day for a trip to the aquarium. Fun, fun!

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Walmart Library

There was a Walmart building in McAllen that Walmart moved out of (so they could move one block over and build a larger store) and the city of McAllen bought it to turn it into a library. It was pretty cool.

 This was just the children's section.

 They had an unusually large collection of children's stories that featured chickens as main characters. It was really odd.

Stories with Grandpa out in a courtyard.