Houston 2015 – Part 2

Onto the rest of our Houston trip!!

Monday we went to the Houston Zoo.  This was the only outdoor activity I had planned since the entire month of May was rain upon rain upon rain in Texas.  I’m sure you heard about our crazy rain and flooding, which thankfully has made for a mild summer so far!  Well it didn’t rain that day…it was hot and humid, thankfully the zoo had lots of shade and they were handing out little paper fans that had a mini map on the back of it.  On this particular day they set up booths, marked on the map, where you would visit and a worker would mark your map.  If you visited all the booths then you could get a free sno cone.  Ian kept asking me what the fan was called and I would tell him “fan”, after the 5th time I changed my answer to “it’s a cool zone” and that stuck…so he kept asking for his “cool zone” to fan himself.

 

The kids really enjoyed seeing all of the animals.

The newest attraction was the Gorilla exhibit.  They had built a huge area for these gorillas and there was an indoor (with A/C) viewing area, it was crowded with people both trying to see the gorillas and trying to escape the sun and heat.  It was very crowded and Mr. A wanted to take see if he could take some photos, so me and the kids sat in a corner waiting and resting.  Mr. A came back and told me I had to go and see the gorilla who was totally putting on a show.  I went over to where there was a HUGE crowd of people and the gorilla really did put on a show.  He would put his foot up on the glass and people would cheer and he would walk away then come back and put his other hand on the window and wait for the cheers.  Truly amazing how smart these animals are.

We ate some lunch in the zoo that wasn’t that memorable…some chicken strips and fries.  We also went on the hunt for our free sno-cone, which we found and enjoyed.

Then Ian saw a carousel and demanded that we get on it, so I obliged.  He wanted to ride the giraffe, but some other kid was on it, so he settled for a zebra.  Jensen had fallen asleep by this point.

Then it was time to make the 4 hour drive back home.  Again, Ian slept the whole time even through the torrential rain storm we got hit with about 2 hours into our trip.  Jensen stayed awake the whole time and again was surprisingly very well behaved the whole time!

We made it home safely, but when we read the news how so many areas of Houston got badly flooded we were grateful we didn’t make our trip any longer than it was!