Clayton has been mesmerized by the ocean since he was 18 months old. By 2 he could identify 25+ species of sharks, tell you the depth they preferred to live in, diet & tooth shape….. by 4 he decided he would be a marine biologist & “Shark Week” is an important holiday at this house. So, the ocean was an obvious choice for vacation since the kiddos have never been… Everyone needs to see the ocean at least once in their life.
Would have loved to take them to a better beach, but Galveston was what was doable (about 8 hours away), so we headed out bright and early on August 2nd.
Bought 2 day passes for The Moody Gardens and Thursday afternoon when we arrived we hit the sea wall & found some seafood (which BTW do NOT eat at Benno's…. absolutely HORRIBLE.. Both staff & food...).
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| Tator looking for critters in the rocks by the sea wall.. |
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| Shayla claimed this stretch of beach :) |
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| Checking out sharks in the Aquarium pyramid |
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| Tator in a shark cage! Parents, in case you're wondering.. No, they won't let you take the cage home! |
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| Hanging with the birds in the Rainforest pyramid |
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| Amazon river exhibit |
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| Took an hour long ride on the "Colonel" |
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| Jerimiah & Shayla under the derrick |
Hit the Lone Star Flight Museum, had lunch at Landry’s and then went back to the Moody Gardens to swim at “Palm Beach”… Which was a small water park with a lazy river, various pools, live music, water slides and such…. I think I had just as much fun on the water slides as the kids did, though I couldn’t convince Jerimiah to try ‘em out.. At Landry’s the kids decided they’d be “daring” and try raw oysters on the ½ shell…. Absolutely hysterical! To say the kiddos aren’t raw oyster fans is a vast understatement…
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| Lone Star Flight Museum |
Had a blast playing at the water park, but Tator wanted one more dip in the ocean so we headed out to Galveston State Park for some beach fun & swimming in an uncrowned area… Original plan was to go to the State park, but we happened upon a nice stretch of almost empty beach right outside the park so that’s where we ended up swimming and then enjoyed playing on the beach in the dark… Didn’t make it back to the hotel until almost 11:00pm and the munchkins were out cold as soon as they hit the pillows.
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| Jerimiah & Tator jumping in the waves.. |
Saturday we went for a tour of the Moody Mansion. Beautiful, 28,000sqft house, lots of interesting history, though the tour guide was a stuffy, cranky gal who seemed to enjoy trying to shove an entire group of people into impossibly tiny rooms…
Think “Human sardines”…..Not my idea of fun..
Bit annoying, but it was neat to see the house.. Well, part of it because half was closed due to un-repaired damage from hurricane Ike… So, for $28 we saw ½ of the mansion, couldn’t take pictures and got bossed around… Like I said, some of it was interesting, but I’ll certainly not repeat the experience.
Went back to the Aquarium pyramid one last time before heading out, then hit the road.
There was quite a bit that we wanted to do, but didn’t have time… Had a lot more fun than I expected and will certainly go back….. I’m so happy we got to go, the kids made some great memories, I added an actual color to my legs (we shall call it “off white”, since it’s not particularly “tan”, but it’s several shades darker than my blinding, glow in the dark shade I sported before running around Galveston in shorts) and Jerimiah & I celebrated 11 years together on the trip up there on August 2nd.
Life deals an unfair, cruel hand sometimes…. I miss my Momma every single day….. But life is far too short and you must make the best of the time you have…….
Take last minute, poorly planned vacations, snap pictures of everything and find something worth laughing about every day.
