At the Zoo

What says 4th of July celebration better than a trip to the zoo and museum? Well, actually a lot of things do, but I wanted to be creative this year. Bryan had to work the entire 3-day weekend, so my goal was to keep the girls busy. Plus, I felt like venturing out with the kids. The Houston zoo is pretty nice. It’s not too big and it has lots of shaded areas and walkways, which makes hours of walking around in tropical-like heat and humidity bearable. The girls favorite attractions were the lemurs (thank you Penguins of Madagascar), feeding the giraffes, and the petting zoo. It was so cute to see Sarah giggle at the animals. After about 4 hours, it was time to go home 🙂

Sarah and Rachel at the start of the day!

Lemurs

Rachel hanging around the zoo

Rachel leading Sarah through a water tunnel

Rachel with the jellyfish

Saturday was much lower key. Rachel had violin practice, but after that the girls and I stayed close to home. By the next day the girls were re-energized, so I took them to the science museum. I thought about taking them to the Children’s museum but decided against that because that place drives me crazy. If you dare, imagine hundreds of kids running and screaming all over the place – that’s what it seems like a least. It would have been more appropriate for Sarah, but I just wasn’t up for chasing her around. Anyway, the museum was lots of fun. Rachel really enjoyed the planetarium. Sarah did not. She wanted to kick the seat in front of her and run around, so Sarah and I waited for Rachel outside. Sarah really enjoyed the butterfly garden, but she didn’t enjoy not being allowed to run through the walkways. About the time I had to put Sarah into the pretzel carrying pose, Rachel jumped onto me because “a huge butterfly” almost landed on her back, which almost sent all

Rachel’s hat looked really cool in the hallway for the planetarium!

three of us sliding down a slippery path. After regaining my balance, we all sat down and I explained to Sarah “walk and hold mommies hand” and to Rachel “for Pete’s sake, don’t be scared of butterflies and DON”T jump or grab me”! I decided to give Rachel my cellphone

Butterfly picture taken by Rachel

so she could take pictures. Fortunately, she became much less scared of the “huge” butterflies and less prone to grabbing me. She took some really nice pictures. We also have tons of pictures of fossils and other museum stuff. At the end of the trip to the museum, Bryan was able to meet us for dinner. Both of the girls were so happy to see “Daddy”! He’s much cooler than me. After being stuck with primarily me for 3-days, I think anybody would seem cool.