Having a BLAST!

We went on our first ever hotel vacation that we've paid for this weekend and stayed overnight in Houston to see the Kemah Boardwalk and the Houston Space Center. We've taken plenty of "family" vacations before and road trips but someone has always paid for the hotel, the gas, the airfare, and we've always stressed about how we're going to pay for the food. We've spent the same amount of money as we did this weekend before, but on stuff. I wanted to know we would actually spend that same amount on something we did together. I found out this weekend we would : ) !

You can't see it but he's watching the Texas ocean water below him

We got into Houston Sunday evening and I took Brando to see the Kemah Boardwalk which sits on the water of an inlet of the Texas coast. It was his first time to see the Texas ocean! Kemah is such a fun little place. All the marinas surrounding the amusement park and the carnival games take me back to Santa Cruz and for a moment I feel a little bit of home here in Texas. The kids loved all the sights and sounds and walking through the Aquarium restaurant as if it was a real aquarium.

I love how the only thing illuminating our faces is the light from the water

Monday we woke up and leisurely ate our breakfast in bed and watched cartoons and the wind blowing the palm trees and the boats in the harbor outside our window.

We eventually got dressed and left our beautiful hotel room behind and took off to the Houston Space Center. We got there a little early (nobody manning the parking booth so free parking! Score.) and hung out until they opened. The kids and I had been there before and they LOVED it. I wasn't too impressed, but they loved it so much it was the first thing I thought of for a quick vacation. Turns out I had gotten the wrong impression as there was a lot more to see than I had seen the first time.

Me planning out our divide and conquer route in the IMAX theatre

In the cockpit of a space shuttle

Practicing being in space

We watched a few shows, took the tram to tour three of the other buildings at the space center - one of which included the original mission control room back when Neil Armstrong went to the moon, and a building housing one of the rockets that was 356 feet long and HUGE all the way around. We had no idea they were that large. We had fun taking pictures "holding" it up. We watched shows in their IMAX theatre, practiced being an astronaut fixing a space station, weighed ourselves on Jupiter (230 lbs!!) and Mars (37 lbs!!), and enjoyed every single moment.

A painting on the wall

Me! As an astronaut. Of course we got ones of the kids too!

Original mission control that ran on 400k

This was too precious not to include...

Justinbustin to mission control. Shawners?

High-fivin' Neil on the moon!

We exhausted ourselves chugging through the space center for five hours and then headed home with the kids passed out in the backseat for all three and a half hours of driving home! We came into town and stopped for milkshakes to celebrate our little adventure and vowed to do it all again soon, only somewhere new!