Galveston: Sea Wolf Park

The beach and pool were fabulous but we wanted to see the sights too!  We read about Sea Wolf Park that housed the USS Cavalla, a WWII submarine and the USS Stewart, a WWII Destroyer Escort - one of only two surviving in the US.  The destroyer escort was sunk and sat deteriorating in the ocean so they decided to bring it up and restore it.


This ol' destroyer didn't impress me much.  I can appreciate the fact that it served it's duty and many many men (and women?!) are owed my gratitude for fighting to protect our county.  BUT there wasn't much in there, everything was metal and painted grey and frankly their decorator should be fired.  They needed some dang curtains or maybe a picture or two on the walls.  Plus it was HOT HOT HOT and Alaina was about as impressed as me.  So between our un-impressed-ness (like that word?!) and the endless teeny tiny stair-ladders everywhere - the girl and I waited in the shadow of the crow's nest while Josh and Joseph explored it.

Excuse me while I itch my back on this huge missle. 

On it's maiden voyage, the USS Cavalla sunk a 30,000 ton Japanese aircraft carrier. 

The USS Cavalla sub on the other hand was SUPER cool!  It was mind blowing to think about how it operated.  Every single wall and space and nook and cranny was a dial or wheel to turn or switch to flip or missile to explode.  Then behind one area of dials and pipes and vents and switches, there was a whole other section of it.  The main thoroughfare was a tiny little walkway down the middle with machinery on either side of you , so with the massiveness of the sub from the outside, you can imagine how much of the interior was filled with these inner workings. It is essentially one huge engine that sailors happen to eat and sleep in.

It was very intimidating gazing at the missiles knowing that war is so ugly and devastating.  I kept feeling a sense of pride and amazement mixed with the eeriness of it all.      

It was all very industrial.  This vessel too could use a decorator.  ;)

The rear missile launch bay.  Those suckers were HUGE.

The galley had these wonderfully vintage tables and upholstery.  I loved it!  The game boards are painted on each table.  It screamed Americana. 

Joseph was equally impressed by the USS Cavalla and decided we needed to take a quick cruise.  They declined his offer to Captain the sub, though.

Now...let's hit the beach!  

Galveston 2012! Part I...

We were all sooooooooooo excited to take a trip to the beach as a family this summer.  This is the stuff memories are made of! We had a surprisingly good time...I was prepared for the worst (just in case!) and hoped for the best, and the trip ended leaving us all wanting more. 

We made the drive successfully and without incident.  It did take about an hour longer than we planned for but that's not bad considering, and now we know to wait a short while after Joseph says he needs to go to the bathroom before we actually pull off the highway.  Because sometimes when you pull over, it turns out he may not actually need to go.

 

We drove into town ready for dinner and tried out the only Galveston restaurant over the water.  The kids loved watching the ocean while we ate and Josh and I enjoyed our first vacation breaths of that wonderful ocean smell...and let the city and daily stress melt away.

At our condo, we weren't directly on the ocean but still had a wonderful view!  Our condo was beautiful and newly renovated with beautiful finishes and was decorated like a page out of a catalog.

I was really surprised that there was enough light from the moon to capture this beautiful shot!  We spent our evenings after the kids were in bed on our huge patio.

On the night that I took the moon pictures, we sat and sipped our drinks and each had our iphones out googling Galveston.  We talked and shared the history of the city with each other and I was surprised to find out that before the "Big Hurricane" of 1900, Galveston was considered to be the Wall Street of the South!  It was a huge part of the country's economy and was rich with both money and culture.  Who knew?  We shared the history of the storms that have hit the island and it fascinates me how devastating it can be.  Of course there were beaucoup of images online and it's amazing how the city has rebuilt and recovered after being destroyed.    

The next morning we hit the pool before Alaina's nap time.  This was her first dip in a pool!  It took her several minutes to get used to it, then she floated around with us like second nature.  They had a great pool and what was even better (only because we happen to have a four year old boy) was that there was a construction site just feet away from the pool!  We got to watch dump trucks, diggers and the whole nine yards while we swam.  Good thing that our unit was on the other end of the building though, or it really wouldn't have been cool at all. 

 

The beach was typical Galveston...brownish sand and mountains of seaweed...and completely fabulous to this family.  We even learned the coolest trick from our beach neighbors when I saw them shaking the heck out of seaweed over and over.  When I started chatting with them, they told us that you can shake out all kinds of stuff hiding out in there!  We started shaking our own seaweed and found all kinds of little mini shrimp, fish, and softshell crab.  They even had a little tiny blowfish in theirs!  Joseph especially loved hunting for crabs and dug a little tidepool to play with them.  Josh and Joseph could have hunted for them all day. 

