Cruise Time!

It is finally time!! This morning we went to church and Yiayia, Bill and Nana joined us so we could complete the exchange - Kate is with them, and we are free parents for a week. I don't know who was more excited - the second the closing prayer "Amen." was said and we stood up, Kate reached over, gave me a big hug and said, "Bye, Mom!" I think she's looking forward to her week.

We went to lunch with everyone before saying our goodbyes and headed south. We had really good weather all the way down, although we did get to watch storm clouds start to form and build about the time we stopped at Buc-ee's in Madisonville with 8000 other people. I swear, I've never seen a gas station so busy. O mean, the bathrooms are nice and yeah, they have a ton of snacks, but really, it's so crazy that I'm not even sure it's worth the stop.

We only hit a few small patches of traffic in Houston, but nothing major. Nick wanted to drive through it so he could see downtown, so we did that rather than loop around. Finally we crossed the big bridge onto Galveston Island. Our first stop was to our hotel for the night, Baymont Inn, where we are staying for free thanks to our Wyndham points. It's a really nice room too, especially for costing us nothing! We didn't stay long because we wanted to get to dinner.

While waiting for our table, we walked across the street and out onto one of the jetties to take a few photos and kill some time. I got splashed pretty hard by some overspray from one of the crashing waves, so we headed back in and by that time my phone dinged telling me that our table was ready.

I had earned enough MyPoints for a Landry's gift card, so we chose one of their restaurants and ate at Fishtales. I had stuffed flounder and Nick ordered blackened catfish. It was really yummy. As I was pulling my wallet out of my purse I realized that there was only one passport inside.

Um, WHERE WAS MY PASSPORT???

They had both been there earlier. Panic ensued, and I seriously thought about passing out. Why was it not there? Where had it gone? It wasn't on the floor, it wasn't anywhere in my purse, only Nick's was still there. We frantically paid our tab and began retracing our steps back over to the Bubba Gump gift shop, but no one had turned one in. We walked back across to Fishtales, no passport. We ran to the car - at this point, I am praying like a madwoman and near tears, I throw open the car door and hit the overhead lights......and there was my passport. It had fallen out in the car. I was so relieved that I immediately teared up. All that emotion had to come out. WHEW.

After that excitement, and because some pretty large rain clouds were headed our way from Houston, we came back to the hotel room and decided to hit the gym. Hopefully I will be able to get some sleep tonight, but I'm pretty excited about tomorrow so I make no promises! Next stop, cruise terminal!