"Staycation"

Buying a house can be a pretty pricey venture, so a family vacation was not much of an option this summer. Instead, we opted for a "staycation" to visit a few places in the Houston area we haven't had the chance to yet. Originally, we were supposed to do it at the end of next month, but, as always, "the best laid plans..." Due to problems with his machine at work, James had this week off, so we decided to move our staycation up a few weeks.

First stop? The Space Center! It's been on our to-do list for awhile, so on Tuesday we crossed it off. A lot of it went over the girls' head, but they did have fun exploring what they could. Once again, I was reminded how much I dislike school groups with their lame adult-to-child ratio at places like this, but the girls didn't notice the things they missed out on because the other kids crowded them out. There was a 15 minute video about the history of space travel. Cadence was watching and she was the one to laugh out loud in the theater when the Challenger exploded on screen, at least until I explained what had really happened.

The entrance to the "current exhibit".

Cadence insisted on posing in front of the "girl astronaut".

A restored prop from the original Star Trek series.

A diorama of a moonwalk

Inside an old training capsule for the International Space Station

Connor on the Jupiter scale. He weighed in at a hefty 52lbs.

Wednesday morning, we risked the thunderstorms and drove to check out another beach. We didn't bother with bathing suits, but the trip was enjoyable nonetheless. The kids and I kicked off our shoes to wade into the waves. We ended up with sand everywhere and the humidity of the incoming storm chased us back to the car.

Connor's first few minutes on the sand.

Despite being a water lover, he was NOT a fan of the waves

The girls drew with sticks most of the time we were there.

Selfie!!!!

A trio picture, I needed at least one.

Cadence, however, LOVED the waves.

On the way home from the beach, we stopped at a sea center/aquarium, since it was on the way home from our beach of choice that day. It was another thing on my bucket list, but was too far and too small to venture to on my own. Stopping by on the way home from the beach, though? Totally doable. There wasn't much, but there were a few aquariums, a touch-tank. We lingered long enough at the largest aquarium to see the shark feeding, which was underwhelming, but it was fun seeing all the larger fish dash around to gobble up shrimp.

After exploring the interior of the sea center, we wandered out to their "wetlands" exhibit, despite the light rain. Of course, by the time we reached the end of the pier it was no longer a light rain. James and Connor ran back to the car, but the girls and I took a more leisurely stroll and even stopped for my second selfie of the day.

Thursday was more or less shot. Internet went down Tuesday afternoon during the storm and the tech came by Thursday morning. We eventually ended up waiting around all day and getting nothing fixed.

Friday, today, we ended up at the zoo. The kids and I go regularly, but James hasn't been able to go since the first winter we were in Houston (unless you count the Christmas lights exhibit we went to last winter). The girls showed off all their favorite animals and we all took a turn on the carousel. Afterward, we went to a hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint we found via Food Network's tendency to spotlight small business type places. This one advertised a country fried steak large enough to need a pizza pan to hold it. James was adventurous enough to try one of their larger ones, though not the largest. Neither of us were impressed by the steak, but the smoked beef I ended up ordering was fantastic.

Sorry, no pictures of our food, though we did joke about taking one.

Sadly, Monday things return to normal, but only mostly. James has Thursday and Friday off for Independence Day and we've got a family-hosted ward-invited BBQ to go to. The girls have a break from gymnastics this week, but 3 more classes to go. I'll have pictures and details on that later.