houston day 3

Houston day 1

Houston day 2

We had to take Tyler to his test early, so we packed up and checked out by 8:00 AM.  That left a full day ahead of being "out" with the kids.  The first stop I had planned for the day was the big bubble on the Preston street bridge.  It comes highly recommended by locals and is right next to the Downtown Aquarium.  We hopped on the train and headed north.

On the way we stopped at Market Square Park to check out the fountains.

This is the Preston street bridge, with the aquarium in the background.  We walked up and down the street looking for the button, but I finally had to check pictures on google to figure out where it was.  When you push the button, it's supposed to activate a bubbler in the bayou to make big bubbles.  It wasn't working for us, and the internets seem to imply it was damaged in Harvey.  That was a big disappointment.

We could see signs of the flooding all around the bayou, from still-clogged gutters to washed out banks and sediment on the sidewalks.  The Opera and Ballet theaters right next to the river were both closed and having extensive repair construction done.  Up to that point, we hadn't seen any of the devastation caused by Harvey, but the effects are definitely still there in the places that had the most flooding.
I had loose plans to go to the aquarium.  It's pretty pricey so I was a little reluctant, and when we saw the huge lines of field trip groups waiting for it to open my mind was made up for me.  It was just too busy.  However, it was pretty windy and yucky and I was honestly tired of being outside.  I had a few more parks planned but I scrapped it all and we walked back to the train.

Its fun to walk around downtown among all the people and skyscrapers, but I did get lost several times.  We finally found a station and rode south to the Children's museum, again.

 

This time we got to try more of the "matter" exhibits.  I'm glad we did - they were so fun!  They had several vacuum systems with different kinds of balls where you could see physics at work.

When we went to catch the train back downtown for lunch, there was a weird box with wires, a timer, and batteries zip tied together and I legitimately thought it must be a bomb.  Just as we walked up a police team walked to their car and pulled away, so I assumed they weren't that concerned, but it still freaked me out.  I sent Tyler a text saying something like "I might be about to get blown up.  If I do, sorry I was too lazy to run, my feet really hurt.  I love you."

Once we got on the train Eli just wanted me to hold him.  This is pretty unusual for him when something as exciting as a train ride is going on, but we'd been going to bed late and getting up early with no naps so I just assumed he was exhausted.  A few hours later he started running a fever and he threw up everything he ate for dinner that night, so actually the poor guy was coming down with the flu. 

Alas, we had no hotel to go to and there wasn't anything I could do, so we continued with our day.  We walked to a Chick-fil-A in a mall near the conference center.  This particular mall caters to professionals from the office towers taking their lunch break.  I got there later than I planned (because I got lost walking from the train station) so we arrived during the crazy lunch rush.  It was insane.  But TJ and I were starving so I just had to tough it out.  The chick-fil-A had a crazy line with line guides that were extremely narrow.  I had my big double stroller, and by now Eli was completely asleep so I didn't want to get him out.  It was so busy, I also didn't feel comfortable just leaving him in the stroller while I went and bought food.  I was at a loss.  I just stood there looking at the line and trying t o think of a solution.  I got lots of sympathetic glances, lots of faces that said "I'm glad that's not my problem," and a few eye rolls.  But one sweet guy, probably around Tyler's age, halfway through the line, offered to order for me so I wouldn't have to wait in line.  I was so grateful!  I gave him our order and a gift card to pay with.

We waited off to the side.  When he finished ordering, they came over with our food right away.  He had remembered the whole order, even the kids' drinks!  I thanked him and asked him his name.  I also asked about the cost and offered him cash in case the card hadn't covered everything, but he said it was fine.  He seemed busy and anxious to get on his way, so we took our food and headed out.  Today, I checked the gift card balance (because I thought there should be a few dollars left) and found out he didn't use it at all!  It was so, so nice of him to help out a frazzled mom with little kids and even nicer of him to buy our lunch.  Thank you, CJ from Houston!  It was the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for me.

We ate our lunch on the grass at the park.  It was sunny and beautiful with a nice cool breeze.  We walked over to the conference center to peek in on the bar examiners.  From the second floor, you could look down into the testing room.  They had a no pictures rule, so I snapped this from a ways back, but the room was huge.  There were nearly 3,000 people taking the bar this week in Houston.  When Tyler took the bar in New Mexico, there were less than 100 people taking it with him. 

Eli was still asleep, so we walked to the car and TJ got changed into his swimsuit.  Back at the park, TJ played in the splash pad while I held little Eli.

They had this splash pad (above) and this awesome water feature (below) that were both lots of fun.

It was a nice day, but a little too chilly for getting wet, so after a few minutes, TJ was ready to go play on the playground.  Eli had passed clean out in the stroller.  I laid it all the way down and he slept and slept, so I set up camp on the grass and TJ played the afternoon away.

Around 4:30 we headed back to the conference center and waited for Tyler to finish. We all walked back to the car together, picked up dinner (which Eli promptly threw up), and drove home.  We are absolutely beat, but it was a really fun trip and now Tyler has another bar under his belt.  He will get the results at the end of April!  Now we just have to wait.