Christmas 2009

Krabby Patty...yum

This is a wii pez dispenser, shoots out candy, sweeet

Ben surveying his stocking loot

I didn't force them to do this, I swear

Josey still has a wee bit of his space obsession left

I DESPISE this game, clearly Ben does not

Jakers has a bit of his mama's "sleeping with the enemy tendencies"

You'd think he'd appreciate it and quit messing with my cans

Glow in the dark stars and planets

The only thing Jakers asked for for Christmas -

"Triceratops cake!" I found this wee one with a Santa

on top and replaced it with a couple triceratops(es?)
He was very very very happy with it

Who wouldn't want a giant grasshopper

Legos, legos, and more legos - what I want to know

is how is it possible for such itty bitty insanely easy to

lose bits of plastic cost SO much hmm?

Thankfully so far he hasn't shot his eye out

We now have a laundry basket full of dinosaurs

So I have always always always wanted to have a Halloween party but with Josey's birthday being in October it was just not going to happen. But then two things happened. First Joseph decided to wait until November to have his birthday party so he would be able to have a firetruck come (it wasn't working out for October). Then one of his friends (and her mom) asked me if I could do a Halloween party. Um yeah!

So here tis'.....(hopefully with more pictures to come)

First they made a science goggle craft.

Then we had pizza and drinks while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (which is the very best Christmas movie ever by the way).

Then a wee walk through the "Creepy Kitchen" -

In case you're curious - spaghetti & jelly = guts, cauliflower soaked in water and smeared with jelly = brain, peeled grapes smeared in jelly = eyeballs, two peeled roma tomatoes smeared in jelly = lungs, pebbles in liquid starch = teeth in spit, cornsilk = hair

After Creepy Kitchen they each got a sack and two glow bracelets to go through the maze. Inside the maze were 5 spots that they had to stop and pick up 6 different little glow in the dark critters (snakes, scorpions, ants, centipedes, etc.) from before they could exit.

Unfortunately I found this cage the day AFTER the party

The right hand is a glove so I could grab their hand when they reached in it to get a bug

Amy was also in there chasing them around with a freaky alien costume. Jacob did not like the maze. I played the X-files theme song for it and even just that creeped him out.

But onto the games....

The first game was Spider Web - They had to start on one end and move their spider ring through the web to the other end where it was attatched to their goody bags

Then they sat in a circle and played Love Potion #9. They passed around 4 little jars of ingrediants - Wax of ears, Tongue of Snake, Feather of Vulture, and Eye of Newt. When the music stopped anyone that had an ingrediant got to add it to their bottle. First one to complete their potion (John) won a mask. Everyone got little Love Potion #9 tape gum.
Next was Pass the Pumpkin - really simple one, when the music stops whoever has the pumpkin opens it up, picks out a Halloween eraser, then goes and sits on the step, the last person left (Josey) won a little grim reaper candy head thingy

Then they split up into two groups.

One group played Build Blood - Each jar already had plasma (light corn syrup). They had to follow the poster and add with tweezers 10 red blood cells (hot tamales), 5 white blood cells (mini marshmallows) and 10 platelets (sprinkles). The winner got a vampire rubber ducky.

The other group played two shorter games - Straw-o-lantern where they had to pick up the different parts of the jack-o-lanterns face with a straw and place them on the right spot. Everyone got to keep their straw and the winner got a jack-o-lantern rubber ducky.

Then Macaroni and Teeth where they had to find three of their color of teeth in the colored macaroni. Everyone got gummy Pirate's Choppers. After both groups played both games the two winners from Mac & Teeth (John and Gracey) played each other to win a vampire sucker.

Pick a Duck - they picked I think 3 ducks and added up the numbers to see how many candies they got to pick from the Candy Drawer. If they got a duck that said Prize they won a pencil

Here's the candy drawer post party - clearly they are not big fans of banana laffy taffy

Rats in Trash - They got one candy for each rat they found in the trash before the timer went off. The winner (Ben) got to keep the big white rat and then everyone found one rat to keep.

Eyeball Toss - For each point they got to pick one piece of candyfrom the drawer and the one with the most points (Avery) got to keep the ball

Next were the three blindfolded games.

Digging for G0ld - I cut off little chunks of red, blue, green, and gold crayons and mixed them in with some nice lil snotty slimey goo. They got different points depending on the color.

