A Galveston Vacation

We opted to take our "big" vacation first thing this summer. It was really just a three day trip to Galveston, but with two little ones, that felt like vacation enough. I have a lot planned for the rest of the summer, but it's all either completely local or a day trip.

We got up early early Thursday morning. My plan was to get to Galveston early Thursday because many of the Houston area schools (including Galveston ISD) were still in class on Thursday, with the teacher workday on Friday.

The beach was not quite the experience we had expected. Sydney had so enjoyed the beach last summer. She loves sand and water and we thought she would have a blast. We even got a hotel room across the street from the beach so we could do a little beach trip each morning. Turns out that even though the sand was still fun, Sydney found the expansiveness of the ocean to be quite terrifying. "It's too big!" she said. Oh, well.

After spending a couple of hours building sand castles, we met up with my mom to go to Moody Gardens. Sydney enjoyed the Aquarium quite a bit and was glad to share the experience with her grandma.

The next day was Friday and we decided to forgo the beach and head to Schlitterbaun instead.

Sydney loved the various kid areas and after some negotiating, tried the lazy river and even the wave section of the river and thought it was great.

After almost six hours at Schlitterbaun, I decided to pack up and leave before either of the kids forced the issue and we headed over to the Flight Museum.

I'm not sure how impressed Sydney was with the actual airplanes, but she loved the toy airplanes that her daddy bought for her at the gift shop.

She even flew the toy airplane back to Moody Gardens where we went to the Forgotten Gateway exhibit.
I know Sydney wasn't that impressed with the exhibit, but Jeremy and I enjoyed learning more about not only how Galveston was a major immigration center for the southern part of the country, but also about the history of immigration law.

After the museum, we met Gram for dinner at Casey's. The food was delicious!

Back at the hotel, we learned that pay-per-view can be used to purchase Super Why episodes from PBS. Who knew?

The following morning was Saturday and we headed to the Strand to meet the Gonzelez's for coffee. Myles was super sweet to Sydney and bought her breakfast

and a book, The Three Bears, his favorite from when he was little.

Sydney and Jeremy enjoyed looking around Colonel Bubbie's, a Strand icon which was not reopened from Ike last time we were down, so we were happy to see it back in business this time.
Some big boys were playing chess and let Sydney and Jack play with the already captured white pieces.
After the Strand we went to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Sydney liked the animals and the food and the store out front.

But she did not like the thunder storms.

Once we had finished eating lunch, it was time to head home.

On the one hand, it was a super short vacation, but on the other, it feels like we crammed a week's worth of activity into those three days.

Mostly, though, I'm just excited that we had our vacation and we still have the whole summer ahead of us.