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To Galveston We Go
One of Derek’s job benefits that we really appreciate is paid family leave. He’s never had any paid leave upon the births of our children so having him home during the transition after Owen’s birth has been sweet. He has 8 weeks off paid and can spread it out. He recently used two weeks and during that time we decided to take a brief family vacation to Galveston, TX. Galveston is an island on the gulf coast rich in color and history. Unlike the beaches of southern California that I frequented as a child, Galveston doesn’t have as much greenery on its beaches. The water also appeared brownish in color which helped me understand why some deem it the ugliest beach in Texas. Despite this moniker, we had a great time and discovered that Galveston has a beauty of its own that is certainly worth exploring.
Galveston Day One
Our Galveston trip began with time at the beach. We pulled up along a curb on Seawall Boulevard right across the street from Seawall Church and unloaded our gear onto the beach. The girls were excited to put their new beach toys to use and spent hours splashing, running, rolling in the sand, and building sandcastles. They also had a blast collecting shells. Our trip began on a Tuesday during the school year which meant that the beach was very uncrowded and we were so thankful for that!
Texas beaches are different from California beaches in that there are no restrooms on the beach! When we first pulled up, I asked Derek to park near a restroom and was bummed when he told me he couldn’t find one. As we drove down Seawall later, I noticed that there were a few public restroom stalls on the sidewalk but there wasn’t one close to where we were. The beaches also lack shade of any sort which is important to keep in mind if you burn easily as I do. Some beaches offered chair and umbrella rentals but we decided to be content with our pop up playpen and a beach umbrella I found last minute in the Target Dollar Spot.
In planning our trip, we decided to eat lunch on the beach with food we prepared beforehand. I bought us a four pack of bento boxes so each person could eat what they liked. We decided that we would eat breakfast at the hotel and for dinner, we thought it would be fun to take the girls to Rainforest Cafe.
After spending about three hours at the beach, Derek called our hotel two hours prior to check-in to see if our room was ready. This is one of my favorite travel hacks that we’ve used for our last few hotel stays. We’ve found that our rooms are often ready ahead of time and checking in early makes it feel like we’re truly getting our money’s worth.
The hotel I booked for us was Holiday Inn Express & Suites Galveston Beach. I made our reservation through Expedia via Topcashback since Topcashback offers 6% cashback on hotels booked through Expedia. Our hotel stay was under $150 a night for an ocean view room which included a great view of Galveston’s famous Pleasure Pier. Some factors that contributed to this are that we stayed during the week in the off-season. Hotel rates jump up on the weekend to almost $500 a night so I’m glad we stayed when we did.
We got to the hotel at just the right time for me because I was starting to feel exhausted and slightly irritated. Normal feelings, I suppose, for a mom who was just under six weeks postpartum. Preparing for our trip, I felt anxious not knowing if it would be too much for me. When I started to feel wiped out as we headed to the hotel, I began praying and asked the Lord to help me. As soon as we got into our room and saw the ocean view, my attitude and outlook improved.
Although I booked the hotel room, I failed to notice that we acquired a room with an ocean view so we were all surprised and delighted. What made it even better is that the room had a little balcony with a child-proof lock included. Right below our room, there was a play yard for kids with games like giant Connect Four, giant Jenga, and cornhole. The lawn connected the hotel and a restaurant called The Joint and also included an ocean view. I had looked into a few Airbnbs prior to our trip and while there are many affordable ones on Galveston, my reservation is that they include hefty taxes and fees, have decor that isn’t childproof, and often require some cleaning on our part.
Once we had settled into our room, we headed five minutes down the road to Rainforest Cafe. I tried preparing the girls ahead of time by telling them that there were pretend animals in the restaurant that make noise so I was sure they would enjoy it. Upon arriving at the restaurant, we walked through the gift shop and noticed that there was a ride inside. We learned that the ride is a family-friendly boat ride so we decided we would try it after we ate. Our table ended up being right by an aquarium feature and across from the gorillas. Unfortunately, Addie and Ava were afraid of the gorillas despite my best efforts at preparing them for what the experience would be like. Addie tends to be sensitive to loud noises and started crying and clinging to me when the gorillas made noise. She had such a hard time that we asked our waiter if we could have our food to go and he kindly obliged.
After receiving our food, we took the girls to the gift shop to choose a souvenir. Although the restaurant freaked them out, they really enjoyed looking at all the gift shop had to offer. They each chose a sparkly pandacorn stuffed animal and while Derek and I feel that stuffed animals serve no purpose, we had set aside a souvenir budget and felt bad since the girls had a hard time in the restaurant. They seemed to be comforted by what I refer to as their, “emotional support stuffed animals.” Since our time in the restaurant was so traumatizing, we elected to forego the ride and headed back to our hotel. The girls were excited that the TV had Disney Channel and they were able to watch many of their favorite shows including Bluey. Derek and I were sunburned pretty badly because when we arrived at the beach, our focus was on setting up and getting the girls situated. Once we did that, Owen needed to eat and we forgot to apply sunblock to ourselves.