Pin the Brain on Jane - Everyone got to get a skull sucker from Ned's Head and the winner (Gracey) got a squishy skull

Everyone got to pick a skull sucker out of Ned's Head

Can ya Catch a Pumpkin? - Whatever number was on the pumpkins they caught were how many candies they got to pick out from the drawer

Then there was the Knock 'em Down which Jake and Emily kind of made up one day. I set the witch up on the rail trying to decide where to put her and one of them threw something at her and knocked her down. Add a few more things beside her and there ya go, another game.

The last game was Assemble the Assistant - there was one rhyming clue for each kiddo to find two hands, a head, two eyes, and a heart. They added each part to the "body" on the couch/lab bed and then went outside to flip the switch. So of course whiles they were outside Adam put on the gloves and mask and such and replaced the body. We turned on creepy breathing on the mp3 player, uncovered him, he jumped up....and Ben for one totally freaked out. He went running screaming back and forth in the maze, till I grabbed him and said It's Daddy. "Oh".

Assistant Assembled it was time to go outside to the Laboratory -

Being the Nutty Professor or whatever and all I took zero pictures of the experiments. Adam was my designated picture taker but he was inside putting Jakers to bed so I'm hoping someone at the party maybe took some they'll send me. We shall see...

Here is the list of the experiments at least (most with Steve Spangler video links)...

Safety/Do Not Open bottle - poke holes in bottle, fill up with water and close, write DO NOT OPEN on bottle, water stays in bottle until you open the top, I did my whole lil you have to listen, don't do anything I say not to do, etc., then said I was thirsty, should I drink it? http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/science-video/do-not-open

Lava Lamps - http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/science-video/bubbling-potions

Runaway Pepper - this one you just sprinkle pepper over a bowl of water, stick your finger in and nothing happens but when I stick my (dipped in dish soap) finger in the pepper "runs away"

Nutty Balloons - aka screaming balloons http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/science-video/screaming-balloon-demo-video

Diaper Science - This one was by far my favorite. First just like in the video I had 3 cups (one had the polymer in it) pour water in one, move them all around, ask which has the water, you turn them all upside down and nothing comes out of any of them because the polymer powder has turned the water into gel, the look of total confusion on some of their faces was great but even better was the diaper. I showed them my measuring cup with nothing but water in it, let them watch me add the yellow food coloring into it before I poured it into the diaper but still a couple of them would not even touch the thing. I thought it was hilarious. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/science-video/the-baby-diaper-secret

Oobleck - just the classic cornstarch and water, feels solid then liquid

Goo Jiggly - kind of slime then turns more into a gooey jiggly ball

Gas Bags - Put a small ziploc of vinegar in a big ziploc with baking soda in it, pop open the vinegar bag, shake and the bag poofs right up http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/experiment/puff-pop-how-to-make-a-co2-sandwich

Blow up Balloons - vinegar and baking soda again, vinegar in the bottle, baking soda in the balloon, attatch the balloon to top of bottle, pour in baking soda, watch the balloon blow up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmzBf3XGsOE&feature=fvw

Alka Seltzer Rockets - can't believe how simple this one was, 3/4 full of water film canister, add 1/2 tablet of alka seltzer, put on lid, shake, set down, move back, watch top pop off http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/experiment/00000068

Volcanoes - the classic vinegar and baking soda experiment, I had my big one that the boys and I made over the summer, and they each had their own mini volcanoe

Mentos/Diet Coke Geysers - short but sweet http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/science-video/mentos-fountain

Ze end (in weird mad scientisty voice of course)

Oh and pictures of the boys in costumes are here: fentrio.blogspot.com (my ramble-free (for the most part) photo blog, because two blogs is better then one..or something)

it's a facebook status morning

After I added my really really long facebook status this morning I decided it was really a bit more bloggish than statusy, so here it tis...

