A Much-Needed Vacation

If you have a close relationship with your mom, you need to go on vacation with her.

Backing up a bit, this week-long trip to Galveston started out in my mind as just a weekend in a secluded cabin or B&B by myself. That's what I wanted for my 30th birthday. A responsibility-free weekend where I could take my Bible and scrap stuff and not worry about anything else. Sound like a good weekend to anybody else?

I started planning back in May and then pondered the idea of going to the beach instead of a cabin.

John had the brilliant idea of using our timeshare to go to the beach. That would be much less expensive. Of course, our timeshare is for a whole week and I didn't want to leave the kids with John by himself all week, plus I wouldn't want that much alone time anyway. Then another thought popped into my head. Why not take Mom with me? She loves the beach almost as much as I do and I would love that one-on-one time with her!

We went about the business of finding an available place and time. Too bad all the resorts for our timeshare in Galveston (best beach within driving distance) were completely booked until the second week in September. My birthday is in July! But then we thought, what a perfect time for the beach! No crowd, still plenty warm. Perfect. I chose to put off my birthday until September. 30 could wait.

The plan was set. Mom would drive down on Friday, pick me up and we'd check in that night. Then John would bring the kids down on Monday night and we'd all go back Thursday night. I still got my responsibility-free weekend plus the bonus of having my mom there, and John and the kids would get a vacation at the beach, too!

So that's what we did. We stayed at the Silverleaf's Seaside Resort on the southwest end of the island. Fewer crowds down there than in the main part of Galveston. So nice! My only complaint was that there were tons of mosquitoes around the condo. Once we crossed the street to the beach, they were gone, but we literally ran from our door to the car to avoid getting bitten. Then once we were safely inside the car, we'd kill the 5-7 that sneaked in while the doors were open!

Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings were all the same. Sleep-in (you know, like 7:30!), fix ourselves breakfast, take our coffee to the beach, lay around the beach until around noon. I couldn't think of any better way to spend my vacation! I brought my Ladies Bible Class study (Beth Moore's Esther) to the beach each morning and got two weeks done without any interruptions!

We had everything we needed: camera, towels, pillows, sunscreen, coffee, water, snacks, Bible study, other books to read, and each other! Thankfully, there were beach chairs out there that we claimed each morning!


Saturday around noon is when we saw our only rain. Other than that it was either sunny or overcast. Both were perfect.


We almost always went into town for lunch. We'd clean up after being at the beach all morning, put on something cute and head into town. We tried to find the very best seafood around, and I think we decided that Gaido's won that contest.

We also ate at Avery's Cafe, The Spot, Rainforest Cafe' (when the kids got there--more on that later), Nate's and a Mexican restaurant whose name eludes me at the moment. I'd recommend them all except Nate's.

Afternoons were nap and scrap time. Between the two of us, we did a lot of both! When the kids got there, we kept nap time, but alas, I had to keep my scrap stuff picked up for obvious reasons.

We also got plenty of shopping and sightseeing in, hitting the Strand and the Moody Gardens Aquarium.

Most suppers we cooked in our condo or ate leftover from our huge lunches! Or just snacked because of our huge lunches!

So we saved going to the Rainforest Cafe' until the kids got there, knowing they would just love it. All the sights and sounds ... we knew it'd be perfect. See?


Enjoy the few other pictures here. The rest are on Facebook, in case you haven't seen them already!
Again, I highly recommend taking a vacation with your mom. I wouldn't trade the time we had together for anything!