This past weekend we traveled to Galveston, TX hauling along all of the kiddos! Our purpose in traveling to this area of fun was to celebrate the the life of my husband’s mother. Now, I know what you’re thinking, how does death equal celebrating? All too often, we all think about death as what we will no longer have, as opposed to what he had. We think about how we will never be able to share our life with the one that we loved, instead of how our loved one shared their whole lifetime with us.
Jeff’s mother’s memorial was held in Tomball, TX, but we chose to spend the rest of our time in Galveston (per Jeff’s suggestion). At first, I was a little apprehensive about traveling thru Houston to get to Tomball, but I knew that the memorial would only be about an hour long. So, knowing that we had three kids to entertain and that there is absolutely nothing to do for fun in Tomball, we booked a hotel in Galveston.
Early Saturday, we had a quiet and smooth drive to Tomball. As predicted, the service was about 45 minutes long; however, after about 10 minutes the children were filled with pented up energy and ready to dart out of the door. We didn’t expect much from them, as they are kids. I have to appreciate the mentality of a child who doesn’t quite understand the concept of death, as they don’t quite grasp that this is someone of whom we will not see or hear from again in this lifetime. What would it be like to go back to their age and not think about what is truly occurring, but instead think about how one is missing homecoming? Oh the important things in life!
After the memorial, we had a torturous, traffic-filled, unnecessarily long drive back to Galveston. We we’re all starving and ready for some food. After a late lunch, we had to work off the all of the fried seafood we ate at Casey Gaido’s and what better way to do so than renting a family bicycle cart (or whatever you want to call it).
We had so much fun riding this thing, including an up hill battle that required tremendous team work, but we did it!
The Uphill Battle |
After our one hour ride, we headed to the beach!
The kids enjoyed some body surfin’, sand buryin’, and crab catchin’!
On Sunday, prior to Tyler and Elaine returning home, we had one last adventure in mind. We went to Kemah, TX and explored the Kemah Boardwalk. We didn’t get to enjoy all of the wonderful things that this place had to offer because we were short on time, but highly recommended if you have kiddos. It is filled with carnival rides, yummy restaurants, an aquarium, train rides, and speed boat rides. We will definitely return with the kids at another time.
While paying our respects to Jeff’s mother and celebrating her life this past weekend, we managed to also celebrate our lives with those that we love; not taking anyone for granted. It’s the fun-filled moments like these that make saying goodbye to those that we love even harder. Life is all about enjoying what we have at this moment in time, as opposed to what we do not have (including not attending homecoming).
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