Finally, we took a vacation this summer -- our
FIRST family vacation -- to Galveston, TX. None of us had ever been to Galveston and it was the closest drive to a beach, so we thought
"why not?"
I wish I could say that we took a lot of fun pics -- but we didn't.
I wish I could say that we did a lot of awesome stuff -- but we didn't.
But what I can say, was that we thoroughly enjoyed a much needed get-a-way!!
Forewarning, Galveston was
NOT all its cracked up to be. It was not just dirty ... the whole place was flat out
FILITY!! Insert
"this would be the why someone shouldn't go to Galveston."
This was definitely a vacation of eating, lounging and not doing much. Its okay though, for it being our first vacation with juggling all of Jocelyn's stuff, etc? The vacation was a success! With that said, I took a lot of food pictures haha. What can I say, I'm a sucker for food, and if you are my Facebook friend, then you already know this!
We decided to drive to Texas because until Jocelyn can tell us otherwise, we don't want to risk a shunt failure from flying in a plane like so many others have experienced. Hopefully one day we can fly as a family and there will be no mishaps. But for now, seeing how we've had
FOUR brain surgeries, we are not willing to risk Jocelyn's shunt failing again and being high in the sky and helpless.
Regardless of the long drive, Justin and I were ready to eat lots of good food, throw back some nice cold drinks, get some sun and enjoy some family time. :) Boogie however, was already game for a nap.
Seeing how we had quite of bit of driving to do, and frequent stops to make to stretch Boogie and to make sure my grandma bladder didn't explode
(I know I drink a lot of water, but geez, a gnat has a bigger bladder than I do I swear!), we were prepared to make the drive down there as part of the vacation!
We were successful in making simple gas stops fun!
And we used rest areas for some play/stretch-time. Thankful for the super nice weather!
Justin is SUCH a wonderful daddy. I love that he sings with her!!
Jocie sure does love her books!
The first day, we stopped and had lunch at a place called
Stables in Guthrie, OK which was an old BBQ place with a fun, but over decorated interior. From the reviews the place was suppose to be incredible, and when the food came out it did look really tasty, but I suppose we've been spoiled with the
Naughty Nurses BBQ which is pretty damn hard to beat. And I'm not just saying that because they are my in-laws! :)
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| {Found these pictures online so you can see the clutter - made me a bit claustrophobic - but the picture on the left is actually a view from the table we sat at while we were there.} |
Stables BBQ sauce did receive the "Boogs Approval" award so they should feel honored! haha
One of our stops included a place called
Peaches in Fairfield, TX
. They had incredible looking produce there
(I know, I sound lame, but I get excited about that kind of stuff), homemade ice-cream, salsas, wines and apparently their infamous fried pies!! I paid the price later
(several hours of being nausea), but we indulged in homemade apricot and coconut fried pies. Even Jocelyn thought the pie filling was delicious!
After a good day of driving, we stopped for the night in Lewisville, TX and got seriously THE BEST suite at the Holiday Inn Express. The room was crazy huge, fancy and surprisingly felt luxurious. We live large ... we know. haha
Anyways, we were all so tired but after getting cleaned up, we went and ate at a place called Chaucer's where we had our first taste of raw sushi. Justin is such a good sport for doing things I want to do. It was instant love for me. For him? He choked it down with a beer! haha
Here was our combo dish of a spicy tuna roll and a panic roll.
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| {The simple-looking 8 pieces you see is the spicy tuna which was Justin's choice and the fancy one was mine! It also had spicy tuna along with fresh sliced jalapeno and sriracha on top! Holy mother wow were both hotter than hot!!! Our mouths were flamin' afterwards, but I loved it!} |
I was really surprised how well the sushi tasted considering when we walked in, the place was completely empty. I always feel like if its supper time, and the place is empty, then that's a bad sign. Not to mention that the place felt like an upscale restaurant, night club, hula bar all wrapped up into one. It was really weird. As we were looking around the place, we kept seeing these little cubby's, or small raised dance floor-looking areas around the restaurant. Then we started looking at all the waitress and their attire and thought "hmmm, those are outfits are awfully revealing." No sooner did we say that, then a girl walks in with a Superwoman looking, blinged out outfit with white platform hooker boots. Come to find out, this place had "Go-Go Girls" and the night we happen to come, was the night they danced.
Parents of the year to have Jocelyn there? Oh yea.
Needless to say, supper was cut short.
We went shopping instead haha
The next day we made it to Galveston, checked into our hotel room and got settled-in. I'm not sure if it was because we were right on the beach, or because it was the July 4th holiday, but our room was DEFINITELY not worth $200+ a night. We did have a balcony and that was nice, but the rest of the room? Socks were mandatory and I didn't want ANYTHING touching the floors, counters, etc. I seriously felt a little OCD, snobby and high-n-mighty I guess. I should say "we" felt that way because Justin sure had his own set of similar opinions. Kind of felt bad about our up-turned noses towards the room, the beach itself ... all of Galveston ... but we couldn't help it. At least we had a nice view from our room though.
Over the next few days we visited Pleasure Pier (although we never actually walked on the pier because we didn't want to pay $25/person to walk on a pier when Jocie couldn't even get on any of the rides anyways, so we viewed it from afar haha). It did look pretty cool though! I didn't snap a good picture, but here's what it looks like.
We enjoyed morning jogs on the beach and the beautiful sunrises. I would've loved to have run ON the beach, but the sand was cluttered with debris and forget about actually swimming in it -- GROSS! Guess I've been spoiled by Florida and Australian beaches??
We checked out The Strand district and even visited the Pyramids. We only visited the rainforest pyramid (there are three different ones: the rainforest, aquarium and a discovery one) and Jocelyn slept through the entire thing.
Little turd.
The whole place was literally a gigantic rainforest and most of the animals and plant-life had free range which was nice and made it more "real."
They had kissing parrots, bright colored attack birds and pretty waterfalls.
Boogie woke up towards the end and was a cuddle-bug, but she did get to see a few things.
Justin said one of his favorite parts of the trip were the beverages,
and watching me eat DEVOUR 60 crawfish! (It was my first time having them -- I'm HOOKED!)
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| {We ate SO MUCH seafood and that's all I seem to want. Justin had hoped that I would get my fill of it but sadly, it only fueled my seafood cravings even more. Crawfish, seafood, boudin, oysters ... you can't eat that and then be like "Bam! Now I want a slab of fat cow" ??} |
I'm so thankful that we finally took a trip together. If we would've tried to vacation a year ago or so, our routine wouldn't be as good as it is now, and it would have been far too stressful to enjoy. And so even though there was a lot of driving that we did in a short amount of time, Jocelyn seemed to enjoy herself ...
While Justin and I got to see and do something new and different! :)
