Mini Vacation to Gigi's and the Beach

Nico, Natalee and I have arrived home safely today. From where you ask?  We were at Gigi's house and then we headed to Galveston to a couple of day of beach fun! It was a wonderful and fun experience for all even though we had a few hangups in starting our day off right, including finding the perfect spot on the beach for ourselves, misplacing the car keys and Nico getting some serious jellyfish stings. However, we found a great beach spot to hunker down for the day, we located the keys and Nico, despite his jellyfish incident, came bouncing back ready to play again.  This little guy surprised me with how brave he was.  The minute we hit the sand, Nico ran for the water! He loved splashing, diving, karate chopping, jumping, and running into the waves!  Mr. "I Think I Am All Grown Up," had to be reminded that he can not go into the water by himself and had to wait for either Mommy or Gigi.  I couldn't believe how independent he was, but I was certainly proud of him and his confidence even after the painful jellyfish.

Natalee, being that this was her first beach experience, thoroughly enjoyed laying on the beach.  She loved the wind blowing on her, so much so that she took a nap on the beach in her tent...I mean who wouldn't want to take a nap on the beach?  Natalee also found the sand interesting, but it was the water which got her attention and brought out the most smiles.

My bathing beauty enjoying the sun and wind.

Nico and Gigi building castles in the sand!

All smiles!

Nico was turning into a beach fish!  He had so much fun in the waves.

Mommy and Nico having so much fun trying to "catch" the waves.

Taking a break from the water...now time for more sand fun!

Staying in the shade in her very own beach cabana!

Nico was determined to catch one of these guys!

Mommy and her mini me relaxing on the beach!

Mommy and her beach babies.

Snow cones on the beach!

Heading back out to face those waves with Gigi this time.

Mr. Independent....Yikes!  I love this boy!

So handsome!

So happy and precious!

"What's this?  Sand..."

Beautiful girl!

"Aw, taking a break from the hard life."

"I really needed a vacation."

Aren't they adorable?!

Mommy and little man at dinner at Fisherman's Wharf.

Gigi and Natalee at dinner.  Such pretty girls!

Aw!  I love it when Natalee does this....just looks up at you with those huge blue eyes.

Hanging out on The Strand.

All of us on The Historic Strand.

End of the day...swimming at the hotel.

The next day we woke up early, got ourselves organized and ready to hit the beach again...then we opened the door to the hotel and saw the rain coming down.  Well, that certainly threw a kink into our plans.  We went ahead and ate breakfast and drove to the beach hoping the rain would die down.  Since the sprinkling of rain kept on coming down, we decided to head back over to the harbor and try to take a dolphin sightseeing tour.  They do tours rain or shine!  This was a fantastic idea and of course we were lucky enough that is stopped raining when our boat left the dock. Nico was fascinated with being on the boat and was wide eyed and amazed seeing the dolphins jumping near the boat and a far.

Here is Gigi and Natalee on the dolphin sightseeing tour boat.

Didn't get too much of a smile from Nico here. He was too distracted and wanted to be looking for dolphins.





Sitting at the head of the boat looking for our fish friends (I know..they are not fish).

This is the best picture I got of the dolphins while on the tour.  It was pretty cool to see them jumping so close.

Thank you Captain of the dolphin sight seeing tour boat for taking our picture!

After the boat tour around the harbor, we headed back to the beach since the rain had stopped.  However, someone had turned the wind on high so we did not stay nearly as long as we wanted to before heading back to Sugar Land.

So much to look at when on the beach!

Loving the beach even in the wind and on a cloudy day!

The weather was not going to stop this kid from having an absolute blast!



Checking out the water and wet sand. 

Can you tell how windy it is?  My hair is crazy and the wind made you cold after having gotten wet.

Natalee, unlike the rest of the us loved the winda long with the water.

Smiles!  She loves the water!!!  Can't wait to get back to the beach in a few weeks.