Leaving for vacation!

So, we had to squish our annual summer vacation (this year's destination - Houston, TX) in between the end of school (Thursday May 22) and Grace's dance recital rehearsals (Friday, May 30th). So, we decided to leave town right after the kids got home from their last day of school and drive as far south as Wichita. We stayed that night with my cousin Jenny and her family. The kids love playing with Jenny's kids, so it was fun. We got up and left town around 8 the next morning and headed for Texas. A long 10 hours later, we finally got there! What a long drive - the kids were troopers. They watched movies, read, played video games and listened to their MP3 players. We did let them swim a bit when we got there just to exercise them a little. But they were pretty tired so we went to bed. We stayed in a hotel that was a suite with a kitchenette, living room, and bedroom. The kids slept on the pull-out bed and one on the floor. We kept some food in the kitchenette. It was nice to have a separate room for Brian and I to watch TV or read after the kids went to sleep. Read on to see what we did every day while we were in Texas!

Day 1 - Saturday May 24

Our first day in Houston dawned hot and sunny - so we headed somewhere inside. We went to the natural science museum. It was pretty cool - they had lots of dinosaurs, Egyptian artifacts, gems and things like that. They did strangely have a huge exhibit dedicated to oil - they do love their oil in Texas. It was almost like propaganda to teach kids how oil is good. Brian and I were amused how there was little or no mention of any alternative fuels. We spent most of the morning there and ate lunch at the restaurant there.

 

After a while, we headed down the street to the Houston Children's museum. This was a cool place. There was a whole half of the museum dedicated to exercise with this huge climbing structure - the kids spent most of their time on it. The rest of the museum was standard children's museum exhibits but it was really well done. I recommend that place! 

 We got back to the hotel and had a yummy seafood dinner close by. Then it was some free time to swim in the hotel pool and relax.

Sunday, May 25 - Houston Zoo!

Sunday May 25th was bright and hot. What better way to spend it than walking around a zoo. I will say, Texans know how to do things outside. There was tons of water fountains, a lot of shade from trees or canopies and misting stations to cool off under. So, it was actually bearable. The Houston Zoo is quite a nice zoo. Very pretty, not so big that you can't walk around the whole thing in a day and lots of interesting animals with facts about them. The kids like reading the plaques and learning about each animal.

 

The kids were obsessed with palm trees. Since we obviously don't have those here, they pointed them out wherever we went. We took pictures in front of several.

 

 

 The Houston Zoo also had lots of places for kids to play and explore. Brian and I sometimes just sat in the shade while they ran around.

 More palm trees!

This is towards the end of the day - they were getting a little tired and a lot hot by then. It did get up in the 90's that day. We went back to the hotel, got cleaned up and drank lots of water then headed to a great seafood restaurant for dinner. Yum! Even the kids ate seafood (shrimp, which they all like). I think the kids watched a little TV before they passed out exhausted that evening. 

Memorial Day - The Beach!!

We looked at the weather forecast for the rest of our days in Houston and found out it was supposed to rain a lot, so we decided to change our plans and head to Galveston to the beach on a day we knew would be nice so we wouldn't get rained out. We thought we might fight some crowds, being Memorial Day and all, but it really wasn't too bad. The kids had their first taste of the ocean and loved every minute of it! The weather was a little cloudy, and a lot windy but that didn't bother anyone. We rented a few chairs and an umbrella and I mostly stayed with our stuff all day while Brian and the kids played in the waves for HOURS! We made them come in to eat lunch, drink some water and rest a bit (they played in the sand) but otherwise, they mostly stayed in the water.

 

 

 

Beach selfies!

There was a lot of seaweed, as you can see. There was a big pile of it between the us and the water. It was pretty soft, though and didn't bother anything.

They really did have a lot of fun in the water. We were all sandy, salty, sunburned and tired that night. When we got back to the hotel, we all took showers and they felt sooooo good! It was dinner at the hotel and an early bedtime for really tired kids that night! Glad we changed our schedule because the next two days were super rainy! We would have missed the beach.

A rainy visit to a Battleship - Tuesday, May 27

This day started off super rainy. Thunderstorms and a tornado warning a little north of us. We stuck around the hotel room until it passed but eventually ventured out to visit the USS Dallas, a WWII era battleship that you can tour and learn about. This was actually pretty cool. As you can see from the first couple of picture, it was raining when we got there. But that actually worked in our favor, we were the only ones there! We got to run around the battleship and go wherever we wanted to without fighting crowds. The rain did work against us a little bit when I slid down a very narrow, metal staircase and bruised up my arm and back - otherwise it was fine.

 

 

A picture of what the bunks looked like. 5 or 6 stacked on top of each other.

The guns on deck actually moved. The kids had a blast moving them from side to side and up and down.

When it stopped raining they climbed up the stairs to the bride and parts high. There were several levels they went up.

A view from the bow with the big gigantic guns pointing at you. They were huge!

The rest of that day passed in a blur. I had woken up and felt kind of crappy, and eventually figured out that I was getting strep throat (which I get a lot). I called my doctor in Lincoln and begged and they called in some antibiotics to a Walgreens in Houston for me. On the way home from the battleship we picked them up. We were supposed to spend the afternoon at a waterpark, but with the rain and storms, they were all closed. So, instead Brian and the kids went to a game store and bought a Pokémon game that the boys were dying to play. They all played Pokémon all afternoon while I rested. I felt better when I woke up and we all went out for some great Mexican food. That picture is of a huge brownie sundae we got the kids - of course they inhaled it! Everyone was tired that night and we rested up for a fun day the next day - NASA!