Preschool Vacation in Galveston

We’re lucky enough to be able to stay in Galveston for the week. This is the first time the kids have gotten to see the beach and play on it. They’ve been really enjoying it.

We spent the first day just playing on the beach, digging, building sandcastles, and finding lots of “treasures.”

We ran in and out of the ocean. The boys loved playing in there, and decided it was fun to fight the waves. Princess was quite sure she didn’t really want to go in them. She would grudgingly go in to clean her hands, and that’s it.

When we got back they had lots of fun going through and organizing the shells they found. About 30 seconds into it, they had to know why there are shells. So, I explained about where shells came from, and that little animals live in them. Then we talked about how the different shells could be matched up. And how some animals liked to eat the animals in the shells, and the shells protected them.

The next excursion to highlight. We found a jetty of huge boulders, that was just begging to be explored. (And this is in no chronological order).

So we walked down the sidewalk for a while (we weren’t really wearing shoes meant for the beach, this was one of those impromptu excursions that comes up).

Princess as always went at her own pace. I really like pictures of the kids walking I”ve come to realize. Especially pictures of Princess and her Dad walking together.

The boys had lots of fun leaping from boulder to boulder once they got used to it and figured out that they wouldn’t fall through the cracks.

Princess occupied her usual post on Daddy’s shoulders, and was quite happy.

And we can’t seem to have a vacation without some kind of accident. This time Batman was running in a store and did an impressive face plant that made a massive gouge in his face.

So, after spending 10 minutes trying to mop it up and realizing that our first aid kit was not up to snuff. We went to the ER…. I was super impressed with the Galveston ER, they got us back into examination before we finished filling out paperwork, and the nurse was already figuring out how to best treat him. Batman did really good and didn’t freak out too much as they cleaned it out and then glued it together.

The Hottest Coolest Time in Texas! Schlitterbahn!

I grew up in Texas and spent every summer going to the original Schlitterbahn at least once a summer since I was 12 years old, so that hmmm hmmmm years going. So, I’ll tell you right now I’m prejudiced towards Schlitterbahn.

So, Schlitterbahn Galveston has an indoor area that’s open year round, actually the indoor season started this weekend. And we had a blast.

There was a pool area there for little kids with a giant pirate ship and lots of places to slide down.

Batman had a lot of fun driving the pirate ship. That was of course before he discovered that he could go down the slide forever and ever and ever. Then he figured out how to be a crocodile.

Princess refused to go down any of the slides. Towards the end of the day we spent a lot of time in this area. I think one of my proudest moments was when the kids started acting out “5 Little Monkeys Playing in a Tree.” It was so incredibly cute.

Here’s one of the few pictures of me you get to see. I talked Princess into going down the slide with me. She was horridly mad at me afterwards.

Hurricane Ike came through here a couple of years ago, and I was super amused by this picture, showing the water level coming up to about 4 feet high.

Okay, so I think every waterpark nowadays has a lazy river of some sort. I think that this is the coolest one I’ve been on. The water level goes from 1? to 78.” There’s about 3 different areas where a wave machine pushes through the waves and it actually has serious waves. Princess loved this! It was really fun to see her giggling like crazy because she usually doesn’t like water like this.

Sigh, but we’re still struggling with her being a brat about going to her Daddy, silly girl.

Oh, and funny thing. Our kids are picking up my speech habits, and have started calling me “Silly Mommy” when they think I”m doing something silly like I do to them.

So, this really isn’t related to this picture, but I didn’t have a camera while we went down tube chute. Superman LOVES tube rides. I”m so happy, and can’t wait to take him to the original Schlitterbahn which has so many tube rides. This was probably my second proudest mopment of the day. Sigh, so many fond memories.

And when you’re in a wave pool, what would you do? If it’s my boys, you fight the waves and punch them.

We had a complete and total blast, and I can’t wait for many more fun days at Schlitterbahn.

