Happy Birthday Garrettman!

3 years ago I was given quite the surprise as the doctor announced "it's a boy!!". As a mother of 3 girls at the time, having a boy seemed a little too impossible at the time. What a 3 years it has been. Garrett is such a little boy sometimes, I just cannot even remember what is was like to have all girls. He loves his trains, cars and sports. He is my happy little boy who just wants to be a part of it all. Happy Birthday Garrettman!!

A few months ago, I had what seemed to be a brilliant idea. I wanted to do something special for Garrett's birthday but not have a kid party. I realized we had not had the opportunity to go to the beach this summer. I also realized that the kids had not been camping in over a year. I thought - let's kill 3 birds with one stone. Let's have a camping birthday party at the beach. Uhmmm, after it is all said and done - maybe there is a reason we don't kill 3 birds with one stone!

Let's just forget about the fact that I had to worry about a hurricane that was in the gulf that could ruin our plans. We had enough excitement without Gustav. It was a tad hotter than I remembered it being when camping out at Galveston before. I'm sure some of that had to do with the hurricane. But I can handle a little heat. One thing I was not expecting was the love bug invasion. I have never in my life seen so many love bugs!! It was crazy. They were all over us and everything. I don't even want to think about how many of them Brandon must have consumed while we were there. Here is a picture of them hanging out on our ice chest. Can we say "gross"!

I think I might have also underestimated how well everyone was going to sleep. We all had a great time but I think everyone was a little bit overtired. Garrett even gave himself a time out.

We couldn't keep the candles lit because of the wind. Garrett "thinks" he blew out his candles but we never got more than one lit. Garrett didn't care though - he loved his Thomas cake.

Another problem with camping, is when you have babies. There is no place to put them. We decided to put Brandon and Reagan in the pack-n-play. Brandon thought Reagan was the perfect thing to pull-up on. Obviously, this didn't last long.

It even started raining during the opening of the presents!! Have no fear - Nana and Papa rented a condo. Let's take the party indoors. It was actually a welcomed relief to have a little A/C. Garrett will no longer have to dress-up in princess attire. He got a pirates outfit, a cowboy outfit, and army outfit and an Aggie fan outfit. He is going to have to do a lot of rooting for the Aggies this year. Based on game #1 - they are going to need a lot of help.

Caitlyn decided she had enough of camping and wanted to sleep in the condo the last night. No problem, except for the fact she came to the condo in her swim suit. Here she is styling her new digs that she wore for our walk on the beach the next day. She is wearing my shirt as a dress and Papa's belt wrapped around her twice.

Despite all of the mishaps, a good time was had by all. Here are some of the pictures from the rest of the weekend. Here are Garrett and Daddy relaxing at the campsite.

Now, we know why mommy likes camping - Daddy does the cooking. Here is Andy making his famous silver turtles.You can't have camping without a camp fire and smores!And let's not forget our awesome tent setter uppers.

Here are some of the kids having fun at the beach.Brandon even did good letting everyone hold him. That made mommy very happy.We even got to see something that you do not see very often at Galveston. Surfers!! The hurricane went to Louisiana but his waves came to us. It was too strong to have the kids play in the surf today but we had fun watching the surfers!!
We really did have a good time in spite of the little hiccups along the way. And Garrett had the best time ever and that was what it was all about after all.