Lisa Aleman Fenlaw
Jake pulled Ben's glasses off and threw them in the gutter at the bus stop - ran back to the house thirty-two pounds of terrible two in tow, threw every item out of the dress up trunk to find no lil robot grabby thing in sight, hightailed it to *Read More* ...the new playroom which is currently two-thirds playroom - 1/3 toy dump, dug through said dump, finally found grabby thing, hoodlum Jake into the stroller, motor back down to

(I had to comment on my status to fit this all in)

Lisa Aleman Fenlaw
the bus stop - the boys having already been picked up of course, park Jake in the grass next to stop sign, lay down on side of the road and stick head down in the gutter, my own glasses almost fall off, decide to keep head out of gutter which leads to feet in the road, get hold of glasses just as I hear car, decide I value feet over glasses, sit up... *Read More* till car passes, find I have knocked glasses out of side, decide to stick head back in minus glasses - cant see, glasses back on, flail grabby thing around in gutter till glasses come back into sight, grab glasses - another car, sit back up, see the boys bus has made the turn around and is headed my way, hope feet remain intact - stick them slightly in the road, grab the glasses, jump up and wave at bus driver like a maniac, run out in road, hand bus driver glasses through the window - ridiculously overpriced robot arm thingy - $16.99 - spending the morning with your head in the gutter and feet in the road - ah, priceless

awesomeness

This past month has been purty stinking good to me. It can possibly even justify my extreme overusage of the word awesome. I don't even know where I picked that word up but I can not stop saying it. So what is so awesome you might ask? (Or you may not ask but me being me, I'muh gonna answer anyhow.)

First of all this was getting so long on just the first thing I was rambling about that I went ahead and gave it it's own lil post (http://pbrambly.blogspot.com/2009/08/visit-to-our-own-world.html).

Second awesome thing this month, I won twenty dollars. Ok, that's maybe more swell then awesome. I won it for being runner up for Birthday party idea of the month. I'm not gonna lie I was really really hoping to be the winner and so kind of bummed out about the runner up but I read the winning entry and I have to admit it's pretty stinking swell. Still, I have won three times before, twice actual winner and once for runner up but when I was the winner the prize the first time was like 20 dollars and a certificate for ice cream, the second time was either 25 dollars or three birthday/recipe books (I chose the books), this time the prize was 50 bucks. I really wanted that fifty bucks. But ok, its just an honor to be nominated or some such thing right? By the way, fyi to any of ya'lls that don't know I totally want to be a childrens' birthday party planner when I grow up. Oh, also if you're interested, here is a link to my runneruppy idea - http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/new_reader_ideas_3.html and pictures are here - http://fentrio.blogspot.com/2009/06/bens-6th-birthday-may-31-2009.html. And the winner's idear is here - http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/winners_0.html.

Ok, awesome thing number three, if you don't know I'm obsessed with Twilight. I stinking love Twilight, and I am very very much Team Jacob. As such I designed a whole bunch of Team Jacob tshirts and whatnot on zazzle.com www.zazzle.com/teamjacob108*- It's very nifty because all I have to do is put the shirt up for sale, they make it, they ship it, I get a 15 percent royalty. It's not nifty in that it takes ages and ages for them to actually pay you. But I am due for my first payment, 47.27 this week and have 19.66 earned towards my next payment. So basically I'm getting paid (albeit very belatedly) for loving Twilight.

Which brings me to awesomeness number 4, which happens to be my favorite number and very very very very stinking awesome. A few battery charging hours from now I'll be able to add a photo to my very awesome, very autographed TwiTour poster. Did I get to go to TwiTour or TwiCon or any of the like? No. Does that royally stink? Yes. But do I have the most unpsycho bestest most awesomest sister-in-law ever? Um, yeah I do. Though I know in reality she actually came to Texas to get her 100 Monkeys concert fix, I like to think she came just to hand deliver my poster to me. I may or may not have gotten a lil flipped out, I'm really not sure, but there was very nearly tears, and there was definitely hugging involved, it was not pretty. So I now have a TwiTour poster with photos and autographs of...(Hi Lisa -) Billy Burke aka Charlie aka Bella's dad, (To Lisa - ) Ashley Greene aka Alice Cullen, (To Lisa...) peter Facinelli aka Dr. Carlisle Cullen, Catherine Hardwice aka the twit director, and Holy Stinking Crow! (Lisa I *heart* U!) Kellan Lutz aka Emmett ridiculous hotness Cullen. How happy am I about this? So happy that I am also about to be the not very proud owner of an autographed Iron Maiden poster hanging in my living room. Whatever Adam, tape your silly lil poster up. It's not like anyone will even see it with my on the shelf with a wooden and brass apple autographed awesome TwiTour poster.

Overuse of the word awesome justified. Awwwwesome.

*Batteries charged*...

visit to our own world

So Adam got switched back to night shift. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bummer.

He "temporarily" started having to leave for work at 4:30 pm and not getting home till 6am when Ben was a baby. Ben is 6 folks. Temorarily my boot. But whatever, I goes with the flow. Or something. Make it work (oooh when will project Runway be back?).

