Galveston Trip

This is going to be a long post. . . but it will be mostly pictures.

For the Fourth of July the three of us loaded up the car and headed on down to the beach, Galveston, for a few days. We stayed in a condo right on the beach. We all had so much fun, and Luke came back as the most spoiled toddler in Fort Worth. He got both his parents attention 24 hours a day and got to do pretty much anything he wanted.

We left at 5am on the 3rd--in hopes that Luke would sleep a good portion of the trip. Luckily for us he did! However this put us in Galveston around noon and we could not check in to the condo until 3. We had to kill three hours. We decided to grab a light lunch (we had gorged ourselves at IHOP around 8am), so we stopped by a Subway which turned out to be the oddest Subway ever. First, the family in front of us had three kids all ordering kids sandwiches and when the "sandwich artist" only put one slice of meat on each sandwich they asked for more. I agree that the sandwiches looked pretty bare. The artist refused, so the family asked if they could buy more meat to put on the sandwich. The artist again refused. The family pointed out on the menu where meat is available to purchase but the employee said that it was only for 6 in or 12 in. Finally the family gave up the arguement and it was our turn. We had no problems ordering, however, when we got to the end to pay somehow my sandwich had mysteriously disappeared. Smarty pants sandwich artist finally located my sandwich on the previous family's table. She snatched it up and tried to hand it to me. I politely refused and asked for another to be made (Gene observed to ensure that they didn't just rewrap it.) Luke wasn't too hungry and proceeded to fling his sandwich around the restaurant but at least he ate his yogurt. He was antsy from sitting in the car all morning. We ate quickly and prepared to bolt. Gene ran to the restroom, and while he was in there, out of nowhere this music came blaring over the speakers. Loud, explicit rap. The sandwich artists did not seem surprised to hear it and made no effort to turn it off or at least decrease the volume. It was so loud that when Gene came back to the table I felt like I was screaming at him. We left soon after, but this establishment will forever to us be known as ClubSub. With 2 1/2 hours to burn, we drove around town a bit and then found a park so Luke could burn some energy. It was huge! A really cool wooden park similar to Kids Castle. It was a nice break for all of us.

After about an hour, we loaded back up and headed to Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart worse on weekends. Even more on holidays. The most on holidays at the beach. There were a thousand people at Wal-Mart. We just wanted to grab our groceries and get out of there as fast as we could without being trampled. Wal-Mart was so busy that there were only four empty grocery carts at the front door. There were people lined up outside with carts full of stuff they had purchased waiting for who-knows-what. A shuttle? A bus? Just hanging out? It was a madhouse. We made it out and went to our condo. It was a good size and nice if a little bare. We opted for a condo with two bedrooms so that Luke could be in his room alone for sleeping. It had a wonderful view of the ocean from the balcony, but no chairs to sit on. We cooled off, unpacked, and made dinner. The fact that it was furnished with our same furniture made it feel more homey--they had the same barstools as we do (and they are of the same craftmanship--wobbly, a bit lopsided, and dropping screws) and the breakfast table was the cafe version of ours. This is Luke getting stuck under the barstool.

The next morning was the 4th so we all got up early to head downtown for the parade. It didn't capture Luke's attention right away, but he eventually got into it. We had to all be aware for flying candy and beads. Luke got a flag and waved it for a bit.

After the parade, we walked around downtown for a bit and then had some lunch at this place. It had great burgers and a good atmosphere. It was cool and shady with a waterfall fountain.After lunch we went back to the condo and all had a nap while it rained lightly outside. As the weather cleared and we were refreshed, we had a snack, suited up and headed for the beach. At first Luke wasn't quite sure what to do, but he soon learned to love the sand, followed by searching for shells, and on the second day he learned to love the water. We only stayed at the beach for about an hour as we needed to get dinner started. Then on Saturday we had an easy, slow morning and after lunch headed back to the beach. These pictures are from both our trips to the beach. Sunday we spent all morning packing up. Luke knew something was up, so he was bit cranky, but once we got on the road he fell asleep. We got home without any snags--tired but happy.

Here's Luke with his FAVORITE toy--piggy and the coins. Piggy came with us on vacation and Luke was practicing depositing his money while I was cooking supper one evening.