Happy {belated} Valentine's Day from my little loves!

The Beach!! Winter break beach trip.

Quinn was out of school for winter break last week, so we spent Sunday through Tuesday night at the beach in Galveston.  I love, love, love the beach in chilly weather, and the kids love the beach in any weather, and Matt does not love the beach, but is a good sport and indulged us.  

We got to borrow a friend's condo which is across the seawall in town, so it was awesome to stay in Galveston and be so close to the beach!

Sunday afternoon/evening we hit the beach.  

My kids take off from the car toward the water like this:

The beach never disappoints my little naturalists in things to see and lessons to learn.  Here she and Daddy are checking out the bones of a dead fish.

Lots of tiny jellyfish along the beach this day.

 

Dad caught a crab.

We went back and the kids picked Denny's for dinner, which is somewhere Matt and I usually would not say yes to, so it was a fun treat, and eating breakfast for dinner after a chilly beach day hit the spot!

Our home, sweet, home for a few days.  The bottom, center condo.  

I was in love with the plants and shells and pretty beachy stuff around the condo.  

Like this guy in our bedroom!  Reminded me of swimming with the sea turtles in Hawaii.  

The kids were super excited to sleep in the bunkbeds.  It took them hours to fall asleep.  I am not kidding.  

She was thrilled that her bunk was about 6 feet high....We piled pillows under the edge just in case....

Monday we woke up to rain (which we were expecting...)  We spent the morning making breakfast and hanging out at the condo.  We didn't bring any toys or books or games or anything (on purpose), so we got creative and Mama made up a drawing game the kids loved.  

 Here they are with their drawings.  I gave them a vague category and they had to invent something that fit that category.

Then we donned our rainjackets and headed out to explore the Strand a bit.  We walked out to the cruise terminal to see the big ships, and also along the pier where all the ships and boats and yachts were hanging out.  

We went to a couple antique stores, an old book store and walked around a whole lot.  The bookstore was fun and quirky, but didn't have much of a children's selection or reptile books that pleased Quinn.  

Yep, true to form, here are my kids browsing the nonfiction animal section.

The alleys along the strand were so pretty wet and shiny!  The kids also picked up broken mardi gras necklaces from the parade the day before.  That was a super fun game for them!  Broken beads dug out of the gutter are way more exciting than the gazillion we have at home.  ;)

After not finding any great books at the bookstore, we stopped at the Goodwill and got several treasures!  The kids each got a few books (Beck was thrilled with a Curious George treasury different from the one we already have) and we also got a little magnetic hangman game that we played like crazy!  It was fun to get a few new books and a new game.  I think we will travel light more often!  

Matt took this picture on his drive from work back to the beach Monday night.  The sun was trying hard to peek through the clouds at sunset and it was GORGEOUS out!!

Here are the kids waiting for Daddy to get back from work....

Look at that rainbow!!  It was such beautiful light!!

 Tuesday the sun was out again...

 ...and we went to another beach.  This one was called "Shell Beach" and there were tons of shells.  Mostly broken, but we still picked up a ton!  The kids met two nice little boys they spent the whole time playing with.  I love when that happens, when we bump into sweet kiddos and our kids become pals instantly.

It was windy, so it stayed pretty chilly.  Of course my kids just layered up and THEN got soaked.  :)

 They caught tiny shiners in a bit of water that ran into the ocean.

We stopped by a gas station to get a few snacks for the beach and some ice, so she chose Chex mix and Beck chose Fritos.  The silly birds pecked open his bag and helped themselves to a few of his.  Luckily he doesn't mind sharing!  

We travel totally light to the beach.  A sheet, a couple towels and that is just about it.  I don't even really bring beach toys because I like my kids to be creative and resourceful and use the natural items around to play with...sticks, shells, feathers, etc.  Also we go totally low key with food.  Like using apple slices instead of a spoon for eating yogurt.  :)

 We brought all our finds home and used a few of them for our table centerpiece.

It was such a fun and relaxing time to get away and hang out together.  I am ready for our next beach trip already!!!