Galveston 2008

To sum up this year's trip to the beach, I'd have to just say "awesome"!!! We had loads o' fun, tried some new things, and did some old favorites. After this year, we can add "weathered a hurricane" to the list of adventures!!

Well, not really a hurricane, but a little rain anyway!!

I'll try to condense the 154 pictures into a manageable post!!

Here's our fun house. It held my family, my mom and dad, and Ryan, Shannon, Meagan, and Lexie. Grandma and BigPa were in town some but stayed at the Holiday Inn. I can't imagine why they would want to do that??!! Somehow, they didn't make it into the pictures! How that happened, I'm not sure!! Sorry, BigPa and Grandma!! Even though I don't have a picture of you, we were SO glad yall came!!

And here's what my car looked like as we made our way to and from the beach. Just think Chevy Chase!! This was on the way back and had one less bike than on the way down!!

The first couple of days were hit and miss with the rain. We would head to the beach and get set up, then the rain would start. By the time we threw everything back into the truck and headed home, the rain would have stopped. If we decided to stick it out and hope that it was only a little cloud, it would stay and rain for an hour!!

The upside was that it was cool!! There's always a breeze and the rain, when it would fall, was freezing!! Here are the kids eating a snack under the bridge to escape the rain! They were also hiding from the seagulls that wanted to share their snacks!!

This is what we did on the cooler days!! Good times, indeed!!

And here are Meagan and Alex acting as though we were in a real hurricane! Good acting, guys!!

My mom and dad brought a casting net and it provided hours of entertainment for the kids. Alex or Meagan would take it out a little ways into the water and "cast" it, let it sink a little, and pull it in. If they were lucky, there would be a little fish or two. They would then run back to the beach where Parker and his crew (Luke and Lexie) had dug a hole and filled it with water so the fish would have a place to stay. This first picture is of my mom and Parker getting the net all cleaned out at the end of the week. Somehow, I didn't manage to get any pictures of the kids casting the net, but this is what it looks like.

Another new adventure we did was we rode a ferry to the Bolivar peninsula and ate at a cool little restaurant. Now, the kids had NO concept of a ferry boat so it was very cool and interesting to explain this to them and watch them try to figure it out. It seems like there are fewer and fewer things that kids haven't experienced or at least have some knowledge of. So, riding your car onto a boat with lots of other cars and going onto the water to some land about 15 minutes away and not sinking was just a lot to figure out!! Then Shannon threw out some comment about the tooth fairy and that just confused them even more!! (All of this confusion was happening on the way to ride the ferry on the trip over.) Luke, especially, just couldn't get it figured out in his mind. He wanted to know if the ferry was invisible because the tooth fairy is! Could the boat fly because the tooth fairy does?? Driving your car onto a boat just made no sense at all.

So, finally, we made it to the ferry and drove our car onto the big boat. Just for a little more fun, we were chosen to have our car inspected, just in case we were terrorists! It didn't take the guys long to figure out that we had way too many kids to be trying to do anything harmful! We were all packed into the Suburban with my mom in the way way back so when the officers opened the back doors, there sat my mom!! It made for a nice surprise!! Finally, we drove onto the boat and after a couple of minutes, an Ashley Furniture 18-wheeler pulled up right beside us. When I say it pulled up right beside us, it was literally almost touching our car. Alex and I had our windows open and we could reach out and put our hands totally flat on the truck without even bending our elbows!! It was crazy close to our car!

Things started making a little more sense once we could experience the ferry. Or so I thought!! Luke walks over to me after we were riding for a little while and very seriously asks, "So, is the tooth fairy driving this boat??!!?" After I totally cracked up, I tried to explain one more time that the tooth fairy really didn't have anything to do with this ferry!!

This was taken at the restaurant after we had eaten! Cool sunset!!

On Thursday, as the last of the rain headed out, Ryan and Scott took the three older kids to Nasa. Here's the proof!! Another highlight of the trip was that our good friends, the Rulands, were down at the beach while we were. So, Scott and Alex got to go deep sea fishing on Todd's boat on Saturday. While I would like to say that Alex had a great time, the pictures show otherwise!! He was happy to do his part to feed the fish though!!

Scott, on the other hand, had a great time!! Nice red snapper!!

Actually, Alex started having a great time about the time Todd said it was time to head home!! Look how he perked up!! Maybe he loves fishing after all!! Not really!! He said he would try again when he was a little older!! Here's he is, posing with what Alec caught!!

Check out Harry finding a crab in the belly of his red snapper!! Eeewwwww!!

Later that night, we met at Todd and Debbie's house for some hamburgers and hot dogs. Harry and Barbie were staying with them, so there were lots of kids and lots of fun to be had!!

Even later that night, we got to go ride the boat as Todd took it from the dock to the trailer. This was some sweet boat and the little boys had such a great time riding it!! Here they are holding onto dear life with Meagan and Kendall.

Riding Titanic style--

Alex "helping" Todd as he drives the boat. (Is that how you say it?? Drive the boat??)

Taking advantage of yet another photo-op!

These are some of the highlights from a great trip. But what really makes these trips special is the time spent with those you love!! Doing the not-so-extraordinary things like working puzzles together,
hanging with grandparents,

and swinging with brothers,

until you are plumb exhausted!!

That's what makes a great vacation!!

At least that's what these guys think!!