That’s What He Said

I took myself a mini-vacation this weekend. Jealous? Yeah, I know. Stephen and I took his family to Galveston for the weekend to stay at Bella Rose and have a fun-filled family get-away. There were 8 of us: Stephen and I, his parents, his two sisters and their boyfriends. There are a few things you need to know about this group. First, we are a loud bunch. Second, a few members of this group have a tendency to repeat phrases over and over until they are no longer funny… then they repeat them a thousand more times until they somehow become funny again. This weekend the two phrases of choice were “Oh, piece of candy” which apparently comes from an episode of Family Guy or South Park or something, and “That’s What She Said” which, well, if you don’t know where that comes from you can just stop reading my blog right now because we will not get along.

The problem with weekend trips is that you really only get one full day of vacation. Everyone arrived on Friday and we stayed up long enough to unload the cars, chat a bit, and my SIL’s boyfriend to have a cold burrito from Buc-ee’s. Then the eight of us took turns brushing our teeth and getting ready for bed. We needed a good night’s sleep, we had a long day of doing nothing ahead of us. You really don’t want to be tired for that.

We all woke up on Saturday morning at different times. Eventually everyone was up and dressed and we headed to the Sunflower Bakery for some very necessary blueberry pancakes. We ate until we couldn’t speak anymore and then we ate some more. I am obviously overreacting when I say that we ate until we couldn’t speak anymore… because there is really never a time that the 8 of us can’t speak. Not possible. We stuffed ourselves back into our cars and headed to the beach. Texas tends to be bipolar when it comes to weather so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. The great state gave us some beautiful weather but it was a tad too cold to be beaching so we just walked around, took a ton of pictures, and watched Stephen and Shawn chase some crabs.

For some reason I think it’s funny to take a picture of someone taking a picture. It really never gets old for me. I’m aware that it probably gets old for you so I will old post that one, not the one of Stephen taking a picture with his cell phone and his tongue sticking out.

This is the Hurst family. Please ignore my monstrous feet!

We had plans to go to the botanical gardens at Moody Gardens. We got ready to go and then as we were just about to load into the car we realized that we didn’t know where we were going. We called Moody Gardens to figure out where they were located. My brilliant sister-in-law jokingly asked the guy on the phone if the had the botanical gardens. Umm, no. They are closed. Soooo, on to plan B. Problem was that we didn’t have a plan B. We didn’t even really have a plan A.

We eventually decided to head to The Strand and walk around a bit. Remember what I said about the two phrases that were repeated?? Well imagine taking those phrases to a street with three candy stores and a Gay Pride Fest. Phrase number two was edited in honor of the weekend’s events. Hence the title of the blog. Obnoxious? Yes. Slightly inappropriate? Yes. But often outrageously hilarious? Absolutely. Let me just say that if you’ve never had the opportunity to be within ten feet of a gay pride fest, you’re missing out on a lot of leopard print belts, short shorts, giggling, and (oddly enough) plaid Keds. Who knew?

We shopped, visited the Elissa, went to the candy store to watch them make taffy, etc. etc.

Incase you can’t read that sign, that’s the Ike water line. My father-in-law is 6’7… so yeah, it was really high.

 

That’s a piece of aluminum. There was this machine where you pick a letter, pull a lever, pick a letter, pull a lever, and on and on until you spell what you want. It presses each letter onto this coin. Stephen made one for me. It says, “Stephen Loves Chelsea Always.” Other coins floating around were “Shawn and Heather,” “Ndrev Loves Courtney” (Andrew wasn’t very good at it…), and “That’s What He Said 2009.”

Don’t you love him? He’s so cute. That was at the Elissa. Nothing exciting was going on behind him, he’s just THAT excited to see a ship! Later there were a bunch of men climbing up with harnesses. Stephen was convinced that they were going to repel down but they ended up just doing some work on the sails. The anticipation left us underwhelmed.

Anyways, that’s not what’s important about the weekend. The important thing is that for dinner we had two delicious Pioneer Woman recipes followed by a chocolate cheesecake that made us all die. It was a great food weekend. And since that’s really all I require out of life, I would say that this weekend was one of my favorites in my recent memory! And it may or may not have something to do with sharing an old-fashioned chocolate shake with my hubby!

 

(Ten on Tuesday tomorrow. If you’re a blogger and want the questions ahead of time, email me. Most of you said you were cool with getting them Tuesday morning, but if you’re a planner like me, I can send them to you. chelsea.hurst (at) hotmail (dot) com)