Day Five (July 6th): Early in the morning, we woke up to the sound of serious thunder, flashes of lightning, and the biggest downpour I had ever seen. We had been told that the rain in Texas was different than ours, but there is simply no comprehension of this until you experience it yourself. Oh my goodness. I can now say that 99% of the time, the Pacific Northwest does not experience rain. It sprinkles. If you want to see rain, go to Houston during a thunderstorm! Back to our trip...we ventured into Houston and visited the Houston Zoo. Eli absolutely loved all the animals and enjoyed being able to run around. We typically don't let him just run around, but there was hardly anyone at the zoo on this day. Granted, the Houston area was continuing to meet and beat the record heat for the day, then add on the extra humidity from the morning thunderstorm and the day was HOT and MUGGY. This is not an understatement by any means. It was muggier than all get out. We tried to alternate visiting outdoor exhibits and those in a building where the temperature was much cooler than outside. As we were continuing around the zoo, we found a fan blowing with a cool mist - talk about heaven! Jess, Eli, and I were surrounding the thing taking in as much as possible. Unfortunately, but this point in our visit, there weren't a lot of indoor exhibits left to see, but there was still a lot of zoo left. By the time we got to the end, we were all drained, Eli was tuckered out and didn't want to leave the stroller and had even pulled the sun shade down and was "hiding." FUNNY!
Eli's favorite animals from the zoo were the American Alligator and the Gorilla. When we entered the Reptile House, he kept asking for the "Adigator" so when we finally got to it, we had one happy happy kid! The gorilla was one of the last exhibits we got to. One of the older gorillas was sitting right next to the window, Eli sat down next to him and I think they had their own little bonding moment. It was adorable!
Day Six: Sadly, this was our last full day in Texas. By this point, we were all exhausted, but still had things that we wanted to do. We decided not to do any sightseeing things in the morning. Instead, we thought it would be fun to take Eli and Uncle Daryl to go see Ice Age, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. It was cute. Not the best of the Ice Age movies, but cute none-the-less. After lunch, and resting at Daryl's house, we ventured back down into Houston and went to an Astros game. This was Eli's first Major League Baseball game and had a great time. We all did. The Astros lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, but fun was had by all!
Ringing the bells outside Minute Maid Ballpark.
Day Seven: Our morning started with a really early wake up call. The adults got up at 4:45am (2:45 Pacific time!) so we could load the car and throw the last of our stuff in suitcases and backpacks. We let Eli sleep and only woke him with enough time to change his diaper, put shoes on, and get in the car - he was up about 3:05 our time. Poor kid! We got to the airport and got into the massively long line to drop off our bag, which was already checked in. Then we found out we were in the wrong terminal! Most Continental flights go through the C Concourse, however our flight home was boarding in the E terminal. We hurried through the airport and through the proper security checkpoint, and arrived at our gate with 15 minutes to spare prior to boarding. Talk about an early morning heart racer! Again, Eli LOVED flying on the plane and didn't sleep a wink the entire way home. We had a great airplane, a 737-900 that had gone though the factory since Jess had started working so it was within 3 years old! There is even a chance that it was one that he had scheduled! This time around, I did not take any pictures of the plane ride home. Eli stayed awake the entire time until he went down for a nap, at home, at 1:30.
We had such a good time visiting Daryl in Texas. We can't wait for the next trip down!
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