houston

Since Tyler's New Mexico bar does not transfer to Texas, we knew he would have to retake the bar here.  The bar is administered twice a year.  The spring session for Texas this year was in Houston.  We planned the trip, and I planned out a sweet itinerary for me and the kiddos so we could do some sight seeing while Tyler was testing all day.  I did a ton of research to find activities that would be budget and kid friendly.  We drove down Monday afternoon and grabbed a late dinner before checking into our Airbnb. 

Here is our traditional picture of Tyler driving!

We left at nap time so both the kids slept for a solid two hours it was heaven.  My parents sent us a fun little care package for the trip, since they knew how excited I was about it!  My mom even included little toys for the kids to unwrap in the car.  We had fun treats from the package too (I never splurge for fun treats for road trips) so it was a really fun drive.

Side note on Airbnb - this was our first time using it and I am so happy with the experience.  We got a really nice high-rise apartment in downtown at a reasonable price.  The hotels in the area were so pricey!  We had a one-bedroom apartment with a full-size kitchen and a great view.  This is definitely how I will be traveling in the future.  Especially with kids, we loved having a bedroom to put them in instead of all of us having lights out at 7 pm in a crowded hotel room.

On Tuesday morning, we drove Tyler to the convention center to start his test at 7:30.  None of my planned activities started or opened until 9, so we mostly drove around downtown while the kids watched a movie in the back.  Eventually I found somewhere to park and we went to starbucks for some hot coco and coffee cake.  Finally, 9 rolled around and we walked to a Methodist church downtown.  I found them online, and they have an awesome indoor play area that is free to the public during parts of the week.  

The kids had a great time and I was glad we had something to do inside - it was a rainy day!

We went back to the apartment for lunch.  We enjoyed the view and watched the trains come and go from the balcony.

Tyler had a half-day of testing, so we picked him up and brought him home to study while we headed to the train station.  The kids loved riding the train everywhere.

We went the the Houston Children's Museum.  We get free admission through ASTC with our Perot pass, and we actually ended up going back every day.

Their signage claimed the Houston Children's Museum is the best children's museum in the country.  I don't know if that is actually true, but it is an incredible museum.  They had activities for kids of all ages that were well planned out.

We loved kidtropolis - it's  a mini-town where kids can do jobs, earn "money," and pretend to be grown-ups.  Obviously, the money and transaction bits were over my kids' heads, but they loved doing grownup things that were just their size.

Mail delivery was the first stop.  In addition to driving the mail truck (above), the kids could scan packages, push them down the mail line, and load them onto the truck.  My kids could have done this allllll day.

They had a stock trade area that was waaay above our level (above), as was the news station (below).

But seriously, how cute is this little desk?  With the broadcasting software (above) you can add backgrounds and send scripts to the teleprompters on the camera.  I wanted to stay and make a news cast but my kids were bored and done pretty quick.

They had a little ambulance where the kids could control the lights and play EMT.  There was also a police car, forensics lab, city planning area, and city council/voting booth.

The biggest hit was the grocery store.  I took lots of pictures and video because it was so cute.  If I could, I would transplant this whole little setup into my future basement because it is just so fun.

TJ was eager to grab a grocery list, but he could not stick to just the items on the list!  Whenever he saw an item he recognized, he added it to his basket.  Eli liked it too, but I could tell TJ was thrilled to be doing the shopping all by himself.  He loved pretending to be big and doing a job he knew how to do.

It was seriously amazing.  They had a sea food section, dairy, bread, produce, isles of dry goods.  Basically kid heaven.  I cannot imagine how much work it is to keep the whole thing so neatly organized.  Everyone is supposed to clean up their own groceries after shopping, and some people did, but I can't imagine everyone does!  I was just blown away by their willingness to put out so many loose props that could make a huge mess.  It really made the experience though.

The kids got to scan their food at checkout.  They had working computers where you could actually enter the items for a grocery total, but my little guys didn't bother with that.

The Cafe was the most popular exhibit in the area.  My kids loved it too, but it was crowded and they were ready to move on pretty quickly.

You could take orders, cash out at the register, cook the food, and serve it to the tables.  There were about six tables, all full of parents enjoying a short sit down!  Ha.

The last stop was the vet.  TJ was so cute - he was really into playing the role.  Getting each animal out of it's cage, checking it out, weighing it, and putting it carefully away.

Next we went outside.  The rain had cleared and it was warm and sunny, just right for playing in the water.

The central area of the museum featured really cool "secret agent" tasks that would be so fun for kids 8+, but were just a little too hard for my little guys.

In the basement, they had a cyberchase-themed exhibit where the kids could do basic math activities to save the day!  There were enough buttons to keep Eli entertained while TJ did some activities with me.

The other half of the basement had a physics experiment room.  The kids made parachutes and launched rockets with me.  We put their little parachutes up the wind tunnels over and over!  It was really fun to see them excited about it, even if they don't really understand the science yet.

 The big hit was the Lego race car track.

The idea was to build a car that was stable enough and had enough weight to get to the end of the track.

Of course, we were just happy building cars and sending them down over and over again.

I build both of the kids a basic car and they added the pieces they liked.  It was so fun.

After a while we finished up and went back upstairs to the "matter" exhibit.  The exhibits taught about particles, atoms, and elements.

But most importantly, they had adorable lab coats for the kids to wear.

We were getting pretty tired so we did a quick walk-through of the rest of the museum (I wouldn't have bothered if I'd known we were going to go back!) and then Tyler came and picked us up for dinner.  It was a rough night, we had some bad news.  After a yummy dinner at Olive Garden  we felt a little better, but went home exhausted and ready for bed!

Houston day 2