Blog Post #7

Having the sand squish between your toes while soaking up the sun on South Padre Island in south Texas...what a great way to spend spring break! My oldest sister, Katie, lives just twenty minutes from South Padre. The warm temperatures feel wonderful compared to the cold, windy weather in Nebraska. Katie, who graduated from Concordia-Seward in 2007, is a teacher at St. Paul's Lutheran School in McAllen. She really enjoys teaching music and the warm weather year-round.

I visited Katie and her husband last summer for a youth retreat at St Paul. The trip was a blast! It was incredibly warm, though. The weatherman even cautioned people from going outside for more than ten minutes at a time. McAllen is known as the hottest location in Texas. The city lies in the Texas Valley with annual temperatures in the mid-70s. Besides warm temperatures, however, Texas also encounters quite a few tornadoes averaging 153 per year. Parts of Texas also face hurricanes occasionally. Although Katie had been in tornado situations before, facing a hurricane in September of 2008 was a new experience. It is interesting to see how the climate in an area can influence a person's understanding of the world.

Spring break would have been pretty sweet on the beach in south Texas, I only wish it were true! Instead of soaking up the sun or feeling the sand on my feet, I was in Nebraska tackling the inclement weather with the Concordia softball team. On the other hand, my sister Natalie, who attends Concordia, was able to make the trip. I got very jealous when she sent me pictures of herself at the beach, especially when we had just played a softball game in the freezing rain. The softball team didn't get to travel far for spring break this year; hopefully next year we can make the trip to California or Florida. The Friday before spring break we were able to play in Springfield, Missouri but it rained and was extremely cold which ending up canceling the games that were supposed to be played on Saturday. Overall, we haven't been able to play much softball, but spring break is still spring break even if there is no sun for the majority of the time.