Ever since our honeymoon in Hawaii, we always said that for our 10th anniversary, we would go back to Kaanapali Beach, Maui and stay in the same hotel and basically re-create the most amazing vacation we'd ever had. Well...we bought a house. So there went all our money. But we couldn't let the big event pass us by without any fanfare, so we decided to drive down to Galveston Island, Texas for the weekend.
Here is our one and only road trip selfie. It was a long drive. That was definitely the worst part. We listed to Wheel of Time on audiobook, but I'm terrible at letting my mind wander during audiobooks.
We arrived after dark and checked into our condo. It was wonderful though I realized I didn't take any photos of our actual room. We had a full kitchen and living room, then there was a hallway to our bathroom and bedroom. Both the bedroom and living room had doors out to our balcony. This was the view from our balcony at night. If you looked to the left, it was the ocean.
We had to dip our toes in the ocean even though it was dark, so we walked out there and took this super unflattering flash photo of me (but it's cute of Adam!).
The next morning we woke up late, got ready, and took a selfie on our balcony. There will be a lot of selfies in this post. Sorry. :)
Here's the daytime view from our balcony.
And to the left, we took that boardwalk to the ocean.
Then we went to find a cool breakfast spot on the island. We got to see a lot of neat houses on the way. It was raining, which had been forecasted, so we got a little soaked running up to the restaurant. And it was closed!!! Due to the weather. She was just putting out the sign as we walked up. Bummer.
So we had breakfast at Denny's instead. :) Which ended up being pretty great actually. They put us in this giant corner booth, and then as we were getting ready to leave, the song Until You by Dave Barnes started playing...which was one of our wedding songs!!
Next, we stopped at a little souvenir shop to get some stuff for the boys. I saw this cool container of painted shells, and realized there were hermit crabs in them.
The store was up on stilts so we went underneath to wade in the water without the rain.
Then we said "oh well, we don't come here everyday" and went out in the open and got pretty wet.
It was supposed to rain the whole time we were there, so we decided to go back to the hotel and get our swimsuits on and get in the ocean. It was surprisingly not too cold! Here's Adam, frolicking in the surf. :)
Don't make fun of us. We are photographers and we were on the beach. So lots of selfies on a timer ensued.
This was the little trail that was between our hotel's boardwalk and the ocean, so we walked through here a lot and I thought it was so pretty! We did a selfie here too, and even got some palm trees in the back!
Then since it was still rainy and misty, we decided to get dressed and drive around the island. We stopped at another beach.
Aaaaaaaaand then the sun came out! Of course.
There were so many cool houses on the island, including this mansion!
One with our hotel and some palm trees in the background. We went back to our hotel since it was sunny and swam in the ocean and the pool for awhile longer. We also walked the beach and found some seashells for Sutton and some driftwood for my parents.
We knew we'd be hungry early since we had only had brunch. So we showered and got dressed. You can kinda see our condo in this photo.
I wanted another photo in that neat spot by the ocean in our dressy clothes.
And I wanted one on the beach too, so we asked a stranger to take this one.
The restaurant we went to was called Fisherman's Wharf and had been recommended to us by my mom's cousin. It was SO GOOD. We sat on the outdoor patio, and the weather was perfect.
I had a yummy sangria. It was just so bright and colorful...had to take a pic. :)
The harbor behind where I'm sitting had a cruise ship leaving as we came in.
I had shrimp scampi and Adam had fettuccine. We were both stuffed and happy. We decided to go to the Pleasure Pier to ride the ferris wheel.
After paying an exorbitant amount to get in to ride one ride, we took yet another selfie.
So many pelicans!
The skies were cloudy but it didn't end up raining anymore that day.
I took this while we were on the ferris wheel, looking back at the island. I think our hotel was somewhere past that tallest building.
There were a bunch of ships anchored in the distance during our whole stay. I counted them at one point and there were over 45! You can see some dolphin tails in this photo. They were swimming by the Pleasure Pier too.
Dolphin!
And they had a store called Big Amos and we had to take a photo because of our nephew Amos. :)
After the ferris wheel, we stopped at another pier that had a restaurant. We ordered ice cream cones and walked all the way to the end of the pier. Then we headed back to the hotel because it was dark.
We slept in and packed the next morning, and headed home to see our boys. It was so much fun and kind of surreal being there just the two of us, but we definitely decided we need to go back with our boys. They would love the ocean!
