Port A for David's B Day

In April, we celebrated David’s 30^th birthday.  His birthday wish was for all of his friends to be together, having fun on the beach.  So that’s exactly what we did by heading to Port Aransas, Texas for a weekend of sun and surf.

Unfortunately the sun decided not to make an appearance, but the crappy weather didn’t deter us from swimming all day in the ocean and the many pools of the Port Royal Resort.

On the recommendation of our friend Patrick, who celebrated his birthday in the same place, we booked three condos at Port Royal for the long weekend.  The condos were huge and accommodated everyone really well.  We had 2-3 couples in each place, plus huge living spaces complete with fully stocked kitchens. 

A few of us took a vacation day on Friday and left for the coast after work on Thursday.  David and I had a full car with Jeff and Jacque, and Molly.  Jeremy had to work late on Thursday, so he drove up Friday morning.

Jacque, Jeff’s girlfriend, was in South Austin at her parent’s house as we headed out, so we agreed to meet her on the way.  She wanted to make the pickup convenient for us, so her mom offered to drop her off at a random, pinned location directly off the freeway.

It was so random!  The address she had pinned was the creepiest ranch house we have ever seen!  It was literally in the middle of nowhere, so we felt like we were about to meet Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  When Mrs. White pulled up, we quickly shuffled Jacque into the backseat, where she smushed in next to Molly and Jeff, before we took off!  (It’s days like that that I wish we had an SUV.)

We kept busy on the 4½ hour drive by singing along to the radio, playing Heads Up (which I should probably not have been playing considering I was also driving), and stopping at Sonic for a late-night snack.

We got to the resort and were greeted by the Kainers and Gristys, who had arrived a few hours earlier.  It was past curfew by the time we checked in, which meant the pools and hot tubs were closed, but that didn’t stop us from jumping the fence and relaxing in the hot tub … at least for the next 30 minutes, until we were kicked out by a very understanding security guard.

The next morning, Cristy and Jon arrived, as well as Jeremy and the Watsons.  We spent the afternoon on the beach, the girls wading in the surf while the guys played football.  David and Patrick also went fishing from shore, and David caught a huge black drum!  We couldn’t believe there were fish that big in the waves around us.  Kind of creepy when you think about everything you can’t see in the water…

A friendly sea turtle (I swear, David is the sea turtle whisperer) also came up for air right in front of him and Patrick.  He waved a fin at the guys before descending back under the waves.

On Friday evening, we played a round of Cards Against Humanity and cooked a big spaghetti dinner.  It was absolutely hilarious listening to David give explanations of the cards to the more innocent members of the group.  Why David is the expert in all things inappropriate and grotesque, don’t ask me.   Most guests then went back down to the hot tubs, while the Simons and I waited for Katie and Dave to arrive from Houston.

By Saturday morning, the entire birthday party was in Port A!

Cristy and I took the resort’s yoga class on Saturday morning before meeting everyone from our room at the restaurant for another huge breakfast.

Port Royal offers a AAA discount to members like the Kainers.  The receptionist felt bad that she couldn’t offer our room the same rate, so instead, she gave me $100 of free breakfast vouchers for each day of our stay.  We figured for sure the plates would be tiny and cost a fortune, but we were very, very wrong.  Each meal was so filling that it lasted us the entire day until dinner.  The biscuits were the size of saucers and covered in hearty sausage gravy, then topped with cheese and hot sauce.   The French toast was equally enormous.  And on Saturday, we indulged in the Bloody Mary Breakfast Buffet.

We somehow managed to roll ourselves back down to the pool area, where we hibernated in the hot tubs for a few hours, before getting the energy to go down the waterslides and play a couple of rounds of pool volleyball.

The weather was taking a turn for the worse on Saturday evening, so we decided not to leave the resort for dinner.  Instead, we had BLTs and hung out in our PJs … a true testament of a 30s vs 20s birthday party. 

Besides being known for her amazing margaritas, Kim also makes a damn good giant cookie cake.  If I had known it was going to be that big, I would not have bought David a traditional birthday cake.

When the clock struck midnight on Saturday, it was time to celebrate David’s actual birth day.  Katie and Dave brought the decorations – Frozen-themed tiaras for all of the guys, and a Disney princess banner.  When Quinn saw the pictures on Molly’s phone, she exclaimed, ‘But Mama, David is a boy!’ 

Patrick eating peanut butter straight out of the jar (gross!) while David shows off his gift

We sang happy birthday to David and he opened his gifts, and then ran down to the hot tub for one last midnight swim … but not before he took his 30s pic!  

The entire Hawaii crew was in town, so we were not going to 

let David get away without taking a ridiculous 30s picture

The next morning, the sun finally decided to show up, so Katie, David, and I took a walk down to the beach and lied in the sand for a good hour, listening to music, talking, and watching the pelicans glide over the waves, searching for breakfast.

It was a short, but sweet, weekend trip to the coast to celebrate David.  Happy (extremely!) belated birthday!