Galveston Vacation!

During the summer, Michel and I decided to take our first family vacation since Audrey was born. I LOVE going to the beach even though I'm a total weenie and don't like swimming in open water (hello, sharks!), and we needed to keep it affordable which meant we had to go somewhere that we could drive to. Galveston was pretty much our only option. I'll admit, at first I wasn't that excited. Everybody talks about Galveston being dirty, but honestly we have had such a great time here! Michel booked us a "room" at Holiday Inn Resort which really ended up being our own small apartment. We haven't had daily maid service like you get in a regular hotel, so we've had to wash and dry our towels as needed, but that hasn't been a big deal at all.

Anyways, we left on Sunday, October 5th. We stopped at a gas station a couple hours out of town to let Audrey out and give her a small snack, then back in the car for another couple hours to get to College Station and meet my cousin and his wife for lunch. We also asked if we could go back to their house so that Audrey had somewhere to crawl around and get some energy out.

Our first road trip "selfie"!

I was very impressed with Audrey. We've never done such a long car ride with her, and she did great! She took 2 naps - each one 30-40 minutes which is by no means what she normally does, but it was pretty good for the car. I put on FB that she was happy 80% of the time, slept about 10% of the time, and was slightly to moderately fussy 10% of the time. I'd call that a successful road trip!

Our hotel sat directly on the beach. There was a long pier that you walked down from the hotel to the beach. It was soooo nice! Apparently, I haven't spent enough time on the beach, and didn't realize when you go to the beach with a 1-year-old, half of the beach comes back in, and on, your swimsuits. Anyways, I have loved everything about our stay from our VIEW, to our condo itself, to all the activities that we've done. Better yet, Audrey has LOVED it, too!

Who wouldn't love this view??? This is from our bedroom

The layout worked out great b/c we brought Audrey's pack 'n play and put it in the bedroom during the day, and put it up in the living room at night and Michel and I just had to stay in the bedroom (you can go into the bathroom from the hall or the bedroom, so no matter where she was we could go to the bathroom without disturbing her).


The weather didn't cooperate very well with us on Monday. We didn't have much planned so we decided to give Audrey 2 naps that day rather than 1 (she's at a weird stage where she really needs 1 1/2 naps - one long nap and one is usually like 30 min, so we were planning on only giving her 1 nap most days). Anyways, we went out for breakfast and came back and gave Audrey a REALLY good nap. When she woke up we went to lunch. By the time lunch was over, the sky was dark and once in the car, we were pelted with torrential rain. We decided it was not a good day for a ferry ride (our original plan) and went back to the hotel. Not much to say about this. We read Audrey book. After book. After book. She's in a stage where she likes to read the same book over, and over, and over, or many books repetitively. I'm glad she likes to read, but I can only read "Are You a Cow?" so many times. Anyways, once she woke up from her 2nd nap the skies had cleared, and we decided to go for a walk on the beach. We discovered that Audrey LOVES birds, so being on the beach with tons of seagulls was right up her alley.

After our delicious breakfast out, before the storms rolled in...it was really windy as illustrated by my hair and Audrey's inability to open her eyes!

These weren't even the worst storm clouds

She's supposed to be giving a sad face b/c we're forced to stay inside

I'm not so good with the selfie...but I keep trying

On Tuesday, we went to Moody Gardens. They have an aquarium, rain forest, museum, 3-D movie theater, and an amusement park. We only paid to get into the aquarium and rain forest. Michel and I both agreed that the rain forest was our favorite part. Audrey definitely agreed! There were live tropical birds able to fly freely (no cages!) that she would always point to, excitedly saying, "tweet, tweet!" I have discovered she doesn't ever say the word "bird" even though we tell her that they're birds and then we always ask, "What does a bird say?" "Tweet, tweet." The "tweet tweet" part is what she really caught onto, so now birds are "tweet tweets" to Audrey :) The rain forest also had a butterfly garden with beautiful flowers and tons of butterflies! I tried getting one on my finger, but no luck :( I had one try to land on my shirt a couple times, but it never stayed. Audrey kept trying to "pet" butterflies, but when one did get close enough to touch her eyelids fluttered really hard when they were flapping their wings really hard, so she wasn't too sure about them up close.

The butterfly garden

This monkey was just out in the open! We were told to walk far away and slowly since we had the stroller - he associates it with having food in it!

A "tweet tweet" :)

We went to lunch and then back to the hotel to give Audrey a good nap. Luckily, she still sleeps fairly well away from home, but as I type this (on Thursday) I can say she's definitely missing some good sleep as she has been pretty fussy today which is TOTALLY not like her. Oh well. Anyways, after her nap we all changed and went down to the beach. We'd walked to the beach before, but not dressed to swim, or play in the sand, so this was Audrey's first time to really experience it.

She was very cautious when we first put her in the sand, like "What is this?" but after raking her hands through it a few times, she decided she could experience it better if she rubbed it in her hair and on her face!

This is a baby who is loving the beach!

We then ventured out into the water. We sat at the edge where the tide would come in enough to get us wet. Audrey LOVED it! At one point, a bigger wave came in, and pretty much submerged Audrey in the water (we picked her up right away - we were sitting right beside her), and as soon as she got the water out of her face, she just started laughing! It didn't phase her one bit! So we stayed in the water. She even started crawling out into the open sea to get a better experience. Again, we were right beside her, so she wasn't in danger :)

My child has no fear of water!

Chasing "tweet tweets" :)

I love writing in the sand!

The rest of this post doesn't include pictures, and I know I've gotten pretty wordy already! I'll sum up Wednesday and Thursday quickly (maybe, ha!). On Wednesday we got on the ferry to just experience a ferry ride, and it was so much fun! We took Audrey out and she was definitely more captivated with the "tweet tweets". We even saw at least 20 dolphins jumping in and out of the water, and she liked the birds more. LOL when one of the dolphins jumped up, I pointed to it in a really excited voice, and said, "look! There's a dolphin!" and she looked at me like "What's a dolphin?" and went back to pointing out birds :) We went to lunch again, and back to give Audrey a (horrible) nap. It was probably 30 minutes. Then we went to get ice cream because there's an ice cream shop that was listed on Trip Advisor as the "best ice cream." It was true. It was cold, creamy, and delicious. Audrey also LOVES ice cream, so Michel and I could not feed her fast enough! She was a satisfied little girl.

On Thursday, we spent the morning on the beach, came back, showered, ate lunch, and put Audrey to bed where she finally took a 2+ hour nap. It didn't really keep her from being a bit crabby, but we've been going and going and going every day since Sunday, so I assume she's just really tired. I'm hoping once we get home in her own bed she'll make up some good sleep (even though, for the most part, she's still sleeping fairly well...1-2 1/2 hours in the day, and 11-12 hours at night).

All in all, we have had a WONDERFUL time, and I would gladly come back again! We drive back tomorrow, so please pray for our safety, and that Audrey stays as happy on the way back as she did on the drive down here!