Vacation! Galvestion Day 3

On day 3 we drove around the island to explore and look at all the beach houses. We always enjoy looking at the bright colored houses and pointing out the ones that are architecturally interesting. At one point we got out to walk around and look at all the seaweed that had washed ashore. (At this point I switched back to using the DSLR)




Taking a picture of Morgan taking a picture of Astrid. :-) Astrid is so good natured to put up with Morgan and I whipping out our cameras and asking her to pose for us. Seriously, 'Strid, thanks for putting up with us!



Watch those funny faces sister, I have a fast shutter. ;-)

Astrid says I like flying rodents. (In response to my favorite birds being Seagulls and Grackles)

And for fun, a little creative processing:

Afterwards we went to Moody Gardens to see the aquarium.

I don't have any pictures of fish, but I do have a few pictures of an active little boy. Ethan was facinated with the lighting.

Dancing in the "shark cage".

Later that evening we stopped off at the tip of the island so that we could look for shells and watch the ships go by.

This shell was inhabited and as soon as the crab poked his head out to see what was going on he ducked back into the shell and started to blow bubbles.

My Mom and sisters picked up 26 different neat shells that appeared not to be inhabited.

I say "appeared" because when we got back to the hotel we heard a scratching noise from the bucket of shells in the bathroom. We found a crab and set him aside to return to the ocean. A little later we heard another one, and another....until as the evening went on we realized that we had 26 hermit crabs. That's right, every single shell had a crab in it!

So we loaded back up in the car at 10 PM and went on operation "Free Hermie" to return the hermit crabs to the ocean.

Vacation! Galveston Day 2

Despite a late night, Ethan woke up bright and early (though not quite as early as usual) and was ready to play! I can't speak for my sisters, but I felt ready to play as well. I think Astrid may have been a bit taken aback by how early her nephew likes to rise though. ;-)

After breakfast at the hotel we went out to the beach and spent 5 hours playing in the surf and sand.


Ethan taking a snack break. We are in the process of reintroducing milk into his diet (per his last visit with the allergist) and he can handle milk as an ingredient in foods now. He was so happy to be able to eat his "Lil' Crunchies" snacks again.

Just as soon as he came out from under our umbrella to play in the sun and water he decided he no longer wanted to wear his sun hat. lol.

Though if he had kept his hat on, I would have missed out on these adorable sandy baby curls. ;-)

Digging in the wet sand.

Sandy baby belly. He sure loved collecting seaweed!

Not sure how he managed to get away with his pacifier out there. Lets just say that we lost some ground on the paci battle while we were on vacation.

Ethan liked putting the muddy sand down his back, digging in sand, sifting it through his fingers and squishing it so that the water would run out and leave the sand dry.

He was lulled by the waves (and lack of nap) and was pretty quiet and content to sit and play.

In fact at one point he got so drowsy he decided to lean back and lay down in the waves. He sat up pretty quick when he remembered that he was in water!

I finally did win the sun hat battle. ;-)

Sweet tired out baby. Ethan after eating a late dinner at Salsa's Mexican food restaurant.

Vacation! Galveston Day 1

My Mom and sisters and I go on an annual girls vacation to Galveston around the same time that the men in our family go on their annual guys trip to Oklahoma for a scenario paintball game. The paintball game started as a tradition first but one year we decided that there wasn't any reason we girls should be at home while the men where gone so we started coming to Galveston. We love the beach!

Our vacation kicked off on Wednesday when my Mom and Astrid stopped by Dallas and then Thursday we carpooled to College Station for Morgan. On Friday our vacation officially began as we made the drive towards Galveston! Per our usual routine we ate a late lunch at Panera in Houston and arrived in Galveston around early evening on Friday. After checking in to the hotel, our first stop was the beach!

I didn't want to deal with sand, playing in the water and keeping up with a toddler along with protecting my camera so I brought my old Sony point-in-shoot camera to the beach. I still made every effort to protect it and it came away unscathed but I felt more comfortable bringing the camera that I've had around for 7.5 years than my DSLR.

This was Ethan's first trip to the beach and he was quite interested in the seaweed.

He wasn't quite sure what to think when he saw the waves washing on the shore.

He was a bit startled the first time the water washed over his feet and then receded. When the water receded and the sand shifted under his feet he almost lost his balance.

But he got over that really quick and decided that it felt pretty good.

He finally did loose his balance and plopped down in the sand. He wasn't bothered by it though, he just kept right on playing.

He was even unfazed by the waves splashing against him.

I can't decide if I like how these photos turned out or not.While having knowledge of f-stops and shutter speeds did allow me to push the old point-in-shoot a bit past its usual limits and get more out of it, I only had the option of shooting in jpeg mode (and there was no manual mode) and I'm used to having all the extra data that you can get with a RAW image. I definitely felt the limitations in my processing ability. Oh well, just because I can pinpoint exactly how things would have looked better and how the image would have been improved if I had been using my DSLR doesn't mean that I can't enjoy the images. I guess this is just the perfectionist in me coming out!

And in case you are curious, here is a before/after image:



We all had fun playing in the waves and Ethan loved the beach. I was actually quite surprised how much he enjoyed it. For a kid that usually goes to bed between 6:30 and 7:30 PM I was amazed that he managed to play and stay active and then stay up until  10/11 PM!