Our Christmas Celebration - Thursday, December 25, 2014

Christmas Day started out cold in southeast Texas. Before brunch at Moody Gardens we took Randall on a driving tour of Galveston, then met up with Tom and Rosemarie, Bob's brother and sister-in-law at Jamaica Beach RV Park south of Galveston. We walked to the field behind the RV park to look for whooping cranes, but none were there today.

Entering Galveston

Galveston's cruise terminal

The Gulf of Mexico from Seawall Drive in Galveston

Tom, Rosemarie (with Coco), Bob, Randall

Tom, Rosemarie (with Coco), Bob and I

Jamaica Beach water tower

Loggerhead shrike

I'm thinking the two birds in the tree below are white-tailed kites. They have feathers on the tops of their legs and don't have the head shape of a pigeon or seagull.  I could not get a clear enough image of their white tails to make a good identification. They have the body style of a hawk.

White-tailed kites? Anyone know?

The next few photos were taken at Jamaica Beach RV Park. It's quite a nice RV park 11 miles south of Galveston. It has a large pool with palapas and Tiki Bar, mini golf course, large, enclosed hot tub, and a pond.

Pool area

Pool and Tiki Bar. Randall on second floor,
Rosemarie, Bob and Tom in front of Tiki Bar

Beautiful enclosed spa overlooking pond.

Black-bellied whistling ducks in the pond

Bob's picking up chicks with a nice booty.

Randall's checking her out too.

One of two resident tortoises at Jamaica Beach

Rosemarie and Jaws!

Jamaica Beach RV Park and pond

After our RV park exploration, we all piled into the Escape pod and drove to Moody Gardens for brunch in their Garden Restaurant. We met up with Bob and Tom's cousin, Linda, and her kids James and Mary. Mary's boyfriend, Robert, was there as well. What a lovely find this restaurant is. The food and service were top notch. I would go back to Moody Gardens anytime for a brunch like we had today.

Part of the Christmas decorations.

 The large structure in the background of the photo is an ice skating rink.

An alien jellyfish, perhaps?

Hibiscus and poinsettia.

Linda, James, Robert and Randall

The cornucopia of rolls and my fruit plate. (I had to set it
down somewhere to take this photo!)

The ice sculpture below is a Christmas stocking ice skate filled with a teddy bear and candy canes.

James and Linda

Robert and Mary

Tom and Rosemarie

Bob, Mary, James, Linda, Robert, and Tom.

A poinsettia tree

Bob and Randall

Moody Gardens

Cool decorations. At night, they're lit from within.

Pretty sky as we leave Moody Gardens.

Another view of Moody Gardens

Greater sandhill cranes (drat, I thought they were
whooping cranes until I looked them up)

Late afternoon sky

Driving home into the sunset (Galveston to San Antonio)

Bob's  and Tom's cousin, Linda, and her kids drove down from Seabrook, Texas, which isn't too far away. Tom had not seen Linda for many years. We had such a nice time, I think we should all get together again soon.

Our drive home on I-10 was stress free. Bob said it's the most relaxed he's ever been when driving I-10 from Houston to San Antonio. We hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas as well.

One downside to today...I came down with the scratchy sore throat that starts this nasty cold that's going around. Bummer!

Travel Bug out.