Then school started and night shift it just flat out sucked. The boys would barely get home from school and it'd be time for Adam to leave for work. If it wasn't for their car rides to and from school he'd basically never see them. Stink suckitty stink stink. But there again, we just kind of got used to it and hey they did have some interesting little doozies of conversations on their lil car rides.

Then Adam got to switch to days and he was getting home right after the boys, they were on the same school night bedtime, up early on the weekends. I never realized quite how much I hated nights till he got switched to days.

Then bam the LeBus gods frowned down upon us this summer and tada Adam's back on nights. A big stinking ack and phooey on that. But then as the boys and I stayed up later and later to catch some time with Dadam, Josey had a straight up brilliant idea.

Back in the day those hours were pretty sweet. Midnight grocery shopping, hide and seek at 3 in the morning, when we'd go out to eat or to a park it'd be nearly deserted because of the hour, it was just this crazy magical feeling of just us. I was telling Josey about those times one day and he said I wish we could do that now so *poof* the fellas and I officially switched to the night shift.

We have gone out in the pool at midnight, drawing with chalk in the carport at 2am, Spongebob Bash till who knows what time in the am, charades at 3am, brownie baking at 5am, some just regular ole boring stuff made ridiculously swell just because of the hour. We went to a yard sale at 7am the other morning, then got a late breakfast/supper at McDonalds before finally going to bed at 9am. We went to the last show of G Force the other night and were the only ones there (we may or may not have danced around like maniacs, talked really loud, and let Jake run around all over the place just because we could). To quote the always brilliant Josey "it's like it's our own world".

There have been two downsides to these hours though. For one, woohoo, the boys are up late too so we can do all kinds of stuff with them is also um yeah we can't watch this movie because it has bad words and the whole crew is awake. But clearly some of Josey's brilliance has worn off on me because I have ever so brilliantly created Kid Island. Kid Island is a king size mattress on the floor of our bedroom. The fellas have a plank (aka broken closet door) brought in onto the island. On Kid Island nights only they are allowed snacks and drinks in there. The first time Kid Island opened I was trying to get Jakers back to sleep and I heard Adam back there talking all pirtey and talking about loot and swashbucklers. He took them their drinks in a little wooden treasure chest. Once I got Jake settled he took them a "little stowaway". Meanwhile over on Grownup Island no one is fake coughing to cover up unexpected curse words. No kids are allowed on Grownup Island except in an emergency or Kid Island gets shut down. It is totally completely awwwwwwwwwwwesome. So problem one, solved.

Then there's woohoo, we're the only ones up, very cool on the weekends but on the weekdays when Adam is at work and the fellas and I are homebound its no we can't call so and so and no no one can come over an no we can't go to the library. But alas just as that one is really starting to stink Adam is supposedly getting switched back to days next week. It's midnight now and Jake went ahead and went to sleep (after pouring out a bag of shredded cheese in the hamper) and the boys look like maybe they could go any minute, so it looks like we are all headed back to the real world.

Thriller

First Josey spotted a single glove on the dining room floor. Then he felt a chill and couldn't stop dancing. Then Ben realized *gasp* he was wearing white socks (for anyone that knows Ben, the sock thing is pretty weird, he normally wears patterned and purposely mismatched socks). That's how Josey knew for sure that we were being haunted by Michael Jackson.



What really scared them though was a commercial for Uncle Ben's rice. They've never heard of Uncle Ben's, I'm a Great Value gal. All they know is there were all kinds of boxes of rice (Ben LOVES rice) and the word Ben on the television. Apparently Michael Jackson loves the way Ben dances so he sent him a message.



I didn't actually think they were serious about the whole thing until Josey flipped out over the shadow of my vacuum.



It was a little Off The Wall.



...when I googled Michael Jackson discography to find material for my ridiculous closing pun (at least I decided "Pretty Bad, but nothing Dangerous, mostly just a little Off The Wall" was a bit much (yet still feel the need to type it anyway)), I found this album cover -

fentrio's 3 day adventure

Housekeeping! I miss you lady, I really really do. That stinking hotel bed kicked my bed's boot too. I am NOT glad to be home. Sure after the four or so hour ride home (all salty and sandy and whatnot) I was fanfunnyhappy to be here and get a shower (two actually). But blahbitty blippitty bloo. Wanna hear all about our sweet lil' vacay? Alright then, if you insist.

