Another trip to the Houston Children's Museum

A while back, I bought a 2 for 1 Groupon for the Children's Museum.  So John and I took off on a Friday to explore the Museum.  We got to see lots of things we hadn't seen before.  Of course that is always the case in that museum.  We had a great time.  It's nice to visit places with friends, but sometimes it's lots of fun to go "solo".  Something we hadn't gotten to play with on our last trip was the puppets.  John really enjoyed the overly large colorful creatures, like this one.

And this dragon!

We found someone to swap photo taking with, so we got one of us together putting on a "show".

We also found the science lab, where we got to put some molecules together.  Funny thing is that I've got some of those molecule model builders at home.

And of course, we had to build us a rocket to launch.  I even managed to get some video of John launching it.

-EBP-

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Inspired

I manged to pull the camera out twice in one day for no particular reason except that I was inspired to.  I wasn't trying to capture anything in particular except that I saw light that I liked. 

 John thought he'd flash me his million dollar squinty-eyed smile a few times just for the camera.

Then it was back to business "working" on the computer at Starfall.com.  If you've got a preschooler, you've got to check this out.  It's free!  I finally decided I'd better "feed" his interest in learning to read.  These days he's asking what everything says, filing it away in his memory.  More often, he's reading signs, boxes, shirts, magazine covers, etc. on his own, usually 90% correct.  So I figured I'd better start laying the foundation of short vowels and long vowels.  We've talked about it but not with any consistency.  Starfall covers all that in their Learn to Read games and activities.

Later that evening when the light is so lovely, John went outside to play.  I hadn't originally gone with him, but I came out a little later to check on him.  I saw the light.  And HAD to go back inside to get the camera.  I ended up converting them to B&W because the White Balance wasn't great and the grass was really pathetic looking, being all dried and yellow.  And I'm really liking them in B&W.

Believe it or not, John asked me to take his picture lying in the grass like this.  We've taken photos like this several times recently and he must like it for some reason.  He must have been feeling like making me happy!

Then he got a bit silly.  Imagine that?!?

-EBP-

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Venturing out

Way back when - like two weeks ago, we took off on a family outing to Galveston.  JNP and I hadn't been since we moved here in 2003!  So with a great Groupon in hand we headed out to visit Moody Gardens on Saturday Sept 17 to visit the Aquarium and Rain Forest Pyramids.

They are pretty impressive sites.  Both of them are multi-level and made of glass, although the Rain Forest one has transparent glass to allow the sun in.  The Rain Forest one just reopened after remodeling from extensive Hurricane IKE damage.  We visited it first.

The coolest thing about the Rain Forest Pyramid was that some of the animals were allowed to "run free" inside the pyramid.  We saw lots of birds, a couple of different kinds of monkeys, a sloth asleep high in a tree, and this iguana (I'm assuming that's what he is) pictured above.  We came a round a corner and JNP pointed him out on the path right next to us.  He was enjoying the bright morning sun and seemed not too concerned about us.  My other photo was of the household namesake plant:  The Pitcher plant.  I'd seen photos but never one in real life.  It was pretty neat.  I might need to look into getting one if the knat problem in the house continues.

While JHP sometimes had trouble noticing the animals in their natural habitat, John did notice these "footprints" in the walkway.

There's a large pond in the center of the pyramid and we happened upon it at feeding time.  A keeper was there feeding the fish.  John marched right up and started asking all kinds of questions, including "Can I feed the fish?"  I thought the coolest part was when the keeper fed the stingray.  I didn't even know there were freshwater stingrays.  It was obvious who were the gluttons in the crowd by watching the fish feed.

After the Rain Forest Pyramid, we enjoyed the short walk over to the Aquarium.  The neat thing about this aquarium is that all the major exhibits have viewing at multiple levels.  We saw big tropical fish including sharks and stingrays.  We saw seals and 3 kinds of penguins.  And we even saw an octopus, which was super neat to watch move.

John did touch the water in the touch tank, but that was the limit of his touching.

I think the neatest part of the aquarium is that you can go "under the water" to see the fish in the reef / Gulf area.  You travel through a tunnel to find yourself in this large glass cylinder, say 20 feet wide or so.  It's like you are in the water with the fish.  There was so much to see.  Can you see the shark in the background (upper right) of the photo above?

We finished our trip to the Island with some much needed lunch at a local place.  The boys stuck with our normal Saturday fare, but I ventured a bit for a shrimp poboy that wasn't half bad.  After filling our bellies, we headed home to enjoy the rest of our weekend at home.

-EBP-

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