We've been keeping busy this summer. The kids have been out for two weeks and we've been to a museum, to Galveston with the grandparents, to lunch with Chuck, and of course to the neighborhood pool. We've also had some craft time- making koala shirts, melted crayon art, and some painted fireworks.

Top left: I chose to do crayon splatters- I held different crayons over the canvas and melted them with a hair dryer. M's is top right- she made a flower resist and melted crayons that were glued to the canvas. W, bottom left- wanted a black background and a crazy rainbow pattern. The last picture is our July 4th paintings. We started with a black canvas and used fake flowers dipped in metallic paint. Lots of fun!

The girls and I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and took our neighbor friend Raegun. Prior to going, we made matching koala tank tops for the girls. The museum is very nice. Their permanent exhibits include ancient Egypt, complete with human and cat mummies. The mineral exhibit has been added to the take-Mimi-and-BeepBeep-to list. There us also a great dinosaur exhibit, complete with an armadillozilla. There are several exhibits we didn't see, but the best part was the butterfly center. We watched butterflies hatching from their chrysalis', saw a butterfly lay an egg, and so many different species flying around the butterfly enclosure. There we also other types of creepy crawlies- W petted a walking stick and some other strange creature from Australia. Plus,  there were spider and roaches and beetles to look at. I think the girls had a lot fun on that adventure. 

 Chuck's parents also came to Texas! Their first stop was to see some friends in Copperas Cove for few days, then they all came to Houston. On Friday, we all loaded into Leon's Suburban and headed to Galveston. It was a bit over and hour and a half with traffic. Our first stop was Moody Gardens. The Moody Garden complex includes a hotel, water park, aquarium, rainforest and zipline adventure. We chose to tour the rainforest. There were monkeys, bats, birds, butterflies, snakes, lizards and rays. We all enjoyed seeing the animals there.

Next, we went to the seawall and out onto Pleasure Pier. We had a nice lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp. It was a neat place, and the food was pretty good. Then we let the girls (and me) go out and ride the boardwalk rides. There were several we rode, but the heat soon got the best of us. We also fed some seagulls. W and M were throwing it out over the ocean, and I decided to hand feed them. M got brave and let them take a couple bites of food from her hand (eventually). 

Galveston was fun, and we're thinking about going for an overnight and staying at Moody Gardens to taken in the other attractions. Nothing firm yet, but there will be pictures.

Now we see what the next 2 weeks brings...

School's Out!

School finished up with a half day on June 5th, and it was bittersweet for both girls. I had the eating area decorated with balloons and even a Baskin Robbins cake waiting for them when they got home. Let's see what we can get into this summer in Houston!

I'm trying a new style of sharing pictures tonight. I have a lot to share and hopefully this will save lots of scrolling. We'll see. SO- here's what we've been doing…

First up, we took the girls to the Houston Comicpalooza. I saw a post about it on Reddit, found that Ming Na-wen was going to be signing autograph's, told M, and the rest is history. Now the whole family really likes the comics and sci-fi stuff, but not to same degree that SOME people like the stuff. Anyway, we saddled up and headed downtown. There aren't pics since they didn't want you using your own camera. M did her autograph, and W got Elizabeth Henstridge (another actress from the Marvel Agents of Shield). As a bonus, Chuck got to meet Lou Ferrigno and get his picture taken. Can't share because its a polaroid. The picture proof I do have is this ONE- with me and the girls at the TARDIS.

We've tried a couple of new restaurants in the area. We had brunch at Peli Peli which has South African cuisine, and we tried Cheeburger Cheeburger- um, yeah- burgers. Peli Peli was very good, Chuck got some kind of omelet type concoction and gave it 2 thumbs up. M had a berry crepe and enjoyed it, and W had a huge burger- not an ordinary American Burger, but she really enjoyed it (so did Chuck). I had a flight of steak- 6 different steak medallions with different sauces and seasonings. Very tasty. I also enjoyed W's cole slaw, which again, was not typical American cole slaw- it had fruits in it. Strange combo but yummy. 

Cheeburger Cheeburger is a burger joint with all kinds of crazy toppings and milkshakes with seemingly endless combinations. The shakes were great. The burgers were fine- nothing extraordinary. 

 For our most recent adventure, the kids and I tagged along with Chuck to a meeting in Ft. Worth. We headed out Sunday morning, straight up I-45. On the way, the girls and I had our first Buccee's experience. For the not Texans, Buccee's is an enormous carnival of a convince store. There's gas, bathrooms and bottled drinks of course, but there's also clothes, grills, food, jerky, calf skins, fudge and there are beavers on all of it. Yup, the logo is a beaver. He's cute. Then it was on through Dallas and over to Ft. Worth.

Once we got checked into the hotel we headed over to the Ft. Worth Stockyards. It's a historical site from when Ft. Worth was Cowtown. There's a cowboy museum and a cattle drive twice a day! We had a stage coach ride, our picture made on a longhorn, and a steak dinner. 

Dinner at Riscky's- steaks and ribs and potatoes all around. Chuck had the calf fries (some call them rocky mountain oysters) and a bloody mary called the Doc Holiday that included bacon and jalapeños.

Monday, while Chuck had meetings, the girls and I went shopping, and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. YUM! We picked up Chuck, then headed home by way of a quick dinner at In N Out burger. Ok, not sure what all the hoopla was about on that one.

Kids racked up- I found this awesome Maleficent tank- also got a Lion King one

Finally, I have some pictures of the local wildlife. The 3 baby mockingbirds were sitting super still in the bushes while I watered all around them. Mommy bird was watching form the neighbors roof and must have gathered them later. The bottom right picture is a little lizard that hangs out on our bathroom window almost very night. I really like seeing him there. What a cute belly!

Now that the kids are out of school, we're hoping to get into Houston to the museums and the aquarium and other attractions. The girls also want to go to the pool a lot and do crafts. Cool- sounds fun!