Back Tracking

I can't believe it's been over a month and a half since I last posted a blog. I have LOTS of catching up to do. I won't bore you with one EXTREMELY LONG post so I'm going to spread all our events over a few days of posts.
Last time I blogged we were about to head out on our family vacation to Galveston, Texas. We left here on June 13 and came back on June 19. We had a wonderful time at the beach. The girls had a blast playing on the beach in the sand and splashing in the water. I wondered how Macy would do because the last time we went to the beach she wasn't too fond of the sand getting on her feet. This time she was ALL ABOUT the sand and getting dirty. We built lots of sand castles, hunted for crabs, looked for sea shells, and took lots of long walks along the shore. The adults even played a game of touch football, soccer, and even a mean game of sand hopscotch. The football game turned a little rough. On one occasion I was rushing the quarterback (Kristie) and tripped and ended up tackling her. Then I was trying to touch tackle their 15 year old son who plays football and he jucked (sp) one way and headed the opposite way causing me to plant my foot in the sand and go down straight on my face. Not cool for this old crippled girl. We stayed up late every night playing cards/board games and slept till we woke up sometimes not until 11:00am. It was awesome. We had a blast.

Here's a glimpse of our vacation. Ready to vacation with us?

Macy helped make a lemon cake...It was SO yummy. We ate

NON STOP.

Macy and Kaleigh making the cake together. Kaleigh is our neighbors oldest daughter. Isn't she beautiful?

Our first day on the beach.

Macy being her normal SASSY self. This picture looks hazy but it's only because the camera had been in the house in the A/C and when I went outside it fogged up. It's still cute nonetheless.

Madeline and her best friend, Rachel, deciding to get in the water or not.

They can't take a picture without "posing".

Playing so nice in the water and sand together.

My happy family on the beach playing together.

One thing that we do every time we go to Galveston is ride the ferry. The kids look forward to feeding the seagulls bread on the back of the ferry. However, you have to be VERY careful. Imagine a TON of seagulls flying overhead, eating bread. You are bound to get some form of bodily bird fluid on you. Poor Mark (our neighbor) got it this trip.

Thanks for the good laugh Mark.

Here is what the ferry's look like.

Here's our "CREW" waiting to board the ferry.

Madeline and Rachel. They are like sisters.

Sweet Little Macy passed out in the car on the way to the ferry. We did wake her up once we were on board. She would have been so sad to have missed it.

Me and my mini me waiting. I love this picture of us. Even if I do have my sunglasses on.

Hubs and Macy right after we woke her up. She was so excited to see the hundreds of seagulls flying overhead.

Here they are feeding the birds.

What a nice looking family.

There is one mini golf place on the island and I think the kids and the hubby's went there 3-4 times. It was cheap entertainment and it took them a couple of hours to play. It was a couple hours that me and Kristie had alone on the beach soaking up the suns rays. There was only a few minor incidents while they played. One trip Macy got mad and THREW her club (she takes after her daddy) and on another trip Rachel smacked Madeline in the eye with her club. HA! All in all they had a blast.

Madeline putting on the last hole.

This is the first hole and this ant squirts water out of it's mouth. When I walked by it the first time it scared me and I nearly broke my ankle when I jumped. HA!

Kaleigh and Colby (neighbors) acting their normal goofy teenage self's.

I loved this picture of Macy. Isn't she beautiful?

One thing we always try to do is have a "Date Night" with NO KIDS. This time we chose to go to Kemah. Kemah is a boardwalk with shopping, tons of restaurants, entertainment, and rides. They have an aquarium too. It's a nice place to go for a few hours and just walk around especially with no kids in tow. Last year when we came we brought the kids and had a blast but it was nice to enjoy it with just adults. Thanks to Kaleigh for watching the kids.

Dressed up and ready to go out for the night.

With our best friends/neighbors, Mark and Kristie. These two are truly GOD SENDS. I can't imagine my life without the two of them in it. I never want to move because if I do I'd have to bring them with me. We love them.

In Kemah

You never know when you might run into Spongebob.

He tried to eat me. HA!

Look at this cutie......We always love trying on all the silly sunglasses in the surf shops. We get good laughs.

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This part of the post is the Before and After section. As you know, last year Galveston was hit by Hurricane Ike. I was still shocked at some of the devastation left from the storm. Enjoy the before and afters.

The beach house we stay in suffered quite a bit of damage on the bottom half and had already had some repairs done to it. Thankfully, nothing was damaged inside. However, the beach is now their backyard. See what a mean.

BEFORE:


This picture was taken from down on the beach. There once was about a 10 foot sea wall and about 200 yards (at least) to the beach from the house.


This is the bridge that took you down to the beach.


AFTER:


There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to the house and you can see that the beach is right up to the house.

This is a pier that was right off the sea wall.

BEFORE:



AFTER:

It is no longer there. Instead this is what it looks like.

Here are just some pictures of some of the damage that is still waiting to be repaired.

This is the house right next to the house we stay in. It looks A LOT worse in person but you can still see a lot of the damage it sustained.

This is the new Murdocks. The last was just as big and GONE. AMAZING!

Another popular place on the east end of the island. On Stewart Beach.

This is the famous Flagship hotel. It has been there a long time.

Can you see in the top left the bed and mirror?

Here's a truck stuck on a fishing pier.

It's just amazing how much damage water can do. It's scary to think what those people were going through. Thankfully it wasn't worse than it was.

I leave you with our group effort of making a sand castle.

Thanks for sticking with me. We have been so busy but I need to take the time to update more. Next update will be about our 4th of July and there will be a post you won't want to miss. It just shows how GREAT our GOD is. Stay tuned.