In April, we celebrated David’s 30th birthday. His birthday wish was for all of his friends
to be together, having fun on the beach.
So that’s exactly what we did by heading to Port Aransas, Texas for a
weekend of sun and surf.
Unfortunately the sun decided not to make an appearance, but
the crappy weather didn’t deter us from swimming all day in the ocean and the many
pools of the Port Royal Resort.
On the recommendation of our friend Patrick, who celebrated
his birthday in the same place, we booked three condos at Port Royal for the
long weekend. The condos were huge and
accommodated everyone really well. We
had 2-3 couples in each place, plus huge living spaces complete with fully
stocked kitchens.
A few of us took a vacation day on Friday and left for the
coast after work on Thursday. David and
I had a full car with Jeff and Jacque, and Molly. Jeremy had to work late on Thursday, so he
drove up Friday morning.
Jacque, Jeff’s girlfriend, was in South Austin at her
parent’s house as we headed out, so we agreed to meet her on the way. She wanted to make the pickup convenient for
us, so her mom offered to drop her off at a random, pinned location directly
off the freeway.
It was so random! The address she had pinned was the creepiest
ranch house we have ever seen! It was
literally in the middle of nowhere, so we felt like we were about to meet
Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
When Mrs. White pulled up, we quickly shuffled Jacque into the backseat,
where she smushed in next to Molly and Jeff, before we took off! (It’s days like that that I wish we had an
SUV.)
We kept busy on the 4½ hour drive by singing along to the
radio, playing Heads Up (which I should probably not have been playing
considering I was also driving), and stopping at Sonic for a late-night snack.
We got to the resort and were greeted by the Kainers and
Gristys, who had arrived a few hours earlier.
It was past curfew by the time we checked in, which meant the pools and
hot tubs were closed, but that didn’t stop us from jumping the fence and
relaxing in the hot tub … at least for the next 30 minutes, until we were
kicked out by a very understanding security guard.
The next morning, Cristy and Jon arrived, as well as Jeremy
and the Watsons. We spent the afternoon
on the beach, the girls wading in the surf while the guys played football. David and Patrick also went fishing from
shore, and David caught a huge black drum!
We couldn’t believe there were fish that big in the waves around
us. Kind of creepy when you think about
everything you can’t see in the water…
A friendly sea turtle (I swear, David is the sea turtle
whisperer) also came up for air right in front of him and Patrick. He waved a fin at the guys before descending
back under the waves.
On Friday evening, we played a round of Cards Against
Humanity and cooked a big spaghetti dinner. It was absolutely hilarious listening to David
give explanations of the cards to the more innocent members of the group. Why David is the expert in all things
inappropriate and grotesque, don’t ask me.
Most guests then went back down
to the hot tubs, while the Simons and I waited for Katie and Dave to arrive
from Houston.
By Saturday morning, the entire birthday party was in Port
A!
Cristy and I took the resort’s yoga class on Saturday
morning before meeting everyone from our room at the restaurant for another huge
breakfast.
Port Royal offers a AAA discount to members like the Kainers. The receptionist felt bad that she couldn’t
offer our room the same rate, so instead, she gave me $100 of free breakfast
vouchers for each day of our
stay. We figured for sure the plates
would be tiny and cost a fortune, but we were very, very wrong. Each meal was so filling that it lasted us
the entire day until dinner. The
biscuits were the size of saucers and covered in hearty sausage gravy, then
topped with cheese and hot sauce. The
French toast was equally enormous. And
on Saturday, we indulged in the Bloody Mary Breakfast Buffet.
We somehow managed to roll ourselves back down to the pool
area, where we hibernated in the hot tubs for a few hours, before getting the
energy to go down the waterslides and play a couple of rounds of pool volleyball.
The weather was taking a turn for the worse on Saturday
evening, so we decided not to leave the resort for dinner. Instead, we had BLTs and hung out in our PJs
… a true testament of a 30s vs 20s birthday party.
Besides being known for her amazing margaritas, Kim also
makes a damn good giant cookie cake. If
I had known it was going to be that
big, I would not have bought David a traditional birthday cake.
When the clock struck midnight on Saturday, it was time to
celebrate David’s actual birth day. Katie
and Dave brought the decorations – Frozen-themed tiaras for all of the guys,
and a Disney princess banner. When Quinn
saw the pictures on Molly’s phone, she exclaimed, ‘But Mama, David is a boy!’
Patrick eating peanut butter straight out of the jar (gross!) while David shows off his gift
We sang happy birthday to David and he opened his gifts, and
then ran down to the hot tub for one last midnight swim … but not before he
took his 30s pic!
The entire Hawaii
crew was in town, so we were not going to
let David get away without taking a
ridiculous 30s picture
The next morning, the sun finally decided to show up, so
Katie, David, and I took a walk down to the beach and lied in the sand for a
good hour, listening to music, talking, and watching the pelicans glide over
the waves, searching for breakfast.
It was a short, but sweet, weekend trip to the coast to
celebrate David. Happy (extremely!) belated
birthday!
