Who's Your Madre?

Well, here we are at the LaQuinta in beautiful South Padre Island. Why have we never been here before??? Someone forgot to tell us how beautiful this beach actually is!!!

I have a handful of things to post about, so this could get pretty long. First of all, lets start with the blessings! We were suppose to be in New Orleans this weekend with our friends Bill and Linda. Well, Bill just received his PHD and got a job offer on Wednesday and they asked him to start on Friday (today). I guess when you get super smart, they don't need to give you time before you start your new job! :) So anyhow, our New Orleans trip was cancelled. :( So that left us scrambling to figure out what we might do this weekend. Well, thank heavens JC does a lot of traveling for work (only time you'll EVER hear me say that) - because he has a gazillion points on his La Quinta frequent sleeper card. So, we decided we'd come to the beach. We didn't know if it would be Galveston or Corpus, but I got to checkin' and we ended up here in SPI. FOR FREE!!!! Woo hoo. The rooms are usually between $199-$249 per night! What a deal!!!! Yaye JC! And then to top off our super cheap trip, we have a cooler. There should be no NEED for us to purchase any food at any eating establishment for the next 3 days. We have plenty of stuff for sandwiches, snacks, and dinner! The room has a fridge and microwave! Wow, we are saving so much that we should do this every weekend. And to top it all off, the hotel is right on the beautiful beach. The room is perfect - 2 queen beds and 1 pull out couch - which means the boys are together, the girls are together and me and Jeff are together. AND...La Quinta welcomes pets. So, we have the six of us and our two dogs in the room - which sounds horrid to some of you, but it actually quite nice! Oh, and how about that I am typing this for free in the business center! :)

Ok - well, I want to tell you about something that is happening at our hotel. There is a camp happening here that is called Beach Week 2007. There are about 350 teens and grown-ups here from Abilene area churches (Baptist, Methodist, and Non-Denom). We walked in last night and thought we might have made a bad decision. Apparently, they have this camp here every year - and it is a time for them to worship and have fun together. The WHOLE pool area was taken over last night when they were having their praise and worship time and their 'ask Jesus into your heart' time. (Cannot remember what that is called for the life of me) They had the Christian pop kind of music, very vineyardish. And tons and tons of people crying and hugging and holding on to each other. They have t-shirts that say:

Who's your Padre? Romans 8:16

They are actually kind of cute. I am having many many emotions about this event. One is a fond rememberance of a day gone by. I have really great memories of church camp. The other is that it is kind of strange. Why do they all keep touching each other? That is the one thing that the kids and I talked about most last night. They sure do hug a lot. And keep in my, we are a very physical family, just not with other people. I pictured HB at this camp and I could see her out there comforting and counseling all of these kids.

ARGH!!! I gotta go - someone else is waiting to use the computer. I will finish all of these thoughts later. Someone tell me what Romans 8:16 says. Love you all tons!