Houston Vacation: Paul’s Thursday- From the Mudflats to the ER (10/21/10)

On Thursday morning, Lily decided that she wanted to spend some time with her Uncle Mike and wanted him to take her for a walk outside:

Lily was in a good mood and didn’t seem to have a fever anymore but I gave her some Motrin just in case.
Paul and Mike left pretty early in the morning to head to the mudflats near Galveston to go bird watching. They took a ferry ride from Galveston to Bolivar and saw this lovely truck from Louisiana in line for the ferry:

They went to the North Jetty on the Bolivar Peninsula. Apparently, at low tide, tens of thousands of unique shorebirds, gulls, and terns feed and roost at the Bolivar Flats. Decomposing plant material derived from the salt marshland delivered by the coastal currents feeds millions of small worms, shrimp, and clams which live in the mud flats. The birds, along with small fish and crabs, hunt the shallows for these invertebrates.
A little blue heron at the mudflats:

A long-billed curlew wandering among some oyster shells, using its lengthy beak to dig in the mud for food:

A black-necked stilt wandering through the very shallow water:

A snowy egret hanging out on the rocks:

A collection of birds including royal terns and black skimmers, as viewed from the jetty:

Paul and Mike were risk-takers per the very beat up sign:

Snowy egrets on a log:

Pelicans and sandpipers:

Another long-billed curlew on the beach:

A very large, very old blue crab:

There were many cool varieties of sandpipers in the mudflats:

A snowy egret on the jetty:

A heron with some seriously messed up feathers:

Cormorants:

A crazy looking bridge on the drive home:

The Texas countryside:

Paul and Mike returned to Houston early in the afternoon to pick up the kids from school. After dinner, they all headed back to the baseball fields because Michael had another game. Lily and I weren’t home yet (our adventure will be on the next blog post) so we didn’t go. They should’ve known that the evening would not go well as these black vultures were ominously watching the game from the light post:

Michael practicing:

Michael up at bat:

Darn, a strike:

Another try:

Mike giving Michael some fatherly advice:

The following pictures are blurry due to the fact that they are taken at night and from far away so the flash was useless. And in baseball, everything moves so fast that even our very good camera couldn’t capture the images in such low light. However, it was an interesting sequence of events that I can’t believe Paul actually caught on camera. He was actually taking the pictures and talking to me on the phone when it all happened.
The pitch to Michael:

The pitch bounced right off poor Michael’s mouth. You can see the ball in the air behind him as a stick-like blur that the catcher is attempting to grab:

It knocked Michael clean to the ground as his trainer ran up to see if he was okay. Jodi is in the background in green, looking concerned:

Poor, bleeding Michael consulting with the trainers and coaches:

They decided to send Michael to the ER as it appeared that he would need some stitches. He was his normal stoic self and didn’t complain one bit. He was just worried that the hit knocked a tooth out which it did not, thank goodness. He ended up needing four stitches in the corner of his mouth and seemed proud about the fact that they told him it would probably leave a scar. Boys! And, of course, the first thing he wanted to do upon returning from the ER was to see the pictures that Paul caught of his injury in action.