We've had a great 2013 so far! A lot of this has been because I stuck to my resolution to walk every day. Turns out it's been really great for our health, not just physical but metal and emotional too. It's also led to a lot of adventures: trips to the Zoo, walking with friends in local parks, and just finding fun things in our neighborhood. One of those adventures was an incredible surprise trip to Galveston, TX this past weekend. Galveston is an hour and a half outside of Houston, on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico.
Before Galveston, we had to go through two big cities: Dallas and Houston. The road took us right through the downtown of each of the cities - it was so neat!
We got in pretty late Friday night and woke up Saturday morning to this:
That was worth every second in the car and so was our first walk along the shore.
I should mention that I have some new lenses for my phone camera - birthday/ Valentine's gift from Evan. The lenses are a fish-eye, macro, and wide lens. This trip was the perfect place to try them all out. After our morning walk, we drove up and down the shore to get the full scope of the island. Here are some pics from the Northeast shore.
Along our way, I couldn't help but notice how different things are in the inner-city part of the city. The buildings are so colorful and so cool on the outer edge, but a couple blocks in and you see how the hurricanes have left the less fortunate buildings deserted and in ruin.
After lunch at an awesome place on the main boardwalk called The Spot. My favorite thing there was the eclair :) In the afternoon we went to Moody Gardens. It is this crazy cool place that has three pyramids: the Rainforest pyramid, the Aquarium pyramid, and the Discovery Museum. We spent our time in the aquarium and got to see all kinds of wonderful animals: penguins, turtles, sharks, sea horses and this crazy cool sea dragon:
The Moody Gardens are also a great place to just walk around. There are wonderful plants that make you feel like you are visiting a tropical oasis.
The next two were taken with the macro lens and they turned out great!
They also have a paddle-boat that you can walk around and maybe take a trip on. We just admired it from a far and enjoyed the beautiful colors of the sunset.
For dinner we went to the cliche Rainforest Cafe. But Evan had never been there and it was a great opportunity for us to go. They had some huge aquariums and we spent our long wait checking out all of the colorful fishes.
The next morning we had a few hours to soak up the sun and spent it walking along a beautiful beach. Both of us have a nice sun-kissed glow after this trip - I love it!
This was the best Valentine's/ golden birthday gift a girl could have asked for! I'm so grateful to Evan for planning all of this and impressed that he kept it a big secret. Next week I'll be off to Arizona to visit my Grandma Leila and see my parent's, sister, niece Sophe, and Grandma Dorothy. It'll be the first time in 8 years that I'll get to spend my birthday with all of them - perfect for my Golden Birthday (turning 26 on the 26th of Feb).
Hope you all are having a great year and we are looking to plan a trip for Washington for the summer - maybe over the 4th of July.
Love - Evan and Lacey