What preschool looked like on vacation

Truthfully this was more a week of catching what was thrown than deliberate learning.

Bottom right: We worked on fine motor skills in preparation for writing with lots of coloring. Superman loves to color, I think that’s why like worksheets so much, because at this age, so much of it is coloring. Of course now that I look at the picture more clearly I see this is actually Batman. This particular activity was drawing a picture of something we’d done….. Ummmm…. apparently we ran into a lot of knights and bad guys. After they illustrated the picture they gave me a caption and helped spell the words as I sounded it out. This leads to interesting spelling, but it’s a good begining reading activity.

Top right: We practiced writing letters in the sand. I really liked this activity because they thought it was fun and started it all by themselves. And Superman decided he had a new name spelled “BPELT. That spells Bone Guy.”

Oh, and they read TAG books like crazy. Apparently Superman read his “Star Wars” book for 43 minutes.

We went and looked at Old Houses. There we learned that it is extremely hard to keep 3 preschoolers patient to walk through. The kids also got to look at the different ways people lived 100 years ago.

We went to the Rain Forest Cafe and learned about rain forest animals. We talked about the fish there, and how the animals are scared by the thunder storm, and why they’re scared. Yes, almost anything you do can be a learning experience.

I include this picture (middle bottom) pretty much only because I like it. It looks cool. I really enjoyed Rain Forest Cafe, but did think the prices were a little high, but it was fun.

Bottom left: We collected shells to sort. We’ll be doing lots more stuff with these this week. I have so many ideas!

Top left and middle: We took a walk on the beach at night and collected seashells. When you’re 2, it is a lot of work to balance on the shifting sands. We climbed rocks and really got to work on our balance, and occasionally my heart rate.

Bishop’s Palace

So, we went to the Bishop’s Palace in the morning. The kids did great trailing through the 100-plus-year-old mansion they’re not allowed to touch anything in. REALLY great job. What better way to reward a great job than to take them mini-golfing?

Okay, I really want to tell the Bishop Palace bits I can.

We waited outside for 20 minutes or so, and the kids had lots of fun checking out the stairs and how much they can go up and down.

So Superman, pictured above on the stairs, has started sharing his wisdom with us, we’ve started calling it “The Tao of Superman.” As he was carefully walking up and down the stairs he told us “You go downstairs slowly, so you don’t fall down and get an owie.” We also got, “You got to be a little careful, so you don’t fall down and get an owie like Batman.” He also has now started telling us, “Hey guys! I got a plan!” Then he’ll tell me his plan, and it usually is a pretty good plan and well thought out.

And we stopped to get lunch because it was 1:00 something, and that meant Ticia needs food. And, the foyer of the restaurant had these cool carousel statues. Does anyone else find carousels as fascinating as I do? I took about 7 pictures of these horses, they’re just cool.

OKAY, NOW TO MINI-GOLF FOR REAL.

I love to go put-putting but sadly there are no really good courses in Austin. I was lamenting this point about the lack of good courses when Jeff named 3 courses in the Austin area proving me wrong. Sigh….

Here’s how you play mini-golf if you’re a preschooler.

1. Keep hitting the ball over and over again, never let it come to a complete stop.

2. If all else fails pick up the ball and drop it in the hole of the animal/building, you name it.

3. Oh, and of course swing your club like it’s a croquet mallet or a polo club.

4. If you fit inside of the hole, then you of course need to stand there. Regardless of this causes problems for whoever is trying to put.

5. If the windmill is in your way, then just stop the windmill and run in the house.

Meanwhile, Daddy is actually trying to golf correctly, and that’s not working super well with the extra help.

And how cool is this, the place has a cave. That and one of the holes was a pirate ship. This is the coolest golf course ever! Really.

So, I can’t tell if the pictures are blurry because I don’t have my glasses on or because it’s blurry. Hmmm, maybe that’s why I”m supposed to be wearing glasses.

TOMORROW, WE’RE GOING TO VISIT MOODY GARDENS.