[MUSIC]
What comes to mind when you think of Texas?
Cowboys?
Maybe the barbecue?
How about a 72-ounce steak
that is free if you eat the whole thing.
But what if I said to you island living?
No?
Well that just means you have never been to Galveston.
This island on the Texas Gulf Coast is famous
for its natural beauty and it is easy to see why.
Between Galveston Island State Park and the Moody Gardens
wildlife exhibits, living on this island
is like a year-round summer vacation.
> I'm just gonna stay here and dream about my boat.
> And maybe the best part here compared to other
island destinations,
Galveston's housing market pretty darn stable.
Which makes buying a house here a bit more accessible.
> Wow.
This is really unexpected.
> And that is great news for Wendy and Scooter,
who want to make their favorite vacation
destination their new home away from home.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[MUSIC] [WAVES]
> It's nice that it's not so hot today.
> I know.
The breeze is nice.
> Yes.
> I'm Scooter.
> I'm Wendy.
And we're looking to buy our dream home
in Galveston, Texas.
> It's kind of nice when it's not super crowded too.
That's what'll be nice about being able to
come down here whenever we want, you know.
This is way more peaceful when it's just us.
Our first date was playing pool, just hanging out,
kind of getting to know each other.
[MUSIC]
> Is that a sand dollar?
> Yep.
> Yay.
> Your favorite.
> The day after he sent me fire and ice roses.
They were the most beautiful roses.
The red and white.
And something about that caught my attention.
It is like sand dollar day.
I saved the petals and at our wedding the flower girl
threw those petals down as I was walking down the aisle.
Wow.
> That's awesome.
That's huge.
> This one is really big.
> Yeah.
From the beginning I was just very attracted to her.
She knew what she wanted to do.
She was very independent.
But she was also just so personable.
So it was really pretty easy for me.
We got engaged two months after we met.
And then married six months later.
So not much for sitting around and waiting.
Things were definitely scrappy for us early on.
I was a restaurant manager.
I made about 24,000 dollars a year.
There were times where I worked 80 to 100 hours a week.
And I remember coming home and Wendy saying hey,
I feel like a single parent.
And I was like but I took off early Friday.
And she goes I know,
you got home at seven that night.
And so that Monday I turned in my notice.
You know, that my family's the most important thing to me.
I got into sales for a automotive software company.
A few years later the gentleman that owned that
distributorship was ready to sell it and Wendy let me
take every penny we had to scrape together
what we needed to buy that.
And it really started to change everything for us.
We know we want to be in a quiet neighborhood
with not a lot of rentals.
Close access to the beach.
> We want to be on the water.
> Yep, on the water.
We need to have at least three bedrooms.
That way Jake and Madison have their own rooms
that they can, you know, just walk in
and it'll be like they're at home.
> We have two kids, Jake and Madison.
Well and I'm not ready today,
but soon, for some grandkids.
> I'm ready right now for grandkids.
> Jake is 23.
He just graduated from Sam Houston University
and he just got engaged.
> Madison's our daughter and she's 21.
And she is an absolute blast.
If you want to be spontaneous and you want
to jump off bridges and do some fun stuff,
she's your person.
When I think about, you know, the last
20-something years that now we're actually gonna be
buying a bay house that we can share with our friends
and our family is just awesome.
We originally started thinking about
where we would have our dream home.
We thought we wanted a lake house.
And then we kept going but we always go to Galveston.
> Our first vacation was down here.
> Yes, I remember walking on the beach thinking
I was gonna get harpooned because I had eaten so much.
We stayed on the beach side a lot
and then we started saying on the bay side.
And we're like
well this is like a lake house
but the beach is across the street.
So we're not really giving anything up.
It would always be the place we would go.
And so ultimately we said hey, that's it.
It's a bay house.
We want to be on a canal, we want to be on the water
and be close proximity to the beach.
> We've rented so many houses it'll be nice to own it.
> Yeah.
I think that prepared us, though.
Because we kind of know the area.
We know the neighborhoods
'cause we've tried a few of them.
This is a good time to do this.
> Let's do it.
[MUSIC]
> We are going to the Tarpon house.
> Yeah, this neighborhood is nice.
I mean even though some of the homes are older,
they're all painted nice.
So I think this house
is all the way on the end of this.
So it's the last house on the street.
That would be kind of cool.
Here it is.
Oh yeah.
> I'm so excited.
[CAR BEEPING]
> Oh wow.
Look how many people you could fit under this deck.
> Family, friends.
> Like four hammocks. > Grilling.
> Oh there's a whole fishing pier over here.
>I'll never see you again.
Oh wow.
> Things for your bait already built into the dock.
They put a lot of effort into making this really cool.
Oh.
It only gets better as you get out here.
But does it come with the speed boat?
You could pull a tuber behind that
and they would never be the same.
Let's go upstairs.
> All right.
> I know it's ten years old but it feels pretty new.
Yeah, wow.
> Wow.
That is beautiful.