the last weekend in june, i picked up the kids early from their last day of school and we hit the road to meet up with my parents in houston. justin had end of quarter stuff at work, and we had the following week off, so it seemed like a good time to have a mini-vacation.
it was a fantastic weekend - definitely the best travel-with-kids experience i've had with the two of them. we got there friday afternoon and my parents were stuck in a flash flood in lake charles, so the littles and i took a run over to this giant waterfall thing by our hotel. loved that. then we hit up the lobby cocktail hour reception for "blubby" water and many, many snacks while waiting for kk and jj to arrive. we let ek stay up pretty late every night, but lil bro was done and went easily to bed on his nap mat on the floor each evening.
saturday we headed to the houston zoo, which was fabulous. i love that zoo. we saw an albino alligator (hollis makes the chomping motion on his belly with his hand and says "chomp!" as his alligator sound. it's awesome.), tons of snakes, giraffes (one of which was super close and we got to see its purple tongue eating leaves - emme was SO excited), big cats, bears, apes, and elephants (including a baby elephant named duncan and a mama elephant getting a bath). emme got ice cream and hollis got french fries, so they were pretty much in heaven. naps that afternoon weren't great (and were non-existent for h after his 7 minute car nap), but they held it together during the evening and we played with zoo toys in the hotel and ate take-out. fun.
one of the kids' favorite things were the hotel swans. there were two in the fountains in the atrium area, and the hotel manager let the kids feed them lettuce. it was really sweet. hollis called them ducks and emme called them geese, but i figure it's all just nomenclature - haha.
of course emme's "cozy little nest" is portable - this was the pile she made in the hotel room.
on sunday, we headed out to the butterfly garden and it was SO cool. you walk through a museum area first where they have hundreds of butterflies and moths emerging from their cocoons/chrysalises and other insect and spider info. i particularly enjoyed the 6-inch giant hissing cockroach display. not.
once you're through the museum, you walk into this big atrium area with butterflies everywhere. it was really pretty and so neat to see them fluttering all over the place.
the last stop at the butterfly place is another little museum-like area. the kids loved chasing the butterfly shadows on the walls, as did kk.
after a swim then a nap on sunday, we headed to pearland to visit some friends. emme and amelia played really well together, especially when they discovered their mutual love of thumb-sucking and tinkerbell. patrick grilled burgers and dogs and it was just so nice to hang with great friends. i wish we all lived closer/saw each other more.
and that was it! we headed home monday after breakfast. we love our time with kk and jj and i'm so grateful the kids have such a wonderful relationship with them. i didn't really get any great pictures, but hollis and jj were like two little peas in a pod the whole weekend. hollis is still (a week and a half later) asking for jj frequently.
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