Spring Break

We started off our Spring Break with a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon at a local park. There were a lot of families there, but enough room and different areas to spread out and not feel too crowded. 

Afterwards we had family visitors at our house! And we found some crawfish for Aunt Jenn and John, because it's that season. Then we formed a cousin cart caravan and did some food shopping.

With a break from busy routines, the kids were definitely in need of a lot of this:

And we did have a lot of lazy, do-nothing time. The weather was icky, and they were still finishing up the bathroom renovations, so we couldn't do much the first part of the week anyway. We did want to play tourist on our staycation, however, so we got out to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Sugar Land one afternoon. Owen really wanted to see the dinosaurs again, and this fit the bill without having to drive downtown.

They had this fun semi-interactive screen where different creatures would "walk" through periodically. The kids got to tickle a leopard!

And I didn't get a picture of most of them, but they had a bunch of science experiments that we really enjoyed. Some of the more memorable ones were visualizing and manipulating a sound wave, lifting weights with and without pulleys and levers, and a mini-inflatable planetarium where we learned about the space race.

Owen was receiving a message from Hadley from across the room via the whisper dish.

Hadley's one request for Spring Break was to go to the rodeo (I think they talked it up a lot at school). Ugh, does this kid really understand what being the largest rodeo in the country entails? I looked at their attendance later for the day we went - 125,000 people! But I don't think I had ever been myself, and was curious to get this very Houston experience under our belt. Not to mention, it gets the girl to wear her cowgirl boots.

Wednesdays were 'kids get in free' day, so maybe that explained some of the crowds, but it was rainy, too, so everyone was crowded into the inside exhibits. We started off at the kid-friendly animal section where we saw piglets, lambs, calves, bees, and lots of different kinds of rabbits. There was even a small aquarium section, which seemed a little unusual at a rodeo.

Once we ventured outside, we stumbled into an animal show! There was a speaker who brought out different animals and shared some educational tidbits about each one. He had an owl, snake, anteater, hedgehog, and a baby kangaroo. The most entertaining thing  though was the sloth that he had already introduced, but which was just hanging out on a limb during the rest of the show. He was pretty active for a sloth - up, down, reaching, hanging, bending, twisting. I think he was hoping for a bigger tree to climb.

The kids were troopers through the crowds and exhibits, and we needed an afternoon pick-me-up, so I thought they had earned a funnel cake. Turns out we think this was their first funnel cake ever! And they devoured it in about three minutes.

I was disappointed that the actual rodeo events are on a separate ticket and at night with a concert included, which makes it difficult to attend with kids. I didn't want to leave without seeing something more rodeo-y, so we sat and watched a cow show, and then ventured to the other side of the venue to see a horse show. Neither was particularly riveting entertainment, but it did add a dimension to the rodeo of the culture of raising and working closely with animals, which I think is really the heart of the rodeo - more so than the carnival part, anyway. Speaking of which, we managed to avoid the carnival! I think the kids wanted to ride some of the rides (of course), but we had limited time, so that got cut first. :)

After the rodeo, we made a pitstop on our cross-city journey and met Dad for dinner and a tour of his new office. It's going well so far, and he really likes this communal, open-concept office. The kids liked it too.

The next day, we decided to use the discounted NASA Space Center tickets that the kids got from school and make a full family day of it. We hadn't been there in probably 20 years, so it was kind of new to us, too. We saw lots of cool replicas and original items crucial to the space story. Pretty amazing to imagine the human guinea pigs volunteering for this assignment.

A highlight was to see and explain the space shuttles to the kids. Kind of sad that era is over, but we were reminded of the tragedies and bravery required for space exploration. They have a replica of the shuttle and plane piggy-back that they used to use to transport the shuttle that visitors can walk through.

Hadley really enjoyed the simulations on the plane. This one was practicing docking the shuttle onto the plane with a crane, and the kids had to work together as each controlled a different part. 

Other highlights included touching a moon rock and seeing lots of space suits, as well as weather exhibits and a show about rockets that included ignition demos!

While we were in the area, we thought we may as well check out Kemah. After all, the kids had been to Texas so many times, but had never actually been to the coast. They were disappointed that this section of coast didn't really have a beach! Haha. It made me a little sad that they never got to go to my grandfather's bay house...

A short walk took us to the Kemah boardwalk - another local landmark I don't recall ever going to before. Is everything a carnival now? It was very touristy, and not our favorite, but I still enjoyed walking on the boardwalk for a change of scenery.

An example of the touristy-ness of Kemah - random Popeye cutout. In conclusion, we enjoyed our lazy Spring Break with a sprinkle of local tourist activities mixed in for good measure. But, of course, Spring Break is never quite long enough!