The Chinese Starfish

Friday morning we woke up early packed up the kids in the car and drove down to Galveston. We met up with my parents and spent a large part of the day at the beach

My dad, Jose and Logan spent most of their time building sand castles,

digging holes and filling them with water

My mom and Timothy spent most of their time in the water

(Thank God my mom was willing to do that because I was getting worn out with all that in and out stuff)

Timothy is terrified of showers but his favorite thing to do in the ocean is sit (in someones lap) and let the waves wash over him and push him back

Funny kid

Logan filled those buckets with water hundreds of times but every time he got back to the hole Poppy filled the water had seeped back into the sand

It didn't matter though he still had fun

I took 200 pictures so I'm only in about 3 of them.

We went for a walk in the ocean to try out Timothy's game.

It was really windy and started raining shortly after we took this picture

about 2 seconds after this was taken a wave knocked us over

We had a lot of fun

Friday night my grandma, sister, brother and brother in law all joined us for a cook out and mosquito buffet.

My dad made amazing chicken and corn on the cob.

We enjoyed it greatly and the mosquitos enjoyed us greatly.

("off" is an urban legend)

Saturday we went on a beachcombing adventure with some "Master Naturalists"

 (I will share more on that at the bottom of this post)

We forgot to wear sunscreen

I'm sunburned but you would never know to look at me.

 When I was born I left all my skin pigment in the womb for my sister and brother to enjoy.

After all the running around we did we thought it would be fun to ride the ferry...

Everyone else in Galveston had the same idea so we waited in line for about 3 hours both ways 

We took naps

After the ferry ride we drove to Kemah and ate at The Brick Oven Pizzeria  

This picture cracks me up

This one too

Then we walked down the Kemah boardwalk to the fairgrounds to ride the train

since my boys love trains

I love these pictures of Timothy

Riding the train!

It was a great weekend and I'm glad my family could all make it.

AND NOW FOR THE STORY OF THE CHINESE STARFISH

I mentioned earlier that we went beach combing on Saturday Morning

Before we left we heard a short lecture about the different types of things we might find on the beach 

and a little history about the beach then we all headed over to find some treasures. 

Logan and I were walking around together. Logan thought the idea was to collect every single seashell on the beach and picked up probably 30 clam shells and at least 2 dead crabs. 

Jose was walking with Timothy and came to find us. As he was walking he noticed something purple slightly buried in the sand. He picked it up and it was a starfish! 

When we all gathered up to show the naturalists what we found they were all so impressed with the starfish, one of them thought we should donate it to them and one of them said we should keep it. My dad grabbed it rinsed it off in the ocean and stuck it in his pocket.

When we got back to camp he was telling my sister the story about the starfish and pulled it out of his pocket to show her. She turned it upside down and said this says china on the bottom.

I was standing a little ways away so all I heard was "No way! Your kidding me!" 

The starfish was rubber and had CHINA stamped on the bottom. 

It was caked in sand so until my dad washed it in the ocean you couldn't see the word on the bottom. 

Every one of those naturalists handled it and not one of them thought it could be fake.

I wish we had donated it

:p

  Next time I go I think I will take a plastic seahorse and see how they react 

:-D 

(My favorite picture of the whole trip)

HAPPY SUMMER!