Both of the kids loved the sand and surf.  It took Joseph just a while to get the hang of how the waves worked, but once Josh showed him how to turn sideways to cut the wave, and to jump the small ones, he was a pro.  We ended up with sand in every nook and cranny but is it really the full experience without it?!

Our condo had a dining table nook with a bed above it.  It was very innovative!  No one slept up there this time, but Joseph had a blast playing and hanging out on the bed during the day.  It's not everyday you get to drive your cars on the ceiling! 

Vacation makes us happy!

Another view from our living room window.

We took a big canopy/tent for some shelter from the sun.  It was a total pain and piece of poop though, and after setting it up the first day - I about wanted to set it on fire.  We popped in to Academy on the Seawall and purchased a new one that was a pop-up variety.  It was still very cumbersome but oh so worth it.  

The first day on the beach when Alaina would wander out from under our shelter, I must have looked like a fool following her around with an umbrella so she wouldn't get too much sun.  Even with her swim shirt on, I was a mess thinking she was going to get burned.  The umbrella made me feel better and if anyone laughed, I just kicked sand at 'em.  

Sweet Joseph ran and ran and ran and kicked water and built sandcastles and ran some more and laughed and had so much fun.  It was really worth all the packing and long drive, and "sight-seeing" in the truck so Alaina could nap cause she couldn't settle down in a new place for nap time, and the stomping overhead in our condo from the neighbors at all hours of the night and day, and the airport landing strip a few miles behind our building, and sand in my nook and especially in my cranny, and the uncountable applications of sunscreen...to see Joseph at the big wide ocean for the first time.

Then on our last day, we realized we didn't have a picture of all of us on the beach.  After we loaded the truck we headed back to the beach one last time to snap a quick shot, take in the salty air and say goodbye.  Gosh, am I getting a little misty eyed writing this?  Just when I didn't think I was quite far enough out from this trip to be ready for another one, I think I might be wishing we were there again. 

Off to the Museum

Little Joseph had been talking a lot about going to the 'dinosaur museum'.  We all love a good museum in this family, so we packed up the car and headed down to the Museum of Science and Nature & History at Fair Park.  Although very short on dinosaurs, we still had a dino-rific good time.

Would you like a tour of the dino fossils?!  It was pretty fab.  Get ready...

...and....there you go!

Like I said, really short on dinos but still cool.  Actually there were a few more fossils and a wonderful exhibit of gems and rocks that we really enjoyed. Josh and I have always really enjoyed geology and it looks like we are passing our love for it on to the younger generation.   

Josh had a rock collection growing up so we thought it would be fun to start Joseph on one also.  We visited the gift shop on the way out to pick out a few cool ones for him, and they had a great selection.  Joseph is really excited to have his own rock collection!

The Children's Museum on the lower level is too cute and I always love playing down there.  I'm sure just as much as Joseph does!  He loves firetrucks and this little area had stuff to dress up in too.

If you ask him about it, he says "I know all about firetrucks."  He can't actually tell you anything about firetrucks, but darn he's cute anyway.

By the way, this post is only a little about dinosaurs and museums...and a little about fashion, of course.  Pictured here, Alaina is sporting her new favorite dress that my mom made her.  But not only is it made by her sweet Gigi, but it's made with decades old vintage fabric that was my great grandmothers!  I grew up seeing that fabric stashed away in my mom's sewing cabinet.  Seeing it on Alaina now is cooler than words can express. (And it's reversible!)

Our trip to the museum was back when Alaina was still doing this monkey walk.  Now she is off and running and trying her hardest to keep up with Joseph.

Alaina loves on anything fuzzy and soft.  She hugged on this little rocking horse and made everyone around us say "awwww"!  It was cute!

I am the best slide walker ever.  I totally forgot about it since Joseph was this age and we walked the plastic slide in our backyard time after time. I've perfected the technique and can last for hours as long as I don't need to use the bathroom.  I'm a hit at the park.

Now this is what I remember from 'The Science Place' before they started calling it History and Science, or Nature and History and Science or what-ev they say these days. Back when Old City Park was still Old City Park, and Starplex was still Starplex.  Anyway, I digress...

This is the fabulous light wall in all it's glory.  For those of you (surely no one though, right?) who wonder exactly what is going on here, this is a photosensitive wall that flashes a bright light after you get in the most funny, insane, or awkward position you can - then you step back and all get to laugh at the shadow of your wife doing THAT crazy pose when she didn't know you were taking a picture. 


I'd say the day was a success...even if for that picture alone.  :)