The first day we went to Houston, found our hotel, found Joey's place (via a roundabout twirlaround thanks to a cuckoo crazy gps), and headed over to the Nasa Space Center.
Ok yeah, total bust that one. I really can't quite wrap my wee brain around why it was so lame there because Adam and I took the big boys three or so years ago and it was great. It was likely because of the ridiculously massive crowd. Sheesh.

It should have been really super neato. They are having a whole big George Lucas exhibit and the big boys were signed up for light saber training. We went straight to the end of the line that I Just Work Here But I Have No Idea What's Going On directed me to. After awhile in the line someone noticed most of the people already had their (FREE - the only good point) light sabers so I went off to pick up a couple for the boys. The light sabers were kinda alright, inflatible is all but they did light up. By the time I got back to the line though it was brought to my attention that yeah we weren't even in the right line. After talking to Clueless number two and three I found the line going off to the rest of the light saber training (we had already missed the movie and parade part) outside. The boys wouldn't go far enough up front to see the instructor (the guy in the brown robe, I'm not big on Star Wars, don't know his name) so basically we watched them dismiss Darth Vader and went back inside.

Josey - Master Rememberer had reminded Adam in the parking lot that the last time we were there he promised him that we could do the "train". So we go over there and find out it's like an hour wait so I insist that if we're waiting in a line for an hour long ride we better go feed the crew first. So after we round up enough chairs and a table (no small feat) Adam goes off and gets some insanely overpriced food which all three boys procceed to eat none of. Well, I tried.

The train was still threatening an hour long wait so instead we go over to the I guess they were calling it the hands on exhibit. There's some mirrors that show you what you'd look like on different planets (wider, taller, shorter, whatnot), two rovers, a thing where you pump it to set off a lil rocket, just lil things of that nature.

Now the highlight of all this last time was a big ole slide that you have to go up in an elevator to get to then slide on back down to the bottom floor and on and on and on. That was definitely still the highlight for Ben but poor Josey wouldn't have anything to do with it because his tummy hurt.

For those of you not in the know, Josey has a plethora of stomach issues. He's got Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, which is a fancy way of saying a really nervous stomach occassionally (or often for some people) to the point of vomiting. Then he's got the ole Splenic Flexure Syndrome which is where his colon instead of doing an upside down u-shape like everyone else's veers off before going back down. That causes his stomach to not empty quite properly. He went to the stomach doctor (Gastrespelledwrongologist) and is on medicine for it so mostly his stomach just gets upset when he's hungry, nervous, or excited but usually is settled right back down when he eats or takes his other (not as strong but minus the drowsiness) stomach medicine.

But aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyways, after awhiles Josey started feeling better and played with all but the slide. They played for awhile and then we got in the super thinned out line for the tram tour.
Lame lame lamitty lame lame. The few highlights were the lady telling about everthings ridiculous spiel which included her saying "Just kidding" a zillion times, bunches of old bikes just lying around everywhere (including one in the middle of a parking lot) and Jake thinking he was running the whole train by pushing on a star.

They owe me an hour of my life back. But you knew there was a reason I went into all Josey's stomach issues right? Yeah he totally had to lean over the side and show off his Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. Shortly after that the ride was done (thank goodness) and we hightailed it out of that place. I strongly don't reccommend it.

Afterwards back to the hotel, the part of the whole trip oddly enough that Ben was looking forward to more then anything. He was not disappointed - pullout couch, pool, free breakfast. Then just when he thought it couldn't get any better we got pizza delivered right to our door (with his usal pepperoni/no cheese Pizza Mia all to himself just like at home).

The next day everyone but Adam went down for some breakfast. The breakfast really was nothing much to write home about but I have to (per Josey) mention the waffles. They had this lil waffle machine where you got a cup of batter and made your own Texas shaped waffles. They made for a very amusing breakfast, but unfortunately a lot of ya'll are now homeless because we ate your houses, yeap. After breakfast we went swimming in the hotel pool.


Then we were off to the Houston Children's Museum (www.cmhouston.org). Awwwesome! I wish we could've spent a whole day there. We only did maybe half the stuff there and Josey asked three times during the trip if we could go back. The first thing we did was go to the section called Kidtropolis. They had given them each a pretend debit card when we first go there so we stopped at the atm machine and they withdrew all their cash (checking and savings, 40 bucks each).

