8/18/10

A Galveston birthday!

Happy birthday to me!!! Yesterday when we got back there was a flowers and chocolates delivery for me, yay!!
See, a better pic of my snazzy Motel 6 vanity!! Plus the beautiful flowers. They're lilies and irises. The lilies haven't opened yet, but I bet they'll be open by tomorrow.





Aldous tried out the chocolates, while reclining in bed this morning. He must think it's HIS birthday.

so after we all got dressed and packed (and I threw all of our damp swimsuits in the drier), we headed to breakfast. We tried IHOP this morning, which wasn't too bad. I never can get enough coffee on vacation, tho.


We went back to the room, picked up our now super dry swimwear and headed back to Moody Gardens' Palm Beach. Today William wanted to try the splash pad. It was fine, there were hardly any kids....very nice and shady, too, with plenty of comfy chairs for grown ups to sit in while they read their books.

and then a whole group of kids came!! Actually, they were fine and William and Aldous had a great time playing with them. However, I kept losing them both in the crowd which put a damper on my reading, so I suggested going back to the place we were yesterday.

I really like this area. Both boys feel confident enough to go out quite far.

And they love playing in the sand.


William enjoyed playing with this kid, and kept talking to his mom.


Look how far William went by himself! Yesterday Aldous kept losing his footing and going under but was totally fine. I only had to fish him out once because he turned toward the deeper side and couldn't get up.

This weird guy was hanging out watching his kids. he had the longest creepiest hair ever.


After the swimming, we rinsed off, and got some food at the snack bar there, rather than the basement of the Aquarium.

Aldous fell asleep while we were waiting, tho.


William was super excited about the Rainforest Pyramid! He had been talking about it all the day before. he couldn't WAIT to see all the sprinklers! So we walked on over to the white pyramid

they're doing a ton of remodling so there were work trucks everywhere.

I was surprised at how cool and comfortable (and breezy!) it was in there! AHHHH!

some creepy butterflies. At the back you can see some horizontal sticks with cocoons hanging from them.

William poses by a stream

 a fascinating sprinkler exhibit, complete with lavender pipe.

some macaws, which William calls "caw caw caws" , and they're probably parrots.
 looking straight up at the ceiling.

Another clever sprinkler exhibit.
 And some giant cockroaches. bleck.


From there we go to my fav, the Butterfly Exhibit. I'm not a huge fan of butterflies, they sort of creep me out, but I thought the boys would have fun. We flew through that, but spent a long time in the learning maze they had set up. it was FUN!!!

They had questions at each intersection to give you hints about which way to go, and a stamp machine to stamp your paper when you went the right way.

William in a cocoon.


William on a web

William with wings!

and again from the other side!! he was SO brave and did this THREE times!!

We bought a package of bugs as souvenirs. Aldous is afraid of them. Ooops!



Next up, nap!! Nap lasted until 5:30 and we had to be at the boat by 7, so while I had hoped for dinner at an Italian place I had seen while I was out, we made do with McDonalds. Well, they did. I didn't eat anything.

So, here's the paddlewheel boat. It was big, but not *that* big.

William and Aldous hanging out, waiting for the boat to go. Neither one had ever ridden on a boat of any kind that I can remember. William has a tendency toward motion sickness, so I have to choose fun "rides" carefully.

This is the view toward our hotel. I could see the McCoys sign, but not the Motel 6. Well, I could see it, but I couldn't read that it said Motel 6.

The sun really lit up the sides of the buildings as it went down.


Before the boat set out, it sounded the whistle a coupld of times very loudly, and scared William half to death. Even tho it sounded for less than a minute, he was so freaked out he started to cry, and asked to get off of the boat. I convinced him to just sit in my lap until he felt better.

He was there for several minutes, poor kid!

 There was a tiny pinkish rainbow in the sky. It was like a piece of a rainbow.






 The teen to the right was super annoying with her very loud and overbearing opinions about God, religion, education and evolution, and I felt sorry for her "audience" who kept trying to change the subject. Ironically, she announced that she was from Quinlan, where I used to teach.

 After William was feeling a bit better, and a little more brave (on the way back to the dock, ha ha!) we walked to the back railing to see the big paddle wheel that propelled our boat.

 We pulled in at the end of our trip to this view.

 It was a beautiful evening, and the boat ride was the perfect end to the day. The temperature and the cool breeze were so nice! On the way home, we swung by CVS for some late night tv-watching snacks, then headed home! while the boys snacked, I took a shower alone. The boys showered next, pjed up, and hit the sack.

Rainforest Pyramid ( I couldn't find the price) Butterfly exhibit ($6), Paddle wheel boat ride ($10). Bargain!

1 comment:

CrazyMom said...

Happy birthday! Looks like you're having a ton of fun on that vacation. :)

P.S. Quite an impressive Motel 6!

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