Beach '09

Due to Hurricane Ike - the beach house this year was at a different location. It was still in Galveston but several miles closer to town. Even though this is a bigger more spacious house, I believe that next year we will be back at the original. The old house has too many memories to be left behind. I think that I actually preferred this house because it meant that Scott and I were sharing a full-sized bed instead of a twin, but I understand the desire to go back to the other.

Many of the houses in the front row of the beach were badly damaged and have to be torn down. There are even some houses that were not badly damaged but will still have to be removed because the vegetation line moved. In Texas, you are not allowed to own land in front of the vegetation line because the beaches are public. So there are several home owners who are trying to restore the vegetation line back in front of their houses so that they don't lose them. This house probably fell in the later category. It looked like it could have been repaired but it was now out on the sand. It was just down from the house we were staying at and we got to watch it be torn down.

Here are some of the people who stay at the beach house. As you can see it is becoming quite the full house.


This was Deakin's first walk on the beach. I sure hope that he likes the water otherwise he is going to have a lot of boring vacations in his future.

Here is Scott participating in the boccie ball tournament. I decided not to play this year because it was so hot outside and because I need to study for a big test that I was taking the next week - nothing ruins a good vacation like having a test to worry about. Scott was really proud of this photo - he would want you to notice that both of his feet are off the ground.
Scott's dad, Louise, and his half siblings all came down to the beach for part of a day as well. Its always great to get to see them, I know that Scott wishes he could see his dad more often. Scott and I stayed at their house for 2 nights after the beach but this was Jennifer, Andrea, and the nieces' only chance to see them. (not all of them are pictured below and the extra guy w/o a shirt is Colleen's bf) While at the beach house we also got to see Scott's cousin Daniel practice his fire twirling.

Its much more impressive at night.
We also went down to the strand which is the downtown business district. It is quite a ways from the beach but it sits on the harbor so it got quite a bit of water damage from Ike as well. Here on the window is a line that shows the water level. Almost a year later, most of the store and restaurants are back up and running but a few still haven't opened. The Strand was very quiet this year. My guess is that a lot of tourist still aren't coming back yet, hopefully by next year everything will be back to normal.

And last but not least, Scott and I played mini golf on our way to his dad's house. Scott just couldn't stand to go a year without playing this course.