My mom, dad and 4 younger brothers came down for a visit this past week/weekend. They arrived Wednesday evening and were able to stay until Monday morning. I love that Paul and I live in a place that is big enough to host my big family comfortably for extended weekends. I am also glad that Paul is good at time management and was able to prepare in advance for their visit so that he could spend time with us and not have to spend it all studying for his big test he has coming up this Wednesday.
The night that my family arrived Paul had to attend a required informational meeting regarding his first board test. I was afraid he would get overwhelmed and be a stress ball all weekend, but if he was he sure didn't let it show. My family arrived before he did that evening and my mom and I headed off to get a little shopping for "lettuce" in before dinner since we had to wait on Paul.
The next morning we headed to the island to check out the waves, and do some fishing or boogy boarding. Hurricane Don was expected to arrive along Texas' gulf coast sometime on Friday and bring some big waves with it. This made my brothers and Paul very excited for boogy boarding and my mom very nervous. The waves were low so fishing was a go. Paul had learned from a friend how to catch some bigger fish than they previously had caught in past visits. Of course they got a little boogy boarding in during breaks too. Since it was test week, Paul's classes were light, so that they had more time to study and he only had one lecture this day that was being recorded and he could watch later so he got to spend the day with us. Don't worry though as soon as we returned home that night he grabbed his books and stuck his nose in them and didn't emerge until the next morning like any good medical student would. He also went to tutoring that evening to gain some insight for the test. My mom and I were happy to drop him off at school and went shopping on the island on our way back to the fisherman. We were a little tired of watching them fish, but much to our dismay the most exciting catch of the day happened while we were gone. My little brother accidentally snagged a sea turtle and reeled him in. It is illegal to catch a sea turtle so Mark was very happy that the hook didn't seem to hurt the turtle much and it was easily removed so that they could send him back out to sea. Of course no one got a picture of this fish story.
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| Steven caught a little saltwater catfish |
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| fishing with the shrimp boat in the background |
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| Steven wading back out to the group |
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| Brett fishing off the jetty |
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| Mark's big catch of the day, that my mom gave to the neighbor fisherman on the jetty much to Brett's dismay. |
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| Brett, Nick and Mark fishing as the sun sets. |
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| Paul and Nick |
The next day Paul had classes he had to attend from 9:00 to 3:00. He was able to ride down with his friend Robert so that we wouldn't have to get up early with him and head to the island and we had enough cars to go down later. It was a very cloudy and overcast day since Hurricane Don had reached land south of Galveston near Corpus Christi. It was only a category 1 hurricane so the gulf wasn't too rough; although, the waves were plenty big for some great boogy boarding and the surfers were all out capitalizing on the action as well. The tide was really high this day and my mom and I had to set up camp in the rocks as there wasn't hardly any beach. The waves almost took away some of our stuff that day. We weren't there very long when I noticed the sky getting darker and darker. I told my mom I was going to take the phones and cameras up to the car in case it started raining soon. Good thing I did too, because when I got back down my mom had decided we better take everything up since it had begun sprinkling. When she got halfway up the ramp to the car it just began pouring down rain. I thought my brother's might come help carry the stuff up to the car, but I guess I was wrong they just kept boogy boarding in the rain. Just as my mom and I sat in the car and were discussing making them come out of the water, because we were beginning to see lightening a loud thunder crash came and you would've thought all of them were waking on the water as they came sprinting out of the gulf towards the car. It was the funniest thing I have seen in a while. We decided to wait out the rain in a little souvenier shop along the beach. Paul was able to meet up with us there and by the time we headed out for a late lunch/early dinner the rain had stopped. After we ate, the boys headed back out to play in the big waves with Paul. As a spectator I would have to say this was the least enjoyable beach day I have had.
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| Brett, Mark, Nick and Steven boogy boarding before the rain storm...notice the dark sky. |
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| Mark and Nick boogy boarding |
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| very dark clouds |
On Saturday, we slept in a little and then headed back to the island to ride the ferry and see some dolphins. This summer Paul and I have noticed that there are a ton more dolphins than last summer. We also think that the dolphins must migrate, because there were several times this past fall and winter when we didn't see any dolphins at all. After the ferry ride, we headed to the beach where the waves were still big from the storm, but today was much sunnier and more enjoyable for those of us relaxing on the beach.
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| Brett, Nick, Steven, Mark and Paul on the ferry. |
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| dolphin |
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| feeding the seaguls. |
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| Galveston Island fisherman in their hats. |
Sunday was our last beach day so we topped it off with more fishing, skim boarding and boogy boarding. This time we went out to west beach where it was a little less crowded and a lot more quiet. My mom and I topped the trip off with another escape to shop a little more. We returned just in time to witness the craziest fish story ever, and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it myself. Paul came back to shore complaining about how he had caught this big fish, and the cheap bobber attachment thing broke loose off his line before he could reel the fish all the way in and it swam away. A few minutes later while Paul was fixing his pole by the car, my mom and I noticed Nick running out into the waves with the skim board, we were confused since you don't skim board that deep. He bent down and picked up Paul's bobber with the fish still attached to it and came running back into shore. Paul couldn't believe that Nick caught his fish. Brett was also happy since all he wanted to do was catch a fish and eat it. Since he didn't have any luck catching something worth keeping we kept Paul and Nick's fish and brought it home for a late night snack.
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| Nick coming in from fishing. They used the boogy boards to float on while waiting for a bite. |
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| Paul and Nick with their catch of the day. |
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| Nick skim boarding. |
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| Steven had enough fishing for one day. |
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| Nick, Brett and Paul with their yummy fish...or so I hear I did not take a bit, but apparently it was really good. |
I was sad to see everyone leave on Monday morning, but grateful to have the time to get together and have fun together. When Paul and I moved so far away from my family, I was afraid I would miss out on lots of family fun. As it turns out Galveston makes for a great vacation destination for lots of family members. Once again I am also very happy to be working in the schools and benefit from the time off in the summer and throughout the year to travel home and host visitors. I am sad to see summer coming to an end, but ready to get back to work as well.
Oh and in case you were wondering, Paul has been studying since my family left on Monday and tonight he took a break to play some video games before the big test tomorrow. He says he feels confident in the material. I am very proud of him for being able to manage his time to where he can have fun when family visits and maintain his grades. It makes me hopeful for our future when he will be managing his time between a very demanding career and our family.
