Galveston Vacation 2011

Josh and I talked extensively about where to go for our Summer Vacation with the girls. Brenna had been begging to go to the beach, but this Mama just wasn't keen on the idea of driving to the ocean with a 4 year old and a 1 year old. I just didn't think Macie would ever make it. So we decided on a few days at the Gaylord Texan. Josh booked our trip and we were set. But Miss Brenna had her heart set on a beach vacation, and she kept begging and insisting that is where we were going. And apparently Moms are better at ignoring their children than Dads are, because Josh called me one day from work to let me know that we now had reservations in Galveston for our Vacation! ha! So, I had to overcome my fear of driving 8 ours with a 1 year old. Luckily Daddy knew just the thing to help my anxiety....a TV in my car! So- he took it over and had it installed. (best investment EVER!!!) So we got up bright and early on July 26th and loaded the car with everything but the kitchen sink, and headed out!
Much to my surprise, the girls did GREAT!! They played with toys and watched movies until it was almost lunch time. About the time Macie got restless, we decided to stop for lunch. Luckily we found a Sonic with a play ground (go figure!). So the girls got to run around and play and get rid of some energy. It was perfect!

I never knew that Sonic had a play area! This one was really neat with an inside eating area.

The rest of the drive went fairly well. Macie fell asleep first, then we actually had about 30 minutes of BOTH girls napping! WOOHOO! They both woke up and had some snacks and got a little restless toward the end of the drive, but we were almost there and didn't want to take time to stop. Once we started to see the OCEAN, Brenna was in heaven! It did take a little convincing to make her believe it really was the ocean. Galveston isn't quite the "blue water and white sand" you see on TV! ha!
As soon as we got to our hotel and got checked in, the girls were bouncing off the walls!

The view from our room!!

Brenna was excited to bust out her new notebook and pencils and crawl up in the middle of our bed.

We headed down to the beach as quick as we could get unpacked and changed! Poor Daddy was exhausted from driving all day, but he will do anything for his girls....so he eagerly changed too!

Headed to the beach for the first time!

Over the course of 3 days, we spent many hours on the beach. The back of my Tahoe was FULL of sand, but I didn't mind one bit! These two girls played and played!

Josh and Brenna spent the majority of their time in the water "riding" the waves!

She found a sea shell!

Macie didn't care too much for the water. She was much happier up on the beach where she could run around without being held.

She would climb in the chair, and out of the chair, and in the chair, and out of the....well, you get the picture!

When we needed a break from the beach and SAND, we would go and enjoy the awesome pool at our hotel!

 We didn't get any pictures of the kids IN the pool because it took both of us in there with them. But the both LOVED the pool. It even had a water slide that Brenna rode on several times.
 Brenna discovered the swim up bar pretty quickly, and her Daddy introduced her to Virgin Strawberry Daiquiris (aka- strawberry smoothies)! Pretty sure we went broke buying strawberry smoothies that week!

Posing for a picture...Smoothie in hand!

The pool chairs made a great place for snack time!

After naps each day, we would get dressed and head out to dinner. It felt good to put on something besides a swim suit!

My sweet Macie Claire and her CHEESE face!

My Brenna Grace is getting so BIG!

Check out the size of this Strawberry Smoothie she got while we were waiting on our table at dinner!!! She was one spoiled little girl this week!

I was kind of nervous about how the girls would sleep with all of us in the same hotel room. Macie is used to sleeping in her crib in her own room by herself. The first night took a bit. She cried for a little while, but eventually laid down and went to sleep. She wasn't sure what to think about being able to see us from her portacrib. So the next day, we came up with a plan! My thought was- If she can't see us, she will be more likely to lay down and go to sleep. So here is what we did...

I moved all the furniture in the room so that she kind of had a "wall" to keep her from seeing us. And it WORKED! There was never another tear shed for the rest of the trip! Leave it to the Mama to come up with a plan like this!!
And when we were awake, their favorite place to play was on Brenna's blow up mattress. :)

Time to pile up on Daddy!

On Thursday, we headed over to Moody Gardens to check out the aquarium. It was neat to see, but not quite what we expected. The aquarium was very hard to navigate and we back-tracked a lot. When we left, we still weren't sure we saw it all. But there were a lot of neat things for the girls to see. We even got to see a 4D Dora and Diego film. I kept wondering what the 4th "D" was....right up until Dora and Diego walked up to the stream of water and the fish "splashed" us...  As luck would have it, the camera died right after we got there! But I did get these...

LOVE these two!!

"Brenna Cam"!

Cheesy pose with the Dora and Diego 4D movie poster. :)

That afternoon, after nap time of course, we headed back down to the beach for one last afternoon.

We had fun writing the girls names in the sand.

Macie could have cared less, but we had to do her name too!

I was afraid she would hate the sand being all over her, but she surprised me and had a BLAST!

We buried Brenna in the sand and as I was about to take her picture, Macie ran up to her and plopped down right on top of her and just giggled!

This little girl dug in the sand for HOURS. And that little dump truck hauled tons of dirt!

On Friday morning, we got up and got all packed to head out. We decided that since we had been so lucky with the girl's behavior on the trip down that we wouldn't chance it on the way back. So we decided to make it a two day trip. Josh wanted to go to the Shiner Brewery in Shiner, Texas and I had my heart set on some Mexican food in San Antonio! Shiner was our first stop. We were running a little behind (go figure!) and were scared we wold miss the tour. But we got there in the nick of time and got to tour the Shiner Brewery. It is a neat little town! When you go into a gas station, you can get Shiner on tap! haha! The girls were not so much thrilled about this part of the trip, but they got to get out of their car seats so they were pretty good sports.


 From Shiner, we headed up to San Antonio for dinner. I had visions of walking around the River Walk with my family and enjoying the fresh air and the girls having a blast. I was wrong. Brenna was 100% uncooperative, and Macie cried most of the time because she was so hot. This was the best picture I could get of them.

Brenna refused to even look at the camera, much less smile. They were both sweating so bad, but were so tired they wouldn't let go of their blankeys.

Our hotel was a much welcomed site that night. The girls were so ready to get out of the car and run around. We played in the room for a bit, then went down for a late night swim in the pool. The girls were both so tired that we didn't last long, but we did have a little fun.
Saturday morning we packed up and headed home. The girls were ready to be there, and so were we!! We decided to make one last vacation pit stop in Austin and eat at the Salt Lick. It was a really neat place. I am not much of a BBQ fan, but the food was ok. Josh really enjoyed his. All they had was BBQ, so our picky eater Brenna only ate a roll. But she was ONCE AGAIN a great sport while we ate. :) The scenery at the Salt Lick was beautiful, and I think it would be a great place to go with a large group of people. However- I was one happy camper because I was with this group of people...

These three are my life

Overall, I would say that Vacation 2011 was a success! The kids had a blast, and I enjoyed doing nothing but spending time with my 3 favorite people in the world.