Family Vacation {Day One}

     Matt and I have decided that the beach is the best vacation spot for little ones.  They are free to run and play and there's lots of sand and water!  All of which our two little one's love.  They love to run free and they love to dig in the sand and they love to play with the water hose.

     The trickiest part of the vacation is the long car ride.  Brazos is great in the car, but Sandy on the other hand, fusses...A LOT!  The solution to this was to pack a cooler full of drinks for her, along with a lot of diapers.  I packed her about five bottles for the two hour car ride.  A bottle is really the only thing that soothes her.  It's like a pacifier to her.  So during the car ride, anytime she started fussing we just passed her a bottle and we were good for at least 30 more minutes.  The bottles were life savers!

     We first went to the Houston Zoo.  Both kids stayed awake during our visit to the zoo.  I remember last year, Sandy slept through most of it, but then again she was only a few months old.  She really enjoyed looking at all the animals this year.  Brazos loved all the tunnels built throughout the exhibits that he could crawl through.  The carousel was probably his favorite part of the zoo, but Sandy wasn't too sure about the monkey she sat on.  We stayed at the zoo about three hours which was just the right amount of time for these two kiddos.

     There is a train that travels from the zoo to the Museum of Natural Science.  We took the train ride after lunch to go see the dinosaur exhibit at the museum.  We thought this would be right up Brazos's alley, because he loves the show Dinosaur Train.  So we had a train ride and dinosaurs! 

     I think mommy and daddy were more excited about he dinosaurs than the kids.  The dinosaur bones were BIG and Brazos told us, "I'm little and I like little dinosaurs."  We did happen to find some "little" dinosaurs, but for the most part they were BIG.  I was most amazed by the birds!  The pterodactyl was bigger than the t-rex!  I had never seen such a huge bird!

     The museum also had a meteorology exhibit that we stumbled upon by accident by getting off of the elevator on the wrong floor.  I don't think we had tickets to see the exhibit but no one shooed us away, so we explored the floor for a few minutes.  Brazos was on camera and was the meteorologist for Channel 11 news!  He wasn't actually being filmed, but he did show up on the big screen in the museum.  I think I have a crush on the weather man!

The highlight of my train ride was having this little lady's hand rest upon my knee. Such a sweet and gentle touch!

Apparently this is an early human from the country Chad.  I'm not to thrilled with the idea that humans looked like this at one time.  If we are made in the image of God, then did God once look like this, too?  Did his looks change over time? 

Slothzilla! 

     After a fun filled day at the zoo and the museum we headed to Galveston Beach!  Sandy was given her bottle in the car and we were off to the sand.  We immediately boarded the ferry once we arrived in Galveston and drove to Crystal Beach on Boliver Peninsula.  This beach is usually less populated than the seawall and the kids are free to run without bothering anyone.  You just have to watch out for the occasional vehicle, because you're allowed to drive your car on Crystal Beach.  It's great!  You don't have to worry about finding a parking spot and lugging your stuff to the beach.  You just hop out of the car and go play!  We didn't change into swim suits because it was late, but that didn't keep the kids from enjoying the water and sand for about an hour before it was too dark.

     By nine o'clock it was dark so we rode the ferry back to Galveston and looked for a place to lay our heads.  We first tried Holiday Inn on the seawall, but they didn't have any rooms available.  The front desk was kind enough to call another hotel to ask if they had any rooms for us, and they sent us to Country Inn Suites.  The hotel room we ended up in was wonderful, with two televisions {one for cartoons and one for grown-ups}, a balcony with a view of the beach, and the hotel had an indoor pool.

     Before calling it a night, we all put our bathing suits on an went for a dip in the hot tub.  The pool was way too cold!  There was another couple sitting in the hot tub when we arrived, but they didn't mind having us join them for a few minutes.  After talking with them we found out that they were from College Station and they even knew people from Brenham that we knew.  Small world!  They were enjoying the beach for the weekend as well, and showing their two month old daughter, Layla, the beach for the first time.

     The pool closed at eleven, so we all took bathes, put on our pjs, said our prayers, and curled up in the covers.  Day one of our family vacation was a success!