A MAJOR LONG POST

I know you all have been waiting breathlessly for me to put up an updated post. We got back from our vacation about a week and a half ago, but it has been pretty crazy since then, so I haven't had a chance to give a report and overload you with vacation pics yet!

We went to Texas for JC's cousin's wedding. His cousin just happens to live very close to my parents. In fact, he got married in a church in the town I grew up in. Thankfully, it wasn't a true Mexican wedding and it only had a short ceremony and a regular-length reception. None of this 3-days-worth-of-parties, although those can be fun and we would have had the time for it. The boys had a blast gettin' jiggy with it on the dance floor and had become disheveled messes shortly after arriving.

For the rest of the week we just hung out visiting my parents and sister Ali. JC worked a lot via his laptop. We did see our friends the Danas who used to live here and moved 20 minutes from my parents. That was fun. The highlight of the week for the boys, however, was playing on the electric typewriter they found at my dad's office. This was the conversation that followed:

Big J: What is this?

Me: It's a typewriter.

Little J: A TIE-fighter!?!?

Me (laughing): No, a typewriter. You put paper in it and then push the buttons and letters go on it.

Big J: Oh! I know what this is! I've seen it on cartoons before.

That typewriter entertained them for an hour! They didn't want to leave when I said it was time to go and begged to be able to come back and play on it some more.

That Friday, we took off for the Gulf Coast. My parents had graciously offered us one of their time-share weeks, so when we requested "somewhere on a beach that we could drive to" we got San Luis Pass next to Galveston Island. It took us about 6 hours to drive there from my parents' home. My mother-in-law came with us. She was in Texas for the wedding and was saying how she didn't want to go back home yet. So I invited her to go with us. I actually highly recommend inviting your mom or mother-in-law (assuming you like them) if you have small children, because it makes mom's vacation more like a vacation. It was nice to have someone else to stay at the condo and wait for Little Man to wake up from his naps, to have someone else cook a few meals, to have someone else clean up a little...

Our little beach condo was in a less commercialized area, so we had the best of both worlds. We could literally walk out our door and be at the pool or walk about 50 feet and be on the beach, and there were minimal crowds. It was overcast and/or raining a lot of the time we were there, but it worked out perfect because we alternated "beach" days with other things and the days we chose to be on the beach all day it didn't rain. But even on our "off days" we would still take walks on the beach or go swimming in the pool. I loved laying in bed at night and hearing the ocean. It is very relaxing.

I was nervous about taking 3 small kids to the beach - I just knew someone was going to disappear out into the ocean. But my fears were unfounded. The beach is a great vacation when you want everyone to enjoy themselves and be entertained with minimal effort on your part. The boys loved playing in the waves - even Little Man. He would have crawled in and swam away if I had let him. He had no fear of the water and loved to explore the sand.

We were sandcastle-making fools! Our virgin sandcastle making experience started out sweet and simple. By the end of the week, we had entire towns of sandcastles with roads and seashell bank depositories and full fortifications. Originally, the fortifications were put up to keep the water out, but really all they needed protection from was the boys. As soon as we'd finish our masterpieces a "storm" or a "battle" or something of the like would obliterate our little sand town.

We also saw lots of wildlife (sealife?) since the beach we were on was more "primitive". We enjoyed feeding the seagulls, caught several hermit crabs and mussles, saw a flock of 27 pelicans, saw jumping fish, cranes - you name it! We also saw both a live and a dead shark! We thought the sharks were baby hammerheads, but after going to the Sea Center, we learned they were actually full-sized Bonnethead sharks.

While we were down there we visited several places. We went to the Texas Sea Center which was a little aquarium/fish hatchery place sponsored by the Texas Wildlife Association. I saw the twin of what I had always dubbed "That Big Fish that Kept Looking at Me When I Went Scuba Diving". Apparently, it is called a grouper. The one in the aquarium weighed over 300 pounds. I always knew that fish could take me...

They also had a big touch tank where the kids enjoyed getting up close and personal with the sea life. They had crabs in it that had one side of their pinchers removed. Most of them would just look at you bored, but there was one that was a little onery. We were all looking in the tank when all of the sudden Little J squeals like a little girl, yanks his hand out flinging water everywhere, and runs away. I rush over to see what happened and he declares, "THAT CRAB WAS LOOKING AT ME MEAN!!!!" I couldn't stop laughing.

We also spent a day on Galveston Island. We rode the ferry where we got to feed the seagulls off the back of the boat. We also saw some dolphins. We walked around The Strand where we ate great seafood (and I don't even like seafood!) and saw some cool things. The boys' favorite was the giant chess game in the middle of a plaza. At the end, we stopped at this old-timey ice cream shop and got "The King Split." When I ordered it, the girl goes, "Uh, do you know how big that is?" I was expecting some huge concoction like the Ziggy Piggy on Bill and Ted's, but was sadly disappointed. When they called my number and I was carrying it back to the table I did get a few wide-eyed looks and appreciative "oh yeah!"s from some guys sitting next to us, though.

We spent a day at the Johnson Space Center (NASA) in Houston. That was a lot of fun, especially for the kids. They have a building set up with all kinds of NASA-related displays, theaters, presentations and hands-on exhibits. We also got to tour the astronaut training facility and see some really big rockets.

We drove back to my parents' home the following Friday, stayed that Saturday, then drove back home on Sunday. It was a good trip. And Little Man got his first tooth while we were gone :-)