Just going to add one quick entry here to cover this timeframe. It is a copied version of the email I sent out to some friends/family about our vacation last week.
Tuesday 6/20
Left home about 10:00am. We really hoped to leave earlier, but ended up waking up a little later than expected, had to finish packing, had to pack the car, yada yada yada....you get the idea. We stopped on the way to The Woodlands & made sandwiches in a church parking lot. Arrived in The Woodlands about 2:00 or 2:30.
Larry's aunt/uncle live there & were anxiously awaiting our arrival. She took us over to the mall so the kids could ride on the (giant!) carousel inside the mall & play on the indoor playground. They all had a big time. We went back & the kids swam in their pool while Uncle Richard cooked supper. When it was about done, we ran in for showers & PJ's, then ate supper & visited the rest of the evening til bedtime. Upstairs, there are 3BR/2BA, so that was our area of the house. The girls got one room, boys got another (there is a BA in between those 2 BRs). Larry & I got the other BR/BA. Between the swimming pool, big house & stairs to climb on, the kids thought they were in Disneyland! LOL!
Wed June 21
Uncle Richard cooked pancakes for everyone, then we headed out for the Johnson Space Center in Houston. We arrived about 10:00 or 10:30 & didn't leave til after 4:00. Everyone had a blast! (pun intended!) There is a huge 3 or 4 story tall playground inside, lots of neat little "stations" where the kids can do different science/space/astronaut themed experiments & "training" exercises. We went on a 90 minute-long tram tour around the security-saturated part of the space center. It's so wild---like a city within the gates! There are traffic lights, paved streets, their own fire department, day care center & water department within the gates of the space center. The place is huge! We got to go into the bldg where the original "Mission Control" was. Remember in Apollo 13 when he says "Houston, we have a problem"? THIS is the "Houston" he's talking to. It was really neat to see the real stuff--although the 87 steps we had to climb to get there had us all huffing & puffing. It was really hot in the building & w/ a crowd of 60 or 70 people, it was a long climb up those stairs. They also had a live video feed to the FL space center & the international mission control center. We also go to see the area where the astronauts train in mock-ups of the actual spacecrafts. There was 1 astronaut there w/ his children while we were watching, but he was not there to do any training, just came by to get something I guess.
Back inside the space center, we watched 2 movies about space travel. Larry & Andrew did a flight simulator thing where they got to put on the virtual reality helmets & try to "fly". That was fun to watch. Larry couldn't get his "plane" to quit spinning to the side, so he was just constantly in a "roll". I think Andrew might be a pilot one day! We ate lunch there & let the kids each pick out a souvenir from the gift shop before we left.
We had planned to go to a children's museum back in The Woodlands, near Sandy & Richard's house, but decided to skip it b/c the kids were all worn out. We came back & ate supper, let them all swim again & headed to bed. They fell asleep a lot quicker the 2nd night. They were pretty exhausted!
Thursday June 22
Got up & had breakfast w/ Sandy & Richard before packing the car & heading out around 10:00. We drove about 4 hours to Andrew & Kourtney's grandparents' house in Rockport, TX. We had a nice visit with them. It felt a little odd to be at their house b/c we're basically strangers to each other. I guess that'll get easier as the years go by. We took them a big packet of pictures of the kids & they gave us a package of pictures of Kelly & the kids and a written out list of some medical family history that we might need in the future. It was nice to get those. After a big catfish supper & a few hours there, we went back to the hotel in town for the night. The kids & I swam in the hotel pool before we hit the sack.
A funny thing (well, not so funny actually...) happened during the night. At 3:00am, the smoke alarm in my room went off. I jumped up out of bed & ran to the door. I was sorta disoriented (b/c I was half asleep) so it took me a minute to think straight. I decided that since I couldn't smell smoke or see flames, I'd check outside to see if there was a fire before I grabbed the girls out of their beds. Sure enough....there was no fire, no smoke, no crowds of people gathering in the parking lot. My room's smoke alarm had malfunctioned or something & gone off for nothing! Ugh.......grrrrrrrr! I was irritated but wanted to go back to sleep, so I tip-toed back in, turned off the lamp & layed back down. It took me a long time to fall back to sleep b/c I was paranoid that maybe there really was a fire. I think I finally got back to sleep about 3:30 or 4:00am.
And then at 6:15am it happened AGAIN!!!!!!!!! Man was I ticked off! Luckily both times it only went off for about 10 seconds...just enough to wake me up & make my ears ring, but not long enough to disturb the girls much. They slept through it the first time, but it woke Savannah up the 2nd time. I called to complain w/ the lady at the front desk the 2nd time. She was not very helpful, but said she'd tell the manager who came in at 7:00. In the meantime, while getting up I realized that there was something in my bed.....a beanbag! Hmm....apparnetly the sheets were not changed before I slept there. Grrrrrrr....now I was sleep deprived & doubly irritated.
When we went to the front desk to check out, Larry made a big stink & they ended up giving us a refund---for BOTH rooms! Wow! I was just hoping they'd knock part of the price off my room.
Aside from that "alarming" start to the day, our drive home (which ended up taking nearly 9 hours) wasn't too bad. The kids did pretty well. We only had to pull over & threaten to strangle them once. LOL! All in all, they did REALLY great!
It's funny, though. We drove about 900 miles altogether & when you ask the kids what their favorite part was, they all say "swimming in Aunt Sandy's pool". LOL!
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