Moody Gardens Part 2

Monday morning Jackson woke up around 7 o'clock so that is when the day began. We ate breakfast in the room and watched cartoons until Palm Beach opened. We made the short walk from our room to the beach and it was very much a repeat of the day before.The beach was a lot less crowded today which meant more room in the wave pool for Jackson to swim.
There is a Splash Pad attached to Palm Beach. Brian took Jackson over to play at the "big" Splash Pad (compared to the one Jackson is used to) while I floated around the lazy river.
We made our way back to the slides, and Jackson was all about going down all by himself again!

I left the boys to play in the sand a little longer while I went back to clean up. Then we all headed down to lunch. I really loved saying, "Charge it to the room!"

Since Dora and Diego's 4-D movie was a hit the night before, we decided to go see it again. This time I remembered the camera:)

Jackson loved wearing his "sunglasses"!

From there we went to check out the Rain forest Pyramid. They just finished a new project inside the Rain forest. You now can walk through the canopy level and look down to the Rain forest floor. It was beautiful and really cool. I actually felt like we were in the Rain forest! There were even some animals roaming freely around.However it was 115 degrees on the top level, so we walked rather quickly through the top level! No joke, I saw the thermometer. Our camera even fogged up from all the humidity.Before we even went into the Rain forest Jackson kept saying he wanted to see the alligators. Good thing we found some!Not many of the pictures I took inside turned out well because of the camera. I just kept looking and lingering around thinking how incredible everything looked.

The resort had flags flying everywhere for the 4th of July. We headed back to put Jackson down for his nap.
Today during his nap I went to work out and Brian stayed with Jackson watching TV. We had some family snuggle time when Jackson woke up. He is pretending to be sleeping in this picture:)

Since I loved the Rain forest so much and wanted to try to get a few good pictures inside, we went back. We flew through the top level and kept the camera in Brian's pocket in order to avoid it fogging up again.

Beautiful scenery!
Then, we went straight to Palm Beach and stayed until closing time. For dinner we went back to the same restaurant as lunch and dinner the night before. We sat in the same spot and had the same waiter. I even order the same thing! Our waiter got a really nice tip due to technical error.:)
We walked around a bit, Jackson jumped in the bounce house, and then the boys went swimming in the hotel pool. It way way to cold for me. Jackson was excited because he could touch in one area.

After swimming, we went and got some ice cream. Jackson had cookies and cream with sprinkles!

I think he liked it! Sugar before bed is always a great thing!

It was another great day at Moody Gardens, and I think we all crashed within minutes of laying down.

Moody Gardens Part 1

This year we decided not to take any "big" vacations and just stay close to home. We thought Moody Gardens would be a great place to take Jackson and it turned out to be pretty much perfect!
We left Sunday morning made a quick stop at Panera to grab breakfast and then headed on down to Galveston. We want to arrive right around 10 o'clock because we booked the Explore package which meant we could use our tickets for two whole days. There was no traffic on a Sunday morning and we made it there in no time. As we pulled in we told Jackson we were at the beach and he said "I'm psyched!" Not sure where he got that from. We checked in and they said they would call us when our room was ready.

Jackson was all ready to hit the beach with all his new toys he earned from going #2 on the potty. Palm Beach was rather busy, but we found a spot for our stuff and started to play!

The hotel gave Jackson a goodie bag and it had dolphin goggles inside. Of course he had to put them on right away!
First stop was the wave pool. This easily could have been Jackson's favorite part of Palm Beach. He loved swimming in the pool and riding the waves.
Next, we checked out the water slides that Jackson could go down. At first he went down with us, but by the end he was Mr. Independent!

I think he liked going down with Daddy because they flew!

About a hour and a half later our hotel room was ready. While Brian went to take our things to our room and move the car, Jackson and I floated around the lazy river.

With Jackson on my lap and all the other people I really had no control over our tube, and we both had so much water dumped on our heads. My hat took a beating, and I am now in need of a new one.

After floating around a couple of times and shooting the water guns, Jackson and I went to play in the sand. Brian came back and joined us for some castle building.

Around noon we headed up to our room to change and eat lunch. Then we walked over to the Aquarium Pyramid. Jackson got to see them feeding the seals (which were huge by the way) and really liked the penguins.

He touched a sea star, lobster, and some sea urchins.

This picture was right before we walked into the shark tunnel. This was one of the coolest parts of the aquarium. Jackson got to see many fish and sharks swim all around us.

