A day at the beach!

Saturday morning we were woken up at 6:30am by Tucker excitedly singing, "Its my birthday! Its my birthday!". By 7, the presents were open, his air hockey table was broken and there were nerf balls ricocheting off of walls and furniture...we knew we needed a day out of the house!
So...we went to the beach and had a GREAT day!
We headed through Galveston and took the ferry on to Crystal Beach! It was a really fun experience. The kids thought it was so cool to drive our car onto the boat (and it really was!). We saw 2 sets of dolphins playing in the water and enjoyed the 15 minute ride to the other side. From there, we went to the beach and spent the day playing in the water, collecting seashells and building sand castles. It was a fun and relaxing day!
At 5, we decided it was time to head back home. Our picturesque day quickly deteriorated!
We waited in a 90 minute car line to get on the boat with tired kids who are hungry and sunburn. A seagull managed to poop through the window into the car and onto Tim's arm. When we finally got on the boat, a storm blew in with lightning and thunder crashing all around and the kids asking "can lighting make you die?". We fought traffic, in the storm, through Galveston only to get onto the bridge to leave the island in time for the absolute most terrifying lightning storm I have ever been in to be crashing all around us!! We finally made it to the other side where there were bluer skies and even a rainbow!! By now it is about 8:00 and we are REALLY tired and hungry, the kids are even more exhausted and Tucker is reminding us over and over again that we still have his birthday cake at home! By the time we picked up dinner and got home, it was 9:15!
We quickly fed crying children dinner, sang happy birthday to Tucker, ate birthday cake, showered, fought with Hayley about a splinter in her foot, treated sunburns with aloe, and put the kids to bed! Aaahhh....what a day!
If you have small children you know that any day that is full of fun and excitement (and ends at 10:00) is going to end with some sort of chaos! The key, I guess, is knowing that its going to happen and not letting it take away from the dolphins and seashells that got you to that point!!