My sunburn was so bad that I asked Derek if he could grab some aloe vera gel for me from Target. Thankfully he was willing to and I asked him to grab me a t-shirt too since I had only packed tank tops and desperately needed my back to have coverage from the sun. Before he left he asked me what I thought about staying another day. I was very hesitant considering that I wasn’t even six weeks postpartum and I feel that often when our family does things, there is a lot of work that happens on my end. I’m also a hardcore homebody and really enjoy sleeping in my own bed. I do enjoy spending time with my family but as an introvert, hotel stays are harder with everyone sharing such a small space. I asked Derek to find out what the cost would be for an additional night and shared with him that I was feeling really anxious. A part of me really wanted to know that if we invested the time and money in staying another night and day that it would work out. I asked the Lord to help my anxious heart and really wanted to serve Derek by staying another night because he has loved and served our family so well.
Galveston Day Two
Our second day in Galveston started off a bit rough. Addie was having a hard time because she was tired and also longed for home. As we headed toward The Strand district of the island to explore, Addie whined nonstop about how unhappy she was. It was really challenging to remain patient becuase Derek and I were also tired but we began praying out loud and the Lord faithfully helped us. One of the things we’ve learned about traveling with young children is that we have to adjust our expectations. It is hard when there are multiple people who each want to do different things and we really do want our kids to enjoy our family time. With the amount of whining Addie was doing, we figured it was pointless to walk around The Strand and we headed over to Menard Park which we had passed when we first arrived in Galveston.
The park has two playgrounds (or playscapes as they call them here), a gymnastics area, a splash pad, and a community garden. You can also see the pier from certain angles of the park which is neat. We noticed that as soon as Addie began playing on the playground, her attitude totally changed. Although she was tired, we could tell that she was having fun. Ava really enjoyed playing too and Owen was the best boy sleeping contentedly in his car seat. We stayed at the park for a while and then headed back to our hotel to swim. Since I had the worst sunburn, I wasn’t able to participate but I did get some really fun photos so I wasn’t too bummed. After swimming, we decided to eat lunch at Chick-fil-A on Seawall Boulevard because everyone in our family likes it. Derek and I have a personal policy about trying non-chain restaurants when we travel but since we had our kids with us, we knew sticking to our policy was highly unlikely.
After lunch, we continued exploring Seawall. First, we ventured over to Pleasure Pier which unfortunately was closed due to it being the off-season. Ava had a meltdown because she wanted to ride the carousel so we decided to distract her by walking over to Murdochs. Murdochs is a neat souvenir shop that also sells fun things like cold drinks, candy, and sand crabs. Like everything, the sand crabs are also bigger in Texas and if it were up to Derek, we would have brought one home! What is neat about Murdochs is that it is on stilts and sits over the ocean. There are also a few different sections of the store that are connected by a shaded deck that contains rocking chairs and overlooks the ocean. The girls had fun picking out souvenirs, including their fake “Mintendo” games and enjoyed playing with them on the deck while Derek and I sat in the rocking chairs.
After Murdochs, we headed back to our hotel for some rest. Ava and Owen both ended up taking naps so Derek took Addie to the beach for a bit and I was able to read by the window with an ocean view – it was pretty dreamy. That night, we ended up ordering dinner from The Spot which was connected to our hotel. Derek was excited when he learned that they provided room service. That night, Derek asked a hotel employee if they had cribs and they did. I was really excited that we had that option as we had only packed Owen’s infant lounger and didn’t bring our pack ‘n’ play.
On our last morning on the island, we headed to Seawall Coffee Company which would be my preferred coffee shop if I lived in Galveston. The front of the establishment is unassuming but the interior has beachy boho vibes and it’s super dreamy. We each ordered coffee and I ordered a lemon bar and the girls got “pop cakes” (cake pops). They didn’t like their cake pops so to keep things from going to waste, I ended up eating them. They were delicious. We were hoping to enjoy our coffee on the deck at Murdochs but Ava ended up having a meltdown (again). She wanted a shark claw toy and Derek didn’t want to spend any more money on souvenirs. It was only $5 which I would have happily spent if it meant sitting with an ocean view while sipping my coffee but I knew Derek was right in staying consistent. The meltdown made it unenjoyable so we decided it was time for us to head home. Once we began the trek home, Ava fell asleep in about five minutes, naturally. Although our stay in Galveston was short, it was sweet and we can’t wait to return!