Stuck in the shark cage:)

Overall, we weren't overly impressed with the aquarium. It was fun going through it with Jackson because he thinks every thing is amazing:) He picked out a stuffed leopard shark and a screeching dolphin.

We left the aquarium pyramid and walked back to our hotel room to put Jackson down for a nap. Brian and I ended up taking a nap ourselves:) We all woke up refreshed!

Back to Palm Beach we went! We spent more time in the wave pool,

took Daddy on the lazy river,

built more sand castles,

buried our feet,

wrote letters in the sand,

and went down the slides! The beach was closing so we headed back to the room. We then decided to go watch the 4-D movie before dinner. We sprinted across the resort parking lots and made it just in time for the show. It was 15 minutes, the perfect length for Jackson, and fun, fun, fun! Jackson loved wearing the glasses and bubbles! I forgot my camera this night but remembered it when we went back.

By now it was way past our normal dinner time and we were all very hungry. Dinner was good and our server was nice, but the service was anything but fast. Good thing we bought the $6 screeching dolphin, it kept Jackson entertained while we waited!

We spent some time playing at the playground and walking around just killing some time until the fireworks started.

The fireworks were decent and Jackson enjoyed watching them. The best part was that we didn't have to fight traffic after the fireworks were over to get home.

Day one was a complete success with Brian and I having as much fun as Jackson!

Friends and Swimming

I don't know what I would do without a pool during the summer! It is too hot to do much else outside. We love swimming and we love having others over to swim with us!

Wednesday morning Emily and Huntley along with Claire and Caroline joined us. I taught with Caroline 2 years ago with Emily. I can't tell you how much I miss working with these two girls every day. I met Claire that same year but she taught a different grade. She is such a sweetie and about to have her first baby. We had a great time staying cool in the pool and laughing! Then we continued our conversations and laughs over lunch at Chick-fil-a (where else)! However, I failed miserably at taking any pictures.

Then Thursday night Louis and Katrina came over for the first time this summer. They have been living it up this summer in Hawaii and Iowa!:) I am so thankful Katrina is able to come and go swimming with us this year. We enjoyed dinner (thanks for grilling Louis), lots of swimming, washers, talking, and maybe a few laughs!

Jackson was just a bit of a show of! He would swim from Katrina to Louis, Louis to Brian, Brian to me, and then from be back to Katrina.
He wouldn't corporate for a picture though!

I realized I don't have many pictures of just Katrina and me, so I made sure we got one this time!

I thought for sure Louis and Katrina wore Jackson out. He swam from like 5:30-8, but nope! He got up earlier than he had all week.

Thanks everyone for coming over and hanging out with us! Feel free to join us!

Cars and Goggles

We have been wanting to take Jackson to see Cars 2 and since Brian had the day off we went. The movie is 2 hours long so I was a little worried about how he would do. We brought a lot of snacks to keep Jackson occupied during the movie. Overall he did really well. We made it through the whole movie but towards the end he had to use the potty. Then he thought it was so cool we had to use it 3 more times:)

I thought the movie was pretty good, but there was a lot of dieing and killing going on. When we asked Jackson if he liked watching the movie on the big screen, he answered "We have a big screen at home." I think his size proportions are a bit skewed! Based on this movie experience I would take Jackson again but I would wait to the very last minute before arriving at the theater.

After we went out for dinner, we had a few errands to run. While at Target we picked Jackson up some goggles because he likes to open his eyes under water. He thinks he got them for going potty on the toilet. Whatever works!

He was beyond excited for his new goggles! He couldn't wait to get in the pool. I was thinking he would keep them on for about 5 minutes, but he proved me wrong. He wore them the whole hour he was swimming!
He also couldn't keep from going underwater. Again, I love how excited he gets over the little things!

Here a video of Jackson swimming. He still would drown if we left him by himself, but he is getting better every day!

Memorizing Scripture #13

God has proved to me over and over that he provides for me and our family but yet I tend to worry or figure it out myself.

I am going to memorize Philippians 4:19 "And my God will meet all my needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus." because I want to recite this verse over and over at times that I start to worry or doubt. It will also help me keep in perspective what I need verses what I want and being content with what he has provided:)

Jackson helped paint a picture of contentment the other day as we were walking into a store. I told him we could look at the toys in the store just as a way to get him excited about going into the store. He got very upset and said, "My toys are at home. I don't need any, my toys are at home!" I thought about how God wants me to say the same thing about Him. I don't need anything that God hasn't already provided for me. Lord, thank you for the simple truths that come clear through Jackson.