Galveston- Day 2

:CAUTION:

this post is EXTREMELY long. Read at your own risk.

(sorry this took so long to post, but I only had time to do a little a day and it's very long, so I hope you understand)

We started day 2 with a trip to the NOAA Sea Turtle Facility, which you can read more about, from my mom's blog here.

I prefer to post more pictures, than write, so that's what I'm going to do. :)

This little guy was one of my favorites. (I'm not sure why) :)

Michael and this one were kindred spirits, (as Anne of Green Gables would say) He came up out of the water and just stared up at Michael, then Michael proceeded to have a little conversation with him. :) It was pretty funny! (and very unexpected coming from Michael)

This one looked particularly angry to me.

This one was trying to escape.



After we saw the turtles, we headed over to the beach!

you can't really tell from the picture, but there was some crazy waves ( for Galveston, at least)


Michael, pretending to be cool. :)


I had this one in my first post about the beach, but I love it so much, I'm putting it up again! :D


Dad and Michael, reflecting. Ha.


Michael, teaching Aaron the ways of boogie boarding.


Aaron, working on the craft of sand castle building. (we had some issues getting the sand the right amount of wet-ness to mold well)


More building, different angle.


Aaron, with some of his castles.



After we left the beach, we went back over to the hotel to clean up. Then we decided to drive over and take the ferry that goes between Galveston and Bolivar(<--- a peninsula). I realized I hadn't put any pictures of Evan up, so here's a very interesting one of him, while we were waiting to get on the ferry. I told him to look excited... I think he captured that emotion well.

this picture isn't very good, but I thought it was pretty funny. It's the Galveston city limit sign, right out at the edge of the pier.

Now comes the interesting part of the day, for me, at least. At first I thought the idea of riding on a ferry would be fun... That all changed once we drove onto the boat. There is something very unsettling about driving onto a boat and entrusting it to drive you and your car across a peice of the ocean, along with lots of other cars. (including big 18-wheelers and school buses) Now, I am not a thrill seeker by any means and I would prefer to be on nice solid ground, if at all possible, so the reality of this terrifying situation (for me) was beginning to sink in and I did not like the feeling that was beginning to form in the pit of my stomach. This may seem like I am completely over reacting, (and looking back on it, I find it a little silly) but I could not escape being terrified as much as I wanted to.


Here's a picture my mom took, while we were loading the ferry. I was freaking out too much to take any pictures.



As we were waiting for the boat to pull off, everyone in the car could see I was not exactly excited, but they just told me to calm down. (thanks a lot)

I am almost done I promise.

This all to set you up for the pictures from the ferry ride, that your about to see, so please, stay with me.

Once we pulled away from the pier, they announced that you could get out of your car and walk around, so we did. Everyone else decided it would be fun to climb the very steep stairs to the top of the boat. This of course did not sound fun to me,(combining just another one of my fears, height) but alas, I followed my kin to the top of the boat. Now, once we climb to the top, everyone went outside on to the ledge, that went all the way around the boat. (I was not happy about this either.) There's only one picture of me, and I'm plastered up against the wall of the boat, just waiting for it to all be over. It's coming up.


The view from the top of the ledge. It's higher than it looks. I didn't take this either, by the way. I didn't even come close to taking a picture like this, but my mom, being the dare devil she is, was taking all kinds of pictures off the edge.


Dad, Michael and Evan, Enjoying the ride.


And this is me, plastered to the wall, pretending to be happy. Aaron doesn't look too happy either, but I think he was upset by the birds that were attacking us. (pictures of that coming)


Aaron did warm up and was hangin' over the edge before we were done. I was not so lucky.


Now for the Birds (seagulls to be exact), the other part of this ride that was very unpleasant.

You see there were two ladies (looked like a mother and a daughter) that decided it would fun to feed the seagulls, while up on the terrifying ledge. I did not agree.

The culprits, caught in the act.


Again.


They seemed to enjoy it. Crazies.


This was not zoomed in at all, they were really right over us like this.


This one is only funny cause it looks like the bird is on my dads back.


Once we got to Bolivar, we weren't sure if there was anything to do, but we all knew we didn't want to get right back on another ferry. So we just drove around a bit and ended up finding a super cool old military base (Fort Travis), that was used in world war 1 and 2. They had turned it in to a park, but all the old batteries were still there. It was really cool and I took a ton of pictures.

