macaroni & cheese: Galveston, oh Galveston......

I decided since it had been a couple of months since our last road trip, we were about due. So I picked the week of my birthday to take two toddlers to Galveston for a few days. I have totally lost my mind. We had no trouble getting packed and on the road on time. About halfway here we stopped at Madisonville to have some McDonald's lunch. For some weird reason, their play place thing was outside. Yay!! So, we ate lunch in the 100 degree heat in the company of some persistent flies.

We got back on the road as soon as I could get them out of that place! Right before we got to Houston tho, we ran into a bad downpour and it slowed us considerably. We ended up at our humble lodging at 6 or so, a little later than I had planned. I was glad to see McCoy's was right next door, in case the boys break something.

The huge lobby tv

Me taking a dorky pic with my camera, just because I can.

I think this is the cutest Motel 6 I've ever seen. Here's the tour....Our bedroom, complete with a real phone that boys keep talking on.

The closet.

"Bamboo" laminate flooring. I would enjoy this more had a brought along a swiffer for the sand.

The "entertainment center" is right above the dining table.

Here's a blurry pic of the vanity. I do have a better one, but it's got my birthday flowers on it and it's for sharing later.

because we got in so late, and I had taken some time to unpack/settle a bit, I didn't go foraging for food and just took the boys to Jack In The Box.

You can see Moody Gardens pyramids, which was nice for the boys.

After a good night's rest, we woke, dressed, packed and headed to breakfast at my fav, Waffle House! Delish! Altho, the hostess there thinks I'm a witch because I refused her seatbelt-less highchair. She did go find one, tho, that had a seat belt.

After breakfast we went to Moody Gardens. There was NO ONE there...it was incredible how close I was able to park!
We went first to the Palm Beach pool and beach area. There's a lot to do for kids there, including some water slides (my kids were too little for those) and a splash pad.

My not-as-lumpy-as-they-used-to-be legs.

Here's our cozy and shady umbrella-shaded chairs where I read my book. AHHHHH

The boys thought these waterfalls were awesome.

After a shower and change, we took our bag of beach stuff to the car, since it was so close, then walked over to the blue Aquarium pyramid.

For all of the Moody Gardens attractions, I bought this two day pass for $47. usually a one day pass is $50 but they had a special price and deal, and it worked out really well for us. William and Aldous were free everywhere, so I consider it a bargain. It paid for Palm Beach ($12), the Aquarium ($19), the Discovery Pyramid ($9) today.

We ate lunch at the little food court in the bottom of the Aquarium building. It was not great, and super expensive.

Most of the displays were arranged along a winding and descending corridor. William thought perhaps this was a great time to "roll down a hill". I put a stop to this pretty quickly, tho.

It's impossible to take pics in the aquarium, but I got this one. It was a tank full of anemone. They also had a great big tank you walked through/under so Aldous got to see some sharks, which are his favorite.

After that, we headed to the pink pyramid, which is officially the Discovery Pyramid. Here they had an exhibit about the immigrants who were some of the earliest residents of Galveston, which was REALLY interesting. I totally could have stayed there longer than the 45 minutes William put up with. I had him in the ergo, or I would have made that visit a lot shorter. No photography was allowed here.

this breezeway between the pyramids was wonderful.

This is an herb garden. I showed William which geraniums had scents he might like if he rubbed the leaves.

This is the "white pyramid" that we'll see on Wednesday. William is excited and can't stop talking about all the sprinklers that must be in there. It's the Rainforest Pyramid, a botanical garden.

After the Discovery Pyramid, we headed back to our room for a nice nap ( I had to do a car transfer...yikes!)

At 5 ish, we set out for dinner, to a Golden Corral I had seen while driving earlier in the day. $13.40 for all of us!! Amazing! The only bad thing was some creepy balloon guy who make my kids balloon swords and then gave them lessons when it was apparent they had no idea what to do with a sword. Thanks, asshole! Sadly, both balloons popped on the way home.

William saw this car outside of Golden Corral and couldn't get away from it.
I mean, what's not to love?

I really did try to keep him from touching it.

Next on the agenda was crab hunting, so we gathered up our buckets and flashlights and our beach blanket and headed down to the beach! We got there right after the sun had gone down.

these next two pics were taken in the dark without a flash. there was a very bright moon, so this showed up when I lightened it a bit.

The moon was so beautiful. Aldous kept saying "The mooona! the moona!" The moon and the stars were about all we saw, because William became more and more fearful of crabs as it became darker and wouldn't leave the safety of the blanket. Aldous and I ventured down to do a bit of searching and he played in the water quite a bit, but we didn't see any crabs. The boys had a great time, tho, digging in the sand and playing with their flashlights.