Fun in the Sun

This summer hasn't been the best..... It’s been especially brutal on my munchkins and we decided that a lil vacation was in order….…

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...).

Tator looking for critters in the rocks by the sea wall..

Shayla claimed this stretch of beach :)

Friday was spent at The Moody Gardens- We went through the Aquarium pyramid, the Rainforest pyramid, the Discovery pyramid, watched a 3D movie, & took a ride on a paddle boat.

Checking out sharks in the Aquarium pyramid

Tator in a shark cage! Parents, in case you're wondering.. No, they won't let you take the cage home!

Hanging with the birds in the Rainforest pyramid

Amazon river exhibit

Took an hour long ride on the "Colonel"

Jerimiah spotted "The Ocean Star"which was an offshore drilling rig & museum… So of course we had to go there too….

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…

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.

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.

Vacation at Papa & Momma Jan's..

This may be unbelievable….but I left my home…for DAYS! A rare occurrence to say the least, but understandable when I have critters to tend to, two does in milk who need to be milked twice a day and I live way out in Noodle.

The first outing to visit Papa & Momma Jan’s (hubby’s dad & step mom who live about 4 hours from here) was during the 4th of July weekend and I had no critter sitter. I can’t say the weekend was a total bust though… I did get to watch my neighbors engage in a few alcohol induced stunts that made me certain nature was attempting to clean up the human gene pool by allowing the less intelligent of our species to dispatch themselves in unique & horrifying ways, but alas, they all survived.

The second outing however I got to go and we left the weekend before hubby’s birthday.

I would have been content just to visit and stay close to the house, but the inlaws treated us to a busy day out.

First on the agenda was the Museum of Nature & Science.

We started out watching Sea Rex in the IMAX theater….. Shayla was shocked at the beginning and wanted to know why she was spinning….Clayton was mesmerized, eyes glued to the screen……While Papa & Jerimiah slept!

Then we headed to the Chinasaurs exhibit. My kiddos are fans of Jurassic Park (yea- They root for the dinosaurs..lol) so they loved this. There were several skeletons and a few robotic dinosaurs…

 

A fossilized dinosaur nest & cast.



Here's the children's fossil dig…..huge sandbox loaded with fossil digging equipment and hidden dinosaur bones in need of excavating. I think the kids could have spent hours in there if we let them.

 

We made our rounds through the endless Children's museum.... tell the truth I missed a bunch of pictures in various exhibts, but here's a few I did manage to take without someone stepping in front of the camera..

Not a clue what these tables were called but they had air flowing out of a vent to make the small plasic balls float….Munchkins were pretending to be magicians in control of magical floating balls…

This is one of my favorites! I so wish the picture was better…They had a farm exhibit in the children’s museum and this cow was set up for kids to milk (milked water). Shayla patiently waited her turn…watching a group of children struggle to “milk” the cow with minimal success. Shayla dove in the second there was space, grabbed two teats and went straight to work, displaying perfect milking technique and getting perfect, even streams where the other kiddos only managed the barest drops… She was quite proud of herself to say the least and I didn’t damper her triumph by pointing out that she has real life experience milking..

We made it to the museum around noon…left around 5 and I must say, even though the kids would have happily made more rounds, I was tired!

Then we headed to dinner….a belated birthday dinner for me & a slightly early birthday dinner for Jerimiah. I typically am happy to eat where ever anyone else wants to…typically when we dine out it’s Mexican food or someplace with chicken fried steak. I’m pretty diverse in my food preferences, where as Jerimiah isn’t, so it’s much easier for me to eat what is preferred by the majority….Not really knowing the choices, nor wanting to choose a place others in the group might not like, I said “Anywhere that serves some sort of grilled meat on the menu is fine by me… I just really don’t want anything deep fried or Mexican” This statement I thought, would lead to something like Applebee’s, Texas Roadhouse or perhaps a café or some sort.. Oh no! Where do we end up??

Texas De' Brazil…. An upscale Brazilian Steak House which proved to be a bit overwhelming for the kiddos! Felt slighting out of place in a formal dining setting wearing the demin shorts and sweat that I wore to the museum but other than that I thought it was fabulous!!!!

The salad bar was best of all. Fresh goat cheese, Manchego, quinoa with cranberries, marinated onions, portabello mushrooms, variety of olives, lobster bisque, salami, steamed asparagus with strawberry sauce, fresh buffalo mozzarella, shrimp salad, Brazilian palm of hearts, artisan breads, prosciutto, and of course a selection of typical salad items are just a FEW of the items on the salad bar…. Did I happen to mention that I loved the salad bar??

This sounds amazing I know, but next up is the meat selection. On the table is placed garlic mashed potatoes, sweet fried bananas & Brazilian cheese bread which are meant to “cleanse the palate in between meat selections” as our lovely Brazilian server informed us.

Each person is given a round card. One side is red, the other green. Once you flip you card to green the staff file out with large skewers of grilled meats fresh off the fire and your allowed to choose as much as you’d like. Choices included parmesan pork chops, bacon wrapped grilled chicken, pork ribs, flank steak, leg of lamb, lamb chops, pork loin, Brazilian sausage, pichana, filet mignon, bacon wrapped filet mignon, beef ribs and I think 2 or 3 other selections of which I can’t remember. The lamb chops with mint jelly were AMAZING. Once you’ve had your fill, you flip your card to red to signal the meats to stop and if you survive the first round, flip your card to green, your plates are cleared away and it starts all over again. I don’t think I’ve been that painfully full in my life but I had a great time. Shayla, I discovered has an expensive pallet and enjoyed the exotic selections on the salad bar immensely. Clayton on the other hand was over whelmed, not pleased with the “creepy, strange food” and seemed a bit disgruntled until the meat choices arrived and then he was quite pleased.

I was sorely tempted to take a few pics of the restaurant & the salad bar for my blog….but good manners overruled the urge…..Though I would have loved to take a few pictures (the atmosphere was quite nice) it would have been extremely tacky…

All in all it was a great, relaxing escape…especially for me since I don’t get out much these days & I’m happy mom critter sat for me so I could go.

I know I’ve bombarded y’all with a slew of pictures so far, but I have just a few more of the kiddos that were taken on the 4th of July visit. They went to an alligator farm, which housed a variety of critters and to an aquarium.




Munchkis & Momma Jan feed the sting rays



Oh a lil snippet… I know I’m horribly late posting this but Jeremiah & I celebrated our Anniversary on August 2nd. We started dating August 2001, married a year later and I’m happy we’ve made it this far.. Our first date was an all night fishing trip on the river…The night he proposed to me we were caught up in a tornado & had to hide out in a gas station…..two kids, multiple moves, months apart due to work, a house fire, and multiple health scares later were still here and going strong. He’s the one person who can always make me laugh, always stands by my side no matter the situation and has this uncanny ability to drive me utterly insane at times…But, as mentioned in previous post, he tolerates my insanities as well as I tolerate his..He’s my best friend and I feel quite blessed that I’m able to share my life with him.