These are some pictures I took out on the seawall.





I found this sign a little amusing. You can see it in the black and white above too.

A view of a one of the batteries. If you look close you can see the rest of the family already over there... none of them were quite as enthusiastic about taking pictures of this place as I was.

A self portrait in the middle of the giant field. As you can see, I'm in a much better mood now. :)

Here's some cool black and white ones of one of the batteries...






Me and Aaron. Poor guy looks exhausted and he was.

But he did enjoy running through the big open fields, he even said when we were saying what our favorite parts of the trip were he said, "I really liked walking around that park with mom." There's something about wide open spaces that he feels totally comfortable in. I think it's that it's not confining in any way, he could just run and run with out having to stop or turn around and go back.

A part of the big open field. It was a lovely day.

My shadow and big open field.


We stopped by one more battery before we were done.

This made me think of that place where they hide in "The Sound of Music".

Of course, we took some pictures of the palm trees.

The ferry ride home was much better than the first. In fact it was rather pleasant. (what???!) You see, everyone decided against going back to the top, (which I of course I didn't argue with). Instead we decided to go to the front of the boat, which in it self wouldn't be that amazing, but there were dolphins - yes dolphins! I think if anything could have made that ride better, it was dolphins. So we rode all the way back, resting on the front of the boat, the breeze blowing, watching the dolphins jump out of the water, the sun was even setting. It was rather fun and definitely made up for the first ride.

My mom tried, but couldn't manage to get any picture of the dolphins, but here are some of the ones she took on the way back.

Everybody, (except mom) enjoying the ride.

A view off the boat.

This is michael's gps thing he brought along. He kept it on while we rode the ferry and it showed us driving across water. It was pretty funny.


sunset-end of day 2.

Just one more story... Day 2 ended with the realization that we all had gotten some of the worse sun burns of our lives, at the beach. Needless to say day 2 ended with lots and lots of aloe vera gel. It was a good day though, definitely the best of the trip.


Well, if your reading this you have either...

1. Read this entire post! In which case a big congratulations are in order. CONGRATULATIONS!

or...

2. You have skipped down to the bottom to see how it finally ends and see what comments, if any, were left. And I don't blame you at all.

This post was extremely long and if it had been me, I probably wouldn't have read the whole thing. I would rather tell the whole story, (in chronological order of course) or not tell it at all. I hope you understand. I'm very sorry, but this is probably the longest post I will ever do and I usually try to keep my post short and not too wordy, but it was a VERY long day. Definitely the longest day in Galveston. Day 3's post wont be long at all, thanks to the killer sun burns. OK, I just had to explain myself. I'm gonna stop now, since I managed to make even the ending long. :)

Galveston- Day 1

I've decided to do a blog for each of the days we were in Galveston (because it's just easier to tell stories and decide on pictures that way), so naturally I will start with day one, which is mostly driving, but still some fun pictures....

The gloomy start to our day.

I took a lot of pictures with Aaron. He just recently started letting people take his picture, so I wanted get some cute ones in the car.

He even did a silly face! I was so excited!

Michael ignoring me.

Michael made me take a picture of this Ferrari, but as soon as I took it he sped away really fast. (I think he thought we were crazy) It was pretty funny!

Watching Toy Story on my ipod :)

Downtown Houston

Coming into town we saw this news van, I guess reporting on the super crowded beach, 'cause of memorial day. I was just excited because it said 'eyewitness news' on the side, which of course made me immediately think "live from Jericho!" haha good ol' children's musicals. :)

We didn't do much once we got to the hotel. We were all pretty pooped from driving all day, but Aaron and Evan managed to get some pool time in, while my mom and I took some pictures.

Evan, jumping in the pool.

Michael, relaxing pool side.

Aaron, jumping.

Aaron, chillin' in the pool.

Some pretty flowers in a flower bed right near the pool....

sunset- end of day one

We ended our day with some poker. (for Michael, Evan, my dad and me, at least)

No pictures of that, sorry.

all in all not too bad a drive for being a holiday and we were all very excited to go to the beach the next day!

stay tuned..... :)