Esther's 5th Birthday

Our beautiful and smart Esther turned five a couple of weeks ago!  Her actual birthday fell on Labor day this year, just like the day she was born on.  Her day started out with her favorite breakfast which is crepes with Nutella, then she opened her gifts, played with them, and in the afternoon we went to her favorite summer place: the splash park pool.  Since daddy was out of town, we had a Birthday party with her friends the following Saturday.

These are some of the things Esther likes in her great fifth year:
Favorite color:  rainbow (we did not know either such a color existed before she came along);
When she grows up she will be: a gymnast;
Favorite thing to do: go to school (I would add: she loves to color, do crafts, and build puzzles.).
Her favorite food: crepes.

The theme for her party was Olivia - the energetic, resourceful, curios, and independent cute piglet.  The last Olivia book is hilarious.  We now have all the original Olivia books by Ian Falkoner.  We have Half Price Books to thank for that.  The girls strung a candy neckless, painted, colored, and played musical chairs.  Later we had lunch, read a couple of the Olivia books and of course we had cake! Esther had a happy day...

Last year I did not post about her Birthday.  I was very pregnant then.  Esther wanted to have her 4th Birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese.  That is what her brother wanted to do, so consequently that is what she wanted to do.

Beach Time

A few weeks before school started, we rented a beach home off of Blue Water Highway near the San Luis Pass County Park.  The neighborhood, called Treasure Island, sits a half a mile before the toll bridge connecting the park to Galveston island.  The area is on a peninsula and on both sides all that can be seen is ocean.  It was beautiful and only an hour and twenty minutes away from home.  We loved it!  There is hardly anything commercial around.  Not even a grociery store. Just water, sand, pelicans, seagulls, and us.  The ocean water was still brown (the Coriolis Effect makes the water carrying sediment from the Mississippi to veer toward the TX beaches), but it was warm. We could not keep our little Maggie away from it.  She tightens her whole body rigidly when she touches cold water, like she did on the Caribbean ocean, but she loved the Gulf water.  As my dad would say, it is as warm as tea.

In all honesty our beach vacation was fun and rejuvenating, but not necessarily relaxing.  After all, we did have our three little children with us, and those of you who have taken vacations with little children know exactly what I mean.  They loved being in a different home and thought it was as good as a castle.  They kept coming in and out of rooms and showing us every little nook and cranny they discovered.

We brought our kayak with us. We could not convince Esther to get in it, but Richard and Samuel took full advantage of it.  This is our second year having it, and I still have not been in it.  The first summer I was pregnant, and now a have the little one to watch while the boys take it out.  Maybe next summer...

Aunt Rebekah visited for two of the days, and that brought even more excitement for the children.  She was the "cherry on top".


On the last night Richard built a fire on the beach, and we hurriedly had some hot dogs and smores. I say hurriedly, because we had conflicting information whether we were allowed to have fire on the beach.  We put it out as soon as we were done cooking.  A nice older gentlemen came over while the fire was still burning just to have a look.  He'd never seen a fire on the beach before... It was a good fire. Probably too much so for our own good. Throughout the day Richard and the two kids spent a good hour gathering wood from the beach and getting it ready by drying it.  Once lit, the fire was blazing!

The weather was great also -  neither rain nor scorching heat.  The whole country has been plagued by the hottest summer on record, but here in the Houston area, we are having the best summer weather since we've lived here.

The only disappointment about the trip was that I missed an opportunity to take a close-up picture of the pelicans.  I learned a lesson:  Never postpone a good picture moment.

Another thing about traveling with little ones is that you have to bring so much stuff just!!!