Ben of course headed straight for the Vet's Office. He weighed, fed, washed, and x-rayed a cat to earn his 20 dollar paycheck. He also donated 5 dollars to the animal shelter while he was there, that's my animal lovin' Binky. Ben spent most of his time in Kidtropolis there.

After awhile Adam showed up at the vet with Jakers. Jake fell in love with a big stuffed chocolate lab and kept trying to escape with it. I actually saw one for sale later in the gift shop but I wasn't willing to part with 45 bucks for it.

Adam stayed with Ben at the vet and I took Jake to the grocery store. He found apples galore ("green apple", "red apple", "bad apple", "berry apple", "big apple", etc, the boy likes apples) and ran around for awhile with a lobster and fish. Speaking of Jake and his love of apples, there is a drawer in our fridge pretty much soley for apples. He will say "I wah apple", get one out, have me wash it, and chow down. Well, one time Adam put this big purple onion in there and when Jacob opened up that drawer he said "Apple, wha happen to you?". His eyes got so wide. It was fuh-nny.
Meanwhile Josey was off with Debbie (grownups outnumbering kids on this trip was way sweet) at City Hall planning a city. There was a table with road and building blocks and he had to arrange it just so. He's got me on the hunt for those blocks but so far I can't find them. If anyone knows where I can find them please let me know.

After awhile we all ended up at City Hall and Ben got to help build the city for a bit. Jake drove the police car. He wasn't really that impressed with it till another little boy wanted to drive then all the sudden he didn't want to get out for anything. The boy has got to work on the taking turns but he's got the evil eye all figured out.

Before we left Kidtropolis we went to the bank and the boys deposited their leftover money (only Josey spent any at all, 3 dollars on fake popscicles I think) and paychecks. If we should ever go back (I'm really hoping we do) they have all the money saved in their lil accounts and we got to keep the debit cards so they can withdraw it. Very cool.

After Kidtropolis Josey and Ben climbed up a 35 foot tower in the PowerPlay section. In all honesty I was kind of surprised that they actually both went all the way to the top. It creeped me out just watching. Yipes.

Once they had climbed that we went to the FlowWorks - "FlowWorks is an interactive exhibit, which requires kids to "dip" their hands into it to make it work!
An 18 feet tall Cauldron stands in the middle of it all! The more you play, the more it gets filled up with water. Once it’s full, water comes crashing down, making an unstoppable wave of fun and allowing other exhibit components to break their course!
Feel the rush of waters through a simulated Flood Plain, stream through an Aquaduct Maze. Or, serve as the mastermind behind a Hydro Switchboard. Navigate ways in which water's energy can be stored, released and manipulated and harness the power!"
It was pretty neat.

After awhile over at FlowWorks I took Jake over to EcoStation for a teeny bit where he picked up a rock and put it in one of the lil sandtables and looked at some baby birdies. Then Debbie and I took him up to the Tot Spot. It was pretty neat with lots of little things to do but we didn't stay long till Joey, Adam, and the fellas came up and it was time to go.

We did stop off at the gift shop first where Josey got a pullback bus, Ben got a hedgehog puppet he named Meatball, and Jake got Spongebob bubbles which were later confiscated because he threw them down the steps in the parking garage. Anyhoo we definitely need to go there again. Josey is already asking if he can go there for his birthday.

It was time for lunch so we decided to find the aquarium and then just find somewhere to eat that was close by it. As luck would have it there was actually a restaurant right at the aquarium so that's where we had lunch. Totally sweet - "Your underwater adventure begins as you are seated around the 150,000 gallon aquarium with excellent views of reticulated rays, majestic sawfish, shovel-nosed guitarfish and other fascinating creatures as they swim right by your table." It was really really cool. The food was delicious too. Debbie and I both got this tortilla wrap with a spinach tortilla, diced chicken, cheddar and montery cheese, bacon, avocado, and jalepeno (hold mine) ranch dressing. Ridiculously scrumptious.

When we were done eating we walked through the Aquarium Adventure Exhibit. It was way better then any aquarium I've ever been to for sure. It was all themed and divided into sections: Louisiana Swamp (cool big alligator snapping turtle that we at first thought was fake in there), Shipwreck, Rainforest (they had a snake in a big fake tree in there), Sunken Temple, Gulf of Mexico, Discovery Rig, and White Tigers of the Maharaja's Temple.

