Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Clint's Birthday and Father's Day Weekend

 Clint's birthday and Father's day fell on the same weekend again this year.  I was actually out of town hosting a baby shower for my friend Leah.  I did not see these pictures until I was putting this post together.  I always wonder what is really going on during a boys weekend.  Clint is the world's best father.  He is so intentional and loving with our boys.  And he loves every minute of being with them.  Despite how awesome he is and that his 33rd birthday was the same weekend, we purposely kept Father's/Mother's Day and our 33rd birthday's low key this year. 






For Clint's birthday he got a bowl of puppy chow.



Galveston Road Trip Part #2 Beach Pictures

Our hotel in Galveston was right across the street from the beach.  While we were there, Galveston was having massive quantities of seaweed washing up every night.  They were cleaning the beach in front of our hotel every morning so we were able to enjoy the beach even with the seaweed.

The evening we got in, Clint had a reception so the boys and I decided to head to the beach.  Sawyer ran out to the beach and loved every minute.  At this time, Beau had been obsessed with jellyfish for months.  He was still in love with jellyfish, but as a result was afraid to touch the water.  He wasn't too fond of the beach. Paul was o.k. with the beach.  Sawyer though wanted to spend all his time at the beach.  He now swears that someday he will live on a beach.



The resort had an amazing pool, so we spent the next 2 days going back and forth between the pool and the beach.


This is the resort behind us.













Some kids at the beach taught us how to catch crabs, the boys loved it!  We caught quite a few.






Galveston Road Trip Part #1

Clint had a conference in June at the San Luis Resort on Galveston Island.  The boys and I decided to tag along.  Clint and I were excited to visit some of our favorite places in Houston, visit the Kemners, and introduce the boys to the beach.  I understand that Galveston is not a good beach, but Clint and I have always said, "If you can't have fun in Galveston, you can't have fun anywhere."  We had our trips to Galveston down to a science when we lived in Houston so overall we were really excited.

As soon as we got to Houston we went to our favorite restaurant, El Tiempo.  It was even more delicious than we remembered.  It probably tasted so good because we have been eating Oklahoman cuisine for 5 years.  The picture is fuzzy, but that is probably because Clint's view on life was fuzzy after a few of El Tiempo's margaritas.


While Clint was at the conference (3 days), the boys and I spent most of our time between the pool and the beach.  We did go down to the Galveston Strand.  We visited a pirate museum and ate ice cream at an old fashion candy shop.





My boys are very good travelers, but they do get tired and cranky.  This is how we traveled around the resort and beach.  Also at the end of a long vacation day, bath time went much better if they had a snowcone or sucker for the tub.  I also try to grab extra notepads and pens when the cleaning lady comes by.  For some reason it is such a novelty to draw on the hotel paper (even naked).







The resort also had organized activities for the kids like scavenger hunts and bean bag toss.  Beau killed the bean bag toss.  The kids got prizes at each activity too.  It also had an amazing pool with an ocean view and a swim up bar.  The kids (and mom and especially dad due to the bar) loved the pool.






When we lived in Houston, a few times a year Clint and I would drive down Hwy 288 to Surfside.  Spend the day driving and walking up and down the beach.  Drive on to Galveston.  Play putt putt at the same place.  Then eat dinner at Guidos.  Then we would head home very late, sun burnt and tired.  It was a great ritual. We decided one night to take the boys to the same putt putt place and dinner at Guidos.   They loved the putt putt!





We also took the boys to NASA while we were staying in Galveston.  Everyone really enjoyed the tour and Sawyer loved the museum part.  But out of the whole NASA experience, the boys loved chasing a bunny rabbit under a space shuttle the best. 







On our last night we went back down to the beach so Clint could get a chance to spend some time on the beach.  The boys loved catching the crabs in the dark.   The next morning Clint and Sawyer got up early, went to IHOP, then went to the beach to get in some ocean time.  Beau, Paul, and I packed up then hit the pool.



After we left Galveston we drove by our old house.  It was good to see that someone was taking very nice care of it.  It was such a cute house.  We were shocked by how much development had occured in the last 5 years.  There were miles and miles of neighborhoods that weren't there before.  We headed to Goode Company Seafood, one of our other favorite restaruants for lunch (once again it was even more delicious than we remembered due to our selection of restaurants in Oklahoma).  After that we went to the Kemners to stay the night with them before we headed home.  It was such a fun week and we were so happy to have a chance to head back down to H-town.  But it also was soooooooo refreshing to head home.  We definitely are not big city people.




We finally stopped at the Sam Houston monument on I-45.  We have driven past this statue so many times and never stopped.  It gave us a nice break and was fun to see.  It was a quaint little park. We also stopped for lunch at the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana (famous for their fruit cakes).  It was horrible, but interesting to stop somewhere that we had driven by many times and never made time for.  We actually had to stop at a gas station after lunch to find some food that was somewhat more edible (which is saying a lot for us because we don't eat gas station food).