Space City

Our first family adventure was to Houston.  Dad is there a few days a week for work, so we tagged along and stayed the weekend.

We packed a lot of adventure into four days.

We got into town Wednesday afternoon and we picked up Dad at his office and unloaded at the hotel, and went swimming.  What kid doesn't love a hotel pool?

Thursday I took the kids to the zoo in the morning.  We were good for about an hour, and then we were melting in Houston's 95% humidity and high heat.  We stayed about 90min longer to see everything G wanted to see then we got lunch and headed back to the hotel for naps.

After naps more pool time.  And then our friends who were doing the same thing (their dad was working in Houston last week too, and his family tagged along) met us at our hotel to swim.  We got take out and did lots of swimming and chatting.

Friday we went to NASA with our friends (mentioned above).  We love NASA.  I will say that if you don't have a kid that's interested in science, robots, black holes, satellites, the Mars Rover, The Hubble, etc ... it's kind of a hard sell.  As it was our littles had fun but most of it was definitely over their heads.

Hotel again.  I can't remember if we napped.  I'm going to assume we did.  When we woke up Lewis wanted to head over to Larry's, his all time favorite restaurant and a staple in his family.  We showed the kids his house growing up, where he used to play golf, where he worked, where he got his hair cut.  Lewis wanted to get out and show them the bike trails but I drew the line at traipsing through the under brush.

Headed home at sunset, I remembered the bat colony that's just a few miles from our hotel.  It worked out perfect.  We pulled up right as they started their mass flight.  And unlike in Austin, they flew and flew.  And hawks were circling and dive bombing them and catching them!  It was very national geographic.  The boys loved it.  G especially.

I am so glad that worked out.

The next day Galveston beach!  Which is severely underrated.  It's brown water, due to the silt from the Mississippi River, but the water is warm and the waves are fun and it's rarely crowded.  And it's close!  Having spent much of my life near the ocean (and now having spent 10yrs so far from it) I enjoy any opportunity to visit.  And while it is not the prettiest, I always have fun there.  And it's a pirate island with a fun history that the kids enjoyed hearing about all that, too.

The next day was Father's Day.  We had breakfast in our hotel and went to see the early showing of Cars 3.  Quick lunch, and then me and the kids headed home.

I love being away.  I love taking the kids to see fun things and being on our own clock and not having to do my chores.  Now that I'm back and having to do all the clean up from everything I listed above it's such a chore.

So fun.

But my favorite thing (maybe -if I had to pick just one)  this was the first trip I listened to an audiobook with the kids.  For this adventure I chose Peter and the Starcatchers.  And it did not disappoint.  Peter Pan is just epic child fantasy and G was riveted.  We had to finish up the last two hours here at home yesterday and today and yesterday G was negotiating how to listen and when.

Joy is your child thinking that reading is fun and amazing.  Joy.  Sharing that with him is going to be a huge highlight.  Talking about the book and what was happening and what we thought would happen (there are two pirates so we were debating which one was going to turn out to be Captain Hook) ... my seven year old is turning into a cool person that I really enjoy spending time with.

This is a book we're going to have to revisit when D matures a bit.  He listened with us but it was over his head a bit, and comprehension is harder when you are four.  And J ... well she's 2.  She couldn't figure out why there weren't pictures.  (true story - there was an epic meltdown yesterday because show me mama!  show me!)  And there was nothing to show.

We're home for the next month or so.  Next!  Boston!