31 Awesome Things in 31 Days: Thing #6—Dip our Feet in the Gulf of Mexico

Helping Dad put on sunscreen.

Ah, Galveston Island. The Gulf of Mexico. A genre of beach far, far different from those of California, Florida, Hawaii; a kind of beach in which most people are at least a little chubby, and ain't nobody is glistening bronze or sporting a washboard stomach. The closest thing to a Galveston Beach is probably a British beach, I'd wager. 

I sort of love Galveston. It's warm, kelpy, and the occasional jellyfish is always washing up on shore looking like a soggy sandwich bag and making moms nervous about curious toddlers tripping over one and getting stung. Flocks of eerie brown pelicans slowly soar just overhead, casting foreboding shadows over the beach, like pterodactyls. It's lovely.

Hollie was pretty nervous about the water. It took a lot of convincing just to get her to put her feet on the sand. Once on the sand, she would only walk on her heels for another 30 minutes. She finally got comfortable with the wet sand, but she didn't ever want to dip her toes in the water.

The middle of a mighty, gleeful shout. Hollie really started to get in touch with her primitive baby self out there on that beach.

Beach babes with Lubbock tan lines.

She might look cute, but it's all a crafty ploy to get you under her spell.

Hollie the Island Native fashioned herself a spear and took off hunting diamondback rattlers. Minutes later, she drove that spear repeatedly into the rattler's head, shouting and cackling. (She later told me she was just making more "eyes.")

Spear-wielding Hollie finds a merman on the beach and demands to know his business. The merman tries to explain that he is trapped until the next day's high tide.

Dissatisfied with that answer, magical sand nymph Hollie cast a spell and turned the merman into a blushing mermaid.

After an hour or two at the beach, we packed up, grabbed some grub at Wendy's, and made our way to the Moody Gardens where we dropped a fortune for tickets to the Rain Forest Pyramid, which promised us adventures worthy of Swiss Family Robinson. Hollie was close to needing a nap, and she manifested this not so much by being fussy but by being belligerent. In other words, we pushed around a babyless stroller while helplessly chasing after her in a nature area in which monkeys and sloths and birds (oh my!) roam freely, and babies can find themselves in whole heaps of trouble if they aren't carefully watched.

Spotting monarchs in the butterfly pavilion.

Much of our zoo photos consist of David holding Hollie and Hollie pointing. In the above shot, Hollie is pointing at a butterfly she found herself face-to-face with. The below shot is almost identical, except that Hollie somehow found herself face-to-face with—a MONKEY! These little guys occasionally decide to swing down from the trees and vines and greet people up close and personal. The rainforest ranger was hard at work keeping people from making fast movements or doing anything else that might provoke a monkey attack.

After Hollie and the monkey had this primate exchange, the monkey hopped down, walked over and stood next to David for a minute, and then basically brushed right past his leg to the other side of the walkway. I held my breath the entire time, trying to at least take pictures of what might be the last time I ever saw my pre-monkey-mauled family. Fortunately, my husband and daughter only exude friendly primate signals to other monkeys. We escaped unscathed.

Hollie's face-to-face encounter with a white-faced monkey.

The monkey making his way toward David. 

The monkey eventually decided that while David might look and smell like one of his own kind, ultimately something was a little off. He met up with his other monkey friend on the other side of me, and this is where we parted ways. 

Scarlet ibis, giant parrots, and even a turtle (Hollie's favorite animal lately)!

When we got back to the car, Hollie drank some juice and was asleep and snoring in literally less than three minutes. She slept the entire hour-and-a-half car ride back home, and we couldn't believe our lucky timing for Hollie's naps the entire day. We were far too cocky about our skills as traveling parents and have since paid for it by realizing that we are way behind the end-of-semester grading due this evening, Dave has a sunburn, and I suddenly realized about an hour ago that I am indeed in my third trimester of pregnancy and probably should have taken it a little easier throughout the day.

Anyway, we just fell from "cocky" to "gratefully successful" and plan to sleep all three of us like babies tonight. Nothing is more lovely than sleeping in a pile of blankets under a big fan after a day of sun and museum legs. Mmmmmmm......

Dip our feet in the Gulf of Mexico? Have a close encounter with an untamed monkey? Literally feel claustrophobically surrounded by plovers and killdeer? ACCOMPLISHED! ACCOMPLISHED! ACCOMPLISHED!