Galveston and Gustav

I have the perfect reasons to blog tonight - we had a wonderful trip to Galveston this weekend and all that's on TV are political conventions. It's not that I hate politics or anything, I just hate conventions. This is because in 1988, I was staying at my grandparents house while my mother was in Hong Kong. For the week they were taking care of me after camp, the only thing that was on all four channels they received with their rabbit ears on the one television they owned was the Democratic National Convention. I defy you to find me one 12 year old that wants to watch 4 hours of Michael Dukakis for 5 straight days. So that pretty much ruined me. When I hear "___ National Convention", the only thing I can think of is unwaxed eyebrows and I want to run screaming. And By the way, if you ever said to yourself, "I bet Tiffany never posts a picture of Dukakis on 'The Bright Spot'", I just proved you wrong.

As I said before, we went to Galveston for Labor Day weekend. Before we left, we knew that there was a possibility that we may have to cut our stay short because of Hurricane Gustav churning in the Gulf, but we went anyway. Galveston is only about 5 hours away, so it's the perfect distance from Dallas when Ellie is napping for 2 of those hours. We stayed at the San Luis Resort, which is right across from the beach. We stayed in a one bedroom condo, and it was great because we could put Ellie to bed at 7:45 and then watch TV in our living area. I would not say Galveston is the greatest of places to visit, but it's got a beach and a fun pool so that's all that mattered to Ellie. When we arrived on Friday afternoon, we hit the pool. There was a water slide that Ellie could not get enough of and we bought some floaties for her so she could kick around in the pool.

On Saturday morning, we went to the beach. Lee took Ellie into the water, and my poor kiddo got stung by a jellyfish. The only reason I think it was a jellyfish is because her arm was red when she got out of the water. Lee got stung too. By Sunday morning it had started to blister and then by that night the blisters opened. It got her pretty good on her left hand and it's about the size of a quarter. It looks bad, but it doesn't seem to bother her. It bothers me. She didn't even notice it until I sprayed some Bactine on it. Now she has started poking at it. When she does I tell her to quit it and authoritatively she waves her finger back at me and says something in Ellie language. I'm afraid that someone is going to see it and think that I burned her with a cigarette or threw hot water on her of something. We'll see how the daycare ladies react when I tell them this tomorrow. Part of me is expecting a call from CPS.

After a Ellie had a good nap on Saturday, we took a shopping trip to the Strand where I bought my Christmas ornament. I have to buy two things wherever we travel: a silver charm for my already full charm bracelet and a Christmas ornament. I could not find a charm so I had to settle for the ornament. After an early bite to eat, we all went back to the pool. Ellie is turning into a water baby because she put up quite a fuss when we decided to go up for the night.

We left one day early on Sunday because we could tell Gustav was going to hit around New Orleans and did not want to get caught in the evacuation traffic. It took a little longer to get back as we were leaving because there were a lot of Louisiana people on the road. One of my co-workers was driving back from Houston at the same time and noticed something strange about the Louisiana folks - when they want to stop, they just pull over on the side of the highway. No need for a rest stop or a McDonald's - they just pull over. It's weird. We made it back fine, but it was just sort of a bummer that we had to leave early. I would like to go back again next year with a group of friends.

Right before we left for our trip, we found out that we were accepted as members of Lakewood Country Club so actually by coming back a day early, we we able to enjoy the last day of summer there with my parents. It's too bad we finally got our membership late in the summer, but we're already looking forward to next fall. When Ellie was in the kiddy pool, three little girls were playing with her, but started screaming "gross!!" when they saw her hand. Poor Ellie didn't know what was going on. I tried to tell them what happened to her, but they just looked at her like she had leprosy.

In other news, September 1 marked the drop dead date for Ellie loosing her paci. The doctor said she had to loose it completely between 15-18 months. I'm trying the cold turkey approach. She only has it at night now for about 6 months, but she's still had it. She was fine on Sunday night, but Monday night and tonight were a different story. She doesn't mind getting into bed without it at first, but she notices that it is absent after about 5 minutes. Then she gets MAD. I don't think it'll take long for her to forget about it and the sooner we loose it, the easier it will be. Another big pet peeve (in addition to baby talkers) is kids walking around with a paci hanging out of their mouth when they're 3 years old. I just want to snatch it out of their mouth. So I told myself Ellie is not going to be one of those kids. And she's not.