Houston Astros!

One Sunday afternoon all of us (Kaye, Kelsey, Andrew, Emma, and I) decided to take a ride downtown Houston to see if there were any sights we could see. Turns out we didn't really know what to look for so we drove around on streets that were pretty much free of other drivers...so nice, and saw some commercial starting to get filmed!! We ended up driving to Minute Maid Park where the Houston Astros play and checking out the grounds! It is a beautiful park. And has small soft grass...what I would give for that;) (Andrew thinks I am obsessed, everywhere we go I look at the grass to see if it is like ours.;)) Emma loved all of the baseballs they have surrounding it, she spent lots of time running to each and jumping off of them!

We then went to a game with Scott and Haley! Lots of fun! I didn't have my camera but I figure we will be attending lots of games;)

Our attempt to get a picture..Emma really didn't want to;)

Some of the buildings downtown.

On the drive home Kaye asked me where Emma learned how to pull the cookies apart and only eat the cream??? I had no Idea..not from us, silly girl knows what the good stuff is!

First Houston Rain Experience!

This was our first experience of Houston rain! Nice and warm! Emma loved running out in it, well at least when it wasn't super heavy. At one point it was pouring down and flooding our gutters;) We actually didn't have it too bad, Andrew was in Galveston and he said it was flooding up to the doors of his car! One of the kids he works with was driving behind Andrew in his car and the force of the rain going over his hood somehow unlatched it and flew it up into his windshield causing it to break!!! Yikes, I would have been terrified...he was all right thank heavens! I guess what we get to look forward to!

NASA's Johnson Space Center!

We were able to go to the Johnson Space Center and explore and learn more about what goes on there. Tons of fun, Emma was really sad when we walked in the door and she wanted to go play and I wanted a pic;)

Riding the train to take our tour, she thought she was such a big girl!

I couldn't believe this liquid nitrogen was negative 360 degrees!!

In one of the buildings they had all of this equipment where the astronauts used to train for going into space.

This was a REAL astronaut! Lucky us, we got to see him getting filmed for something!!

This building is 8 stories high and this filled the entire space, crazy big!

Those little white things are what they will be using to send to Mars to explore!

Now this guy!!! If you can't tell it is a robot and guess how much it cost.......32 million dollars!!!!! It was the most expensive piece of equipment in the entire building! Wow!

A monument of trees planted in remembrance of Astronauts that have lost their lives during their mission into space.

Completely amazing to see the life size of all of these rockets, and the details of them, it is mind blowing to my little brain;)

Now this was completely awesome and a once in a lifetime experience! Kels had informed us that the last Shuttle to the moon was going to be launch so we needed to go to the Space Center to watch and wow what an incredible thing! We were able to go in this theater room and watch from the point of the Houston control center and see what they were seeing as the ship Anastasia launched in Florida!! Completely amazing!! I had goosebumps as it took off, you could see part of the Earth from the ship and listen to what the astronauts were saying to the Houston control center! Even though emma won't remember it, I will at least be able to tell her she was there to watch!!

Then we were able to check out all of the exhibits which were fun and interesting!! Definitely a place worth visiting!

The Aquarium!!

One of our first adventures here in Houston was visiting the Aquarium and Emma's face in this first picture should tell you how excited she was for it!!! I honestly haven't ever seen her as excited as she was when she started seeing all the fish! It was sooo funny to watch her enthusiasm!

Part of the buildings downtown.

It was hard..(even harder than usual, she doesn't like to look at the camera!!!!) to get a pic of her looking at me because all she wanted to do was point and talk about the fish!

This guy was awesome! We couldn't even tell he was there he blended into the wall so well, we thought it was just a log at first!!

When Emma saw this fish she yelled out "DORI" she LOVES 'Finding Nemo' and was extremely excited to see Dori!


This was fun getting to touch the rays..they were really soft not exactly what I was expecting! Emma thought that it was just the best!

Emma does this thing when she laughs or gets excited and covers her mouth...its stinkin' cute! But here she is excited over the rays!

Kels and Emma being sea divers!

At the end of the Aquarium they had this White Tiger! He was so much fun to watch...I have never seen one so active, he would play with the balls, try to catch a fish, climb up on the tree to rub, and just pace checking out everything, it was so fun to watch and the best part was we got there right after they fed him so all the kids before us had left and we got to watch him play! Emma loved that she could be right up next to the glass and just watch him, he was huge and beautiful!

So far Houston is turning out to be a fun place to explore!!