Houston and the Beach

This past week we took a short trip down to Houston to visit our friends Lauren and Karl.  We hadn’t spent much time with them lately (since they live down there and we’re up here), so I was excited to get to spend time with them.  Keller’s switching to a new shift at work and had a 5 day break that we used for our escape.

We drove down late Friday night after Keller got off work.  Kamy was a great traveler (as usual) and slept until Huntsville where we stopped to change and feed her.  She went right back into the car seat and quickly fell asleep again … all the way to Houston!  She makes traveling so much easier than it could be.

Saturday we went down to Galveston with Karl to poke around.  There was a shrimp festival going on on the Strand but once we finally figured out where we were supposed to be, it was complete chaos and we couldn’t figure out how to sample the gumbo.  Calling it a lost cause, we had a tasty lunch at the Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant.

After lunch we poked around some of the historic buildings and then went to the beach.  We didn’t really plan to get all the way in the water, but Daddy and McKamy made it work.  She loves the beach!  The waves are so interesting and it’s a ton of fun to grab handfuls of sand and try to get them to our mouth before Daddy catches us.  I think we managed to keep most of the sand out of her digestive system!  Hehe.

Just arriving:

Venturing out into the water:

Feeling the waves come in:

Sand!

“No, you can’t eat that …”

She also loved showing off how great she is at walking.  She’s going to be mobile so soon it’s scary!

Sunday we just spent a relaxing day at the house with Karl and grabbed lunch at a local Chinese restaurant.  That evening we met up with Keller’s friend from high school, Andrew, and his family.  It had probably been 6 or 7 years since we last saw Andrew so it was quite a treat to visit with them.  They treated us to a great dinner in their home and we really enjoyed visiting and watching their girls play with McKamy. All three girls conked out before we left … I think we wore them out!

Monday Lauren and I spent some girl time getting our toes done and shopping.  Then we ate lunch at the house and headed back down to Galveston with Lauren and Karl.  While we were down there on Saturday we tried to tour a historic home.  Unfortunately all the tours at 3pm were sold out.  When we came back Monday afternoon we had our own private tour!  The Bishop’s Palace was a really neat building and was so impressive.  Kamy was her usual happy self and happily rode in the Baby Bjorn for the entire tour.

Next stop?  The beach again!  This time we planned ahead and brought towels and wore our swim suits.  The weather was much cooler, so the water definitely had a chill to it.  There were pretty significant waves coming in from the storm down in the Gulf.  Kamy had fun holding on to me while in the waves and then playing on the sand.

Talking about the beach:

Such a happy face!

Tuesday we went to the George Ranch Historical Park to tour four historic buildings and get an idea of how life was in Texas in the 1830s – 1930s.  We spent 3.5 hours at the park and came back to Lauren and Karl’s house for dinner and to pack up.  We hit the road right at 7pm and made it home around midnight with just one stop for Miss Kamy.

Thanks for being such a great traveler love!  We’ll definitely take more trips soon.  We all had a great time.

Waiting at Walmart and taking a break from the Adventure Seat:

Many thanks to Lauren and Karl for hosting us for 4 full days.  We loved spending time with you both and appreciate you opening your home to us.