The Discovery Rig was by far the best part. In the center of the room they had a big round tank where you could reach in and touch stingrays, horseshoe crabs, and "other invertebrates". That was neat but the super duper neat-o part was this big bubble dome thing that you could crawl under the tank to get in and look up. I had seen that online beforehand but I don't think anyone else realized it at first because Ben was the first kid I saw do it and when he did everyone was just a pointing and laughing. It was double A++.

The line through the tiger section was way long so Adam went off to see if there was another way out and Josey followed him without telling anyone so we had a who where's Josey slight freakout (mostly me on the freaking part, I can't help it, I do that) so only Debbie and Ben saw the tigers which I don't get why there were tigers at an aquarium anyway, very random, but whatever. Before we went out to the amusement park part we went through the gift shop (there was no other way out, very clever) and Debbie bought the boys all a t-shirt. Jake's is way cute, has a cartoon stingray on it and says I Touched a Stingray.

The Shark Voyage hands down beat the socks off Nasa's way long and lame tram or whatever tour. "For added excitement, once you finish your expedition through the Aquarium Adventure Exhibit, you can take a thrilling ride on the CP Huntington train for a journey through the Shark Voyage. The blacktips, whitetips, sandtigers, zebra sharks, and sawfish in this 200,000 gallon underwater world will cure your curiosty about these incredible creatures!". It was not too long (ahem Nasa) and well it was just neat. They stopped in the aquarium tunnel for just a bit and the voiceover talked about how they lost a great white shark during the hurricane that they still hadn't recovered so of course further on down the line there was a skeleton that they said the shark must have got, then a splash and mechanical shark popping up out of the water. It was a very nifty lil ride, we did it twice.

Adam and the big boys went on the ferris wheel.

While they were on that I took Jake on the carousel. Yeah, never take Jake on a carousel, not a fan. I did get a picture before it started moving though.

After the big boys got off the ferris wheel I went on the carousel with them and then they played a couple of games. I have to mention because it was way swell of the gal, after we had to shell out 8 bucks for the shoot the water at the target game (because you have to have 4 people at 2 dollars each to play) and Josey won a stuffed shark we ended up going back and playing against two other folks to try and get Ben a shark - he didn't win but she gave him a shark anyway. Isn't just so handy dandy swell when people go out of their way like that? Very very.

Oh, FYI, Josey's shark is named Sharky Fenlaw and Ben's is sometimes Houston and sometimes Bill (his last name is Wood). The aquarium ( http://www.aquariumrestaurants.com/downtownaquariumhouston/flash_content/index.html ) is definitely another place I'd love to go to again.

Some Sonic for supper and swimming in the hotel pool wrapped that day on up.

Which leaves the beach. Ah, the beach. I should have Adam type this part really because I'm just kind of anti-outside, I really am. But alas Adam's no rambler so here I go. We got a bit of a late start so we just grabbed a lil this and that from the continental breakfast, packed up our stuff at the hotel and headed for Galveston Island.

We had to cross this big ole bridge to get to Galveston (Island and all ya know) so I got my "m3d" (what Ben calls our mp3 players) at the ready and as soon as we hit the bridge I played Supermassive Black Hole at full volume. It was awesome, stinking awesome.

The weather was perfecto, didn't feel hot and there was plenty of wind. The only time it felt the least bit hot to me was walking back to the car barefoot afterwards. I was pretty sure the skin on the bottom of my feet was gonna just peel right off. That was some hot hot sand in the ole parkin lot, yes it twas.

We splashed around, jumped over waves, tasted saltwater (not on purpose-eww), dug in the sand, made sand castles, walked along the beach collecting shells, just had us a nice day of hanging out at the beach.

So, here is why Adam should be commenting on this part, he says there's nothing like being at the beach, being out in the ocean and not seeing anything around you but water. Now I am very glad we went, had a great time, don't wish we wouldn't have went or anything like that, but if somebody asked me right now would you rather go swimming in the ocean or "some lame hotel pool" without a doubt I'd go with the hotel pool (which by the way I did NOT think was lame). I like the water, I love the water, the sticky salty sand - not so much. Again I have to say though, I had a great time at the beach, it's just I came, I saw, I swam, been there, done that, no need to do it again. Oh oh, Josey's favorite part of the whole trip was right before we left Debbie took some pictures of Adam, the boys, and I and the waves were moving us all about, to quote him his favorite part was "when Mama almost floated away".

All in all it was a super fantastic trip and I'm gonna have to say the best vacation yet. Did anyone actually read this far?