We are on day four of our summer vacation. We left around 9 am Thursday morning for the 3 hour trip to Oklahoma City where we met up with Sherry and her family. The boys discussed who their favorite transformers were (Adam’s is Optimus Prime and Zach’s is Bumblebee, both part of the Autobots who are good transformers) and we played “I spy” and “20 questions.”

We ate lunch at Steve’s parents house and then everyone did a switcheroo with the traveling arrangements…I rode with Sherry, Katie and Matthew and Scott rode with Jake, Steve, Adam and Zach. It we pretty uneventful until Zach threw up in the car about 2 hours outside of Dallas. Then we hit rush hour in Dallas and that added about 30 minutes onto our already long trip. We made it to the hotel in Dallas where Zach stayed in the room with me, and everyone else went downstairs to eat. It was lucky that our room was right by the guest laundry because I had to wash Zach’s clothes and car seat cover. Yuck!

Friday, we headed out for Galveston. We stopped at a really cool rest stop that had lots of trees, and indoor eating area, playground, lake and nature trail. After we ate, the kids went over to the play ground to burn off some energy. I took Zach to the bathroom, and as we were walking back he stopped in and said “there’s something that hurts in my bottom” and dropped his drawers in the parking lot.

We arrived in Galveston around 4 pm and headed straight out to the water. The boys loved it…it was their first trip to the ocean. Dad went and scrounged up some food (pizza, salad and pasta) and we ate out on the deck overlooking the ocean. All the older kids (minus Matthew) slept in the same room which had bunk beds and two twin beds.

On Saturday, we headed out to the beach again both in the morning, and after rest time in the afternoon (we had to watch the space shuttle launch via internet first). We built a sandcastle and body surfed in the water. We had grilled chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner, with s'mores made from the fire of the grill. Then we went out crab hunting. The boys all donned their “headlamps” (lights on a stretchy cord that goes around your head) and we found some pretty big ones. They scurried about and tried to get away from us, while we all “eeked” and screeched as they hurried across our feet. A couple of the big ones made themselves look real big by standing up real tall and raising their pinchers.