Christmas Countdown week 3

Day 16: Drive to Mystery location. We gave the kids the option again this year for gifts from us or a family trip. It didn't take them long to decide to travel! Had Brian and I not made a hotel reservation for that night we likely would have ended up in a secondary location  (after all the kids had no idea where we were going and we really LOVE the west coast....but we resisted the urge and continued south). We finally told them when we were minutes from our hotel that we were in Texas! It was so fun to share in their thrill as they heard the waves crashing while we unloaded our bags. Morning couldn't come fast enough!

Day 17: Sand play and splashing in the Gulf.
PLUS bonus fun...hanging with cousins and Emily! The weather was INCREDIBLE in the high 80s! Bryson and I even got a little toasty. The sand was amazing....SO, SO SOFT! The three bigs were loving the water and Bryson loved the sand. Fine by me! One less kid to worry about in the waves!

Day 18: The Texas State Aquarium.

We had heard the aquarium was small but neat. I'm so glad we went; we had a GREAT time! There was a group of 350 school kids on a field trip there and our little family. It was as if we had the place to ourselves as we only encountered them while at the dolphin show and when watching "santa" serve a 5 course meal in one of the tanks. Braxton and Alexis were invited to be volunteers at the dolphin show but Braxton was hesitant so Braden stepped in. They got to give the SIGN to "GO".  It was awesome! We saw sea turtles; sting ray, including big Bertha, she had at least a 4 foot body span; sharks (Braeden was pretty stoked to have pet one in the touching pool!) We even watched wild dolphin playing off the shore.   

After the Aquarium we hit a surf shop and bought body boards. Who wants presents when you're having this much fun?

Day 19: "What's the countdown?" (My thoughts....Are you kidding me?....We are on vacation! THAT IS the COUNTDOWN!) Um, how about you guys can get in the "adult's only" hot-tub. (Not to mention spend lots more time enjoying the beach!) We checked out several different areas of the coastline. The kids and Brian took a stroll on the pier where they ran amok and saw a small shark someone had caught!

Day 20: Drive Home, Sing and Jam to Holiday Tunes and have ice cream for dinner. Remark how thankful we were to have made the trip when we did as the temps were plummeting 30* degrees from the day before!

Day 21: Family Movie...we had hopes "A Christmas Carol" would be a good one but it wasn't. Three of the kids fell asleep before it was half over (we put Bryson to bed very early on....it was just too scary in my opinion for his little eyes). The other three of us quit watching soon after, the others fell asleep, it was that bad.