When you have kids, you catch yourself saying things that would sound completely ridiculous in any other situation. Today’s phrase of the day is “Get your cereal and go potty.”
We haven’t had much time to really go out and do much this week. Jeannie’s been working extra shifts; she was off Monday, half of Tuesday, and Friday. We did go out to a restaurant called DoubleDave’s. The pizza’s not bad, it’s actually a bit cheaper than Pizza Inn since you don’t have to factor in a tip (at least we didn’t, since we got our own refills and no one came by the table). The pizza received Thomas’s seal of approval.
On the way back from taking Jeannie to work this morning, I saw that the church I blogged about earlier was going to do their drive-thru prayers again. Here’s the proof:
We started our second day in Galveston by eating breakfast at Denny’s (my first time there). Then we went to the beach. Sometimes Thomas would chase the ocean…
…and sometimes the ocean chased Thomas back.
Catherine’s first time in the ocean:
Then we headed back to Moody Gardens. There were a lot of kids there on a field trip, they were outside the Aquarium Pyramid eating lunch. Thomas put on a show by chasing pigeons and just showing off. I guess he did pretty good, because one boy came up to him and gave him a cookie. Then another girl came up and gave him one too. You can see him here a free cookie in each hand.
Inside the main building of Moody Gardens (where the Imax and 4D theater are at) they had a display promoting their Palm Beach attraction (I believe it’s their water park, wasn’t open at the time). Well, it’s hard to tell Thomas he’s not allowed to play with sand toys that are in dirt, when there’s no fence to keep you out.
After that we went to a playground for a while, then started to head back to the RV. Stopped at the Space Center since it was practically on the way. This time I took more time to explain how the space shuttle worked and I think he understood some of what I said (he’d make a rocket sound while moving his arm up, like a rocket taking off). He might have even understood what he was touching when he touched the moon rock again. This time when we looked at the mock-up of the moonscape (with earth in the background), he just looked at it for quite a while. I think some of this stuff is sinking in. He even seemed to enjoy simply looking at a life-size engine from the space shuttle.
We went to Galveston, TX for a couple days. Our first day we went to Moody Gardens (their Rainforest Pyramid was still closed). We went to the Aquarium Pyramid (it’s ok, but not that great), the steamboat, and the Discovery Pyramid (they only have one exhibit at a time and this one was about bones, kinda disappointing).
Here’s Thomas trying to get out of a shark cage (note to Thomas, you want to stay IN the shark cage when there’s sharks around).
Here’s one of Catherine showing off her tummy.
Here’s the Steamboat we rode around on for about 45 minutes.
Thomas sat on this bench just looking out for quite a while.
Here’s Jeannie and Catherine enjoying each other’s company.
What steamboat ride would be complete without a piggyback ride?
Then we headed to the Discovery Pyramid. Part of the Bones exhibit showed different things used to protect your bones (such as a helmet).
After Moody Gardens we went to the hotel, rested up, ate, then went to the pool. Jeannie and Thomas played in the main pool. It had a swim up bar (which was closed) with barstools that were under water. Thomas had a ball jumping from barstool to barstool (Jeannie was assisting). I stayed in the hot tub with Catherine (she was in her car seat next to the hot tub, it might have been a tad too warm for her to actually get in). Then we went back to our room and got some sleep.
Didn’t do much on Easter. There was a bad storm when an easter egg hunt was scheduled, so we weren’t able to do that. We did get our Easter pictures taken care of though.
First thing we did was go to the zoo. Here’s Thomas standing in a puddle of water inside a tree trunk.
When we got back to the RV we took some more pictures. Here’s one of Catherine:
Thomas noticed that Catherine was laying in the grass and getting lots of pictures taken of her, so he wanted in on the action. I decided I’d go ahead and join him, so here’s a picture of the three of us.
We almost turned around to get a picture of this. People were on the side of the road holding up signs such as “Lost, get directions” and what-not. Then we see what’s going on, a local church is offering drive-thru prayers, and there was actually a line of people in this drive-thru. It’s only a matter of time before they team up with other drive-thrus. I’ll take my McPrayer supersized.
Edit: Here’s proof:
We went to a GIANT $ grand opening today (that’s the store’s name, GIANT $). I guess they used to be a dollar store, but they’re now a $1.09 store. The ad (which had the wrong address, 1328 is NOT 13128) made it sound great with a clown, face painting, balloons, ice cream, etc. Well they ran out of ice cream, and had one person kinda dressed as a clown doing balloons and face paintings. Thomas wouldn’t be still for a painting so he just had a balloon. We got some cheap chinese toys for him.
My project today was to change the transmission fluid in our van. The old fluid looked like old motor oil. Found two coolers, one said it was an oil cooler, the other wasn’t labeled. Figured it wouldn’t be the oil cooler (I mean, it’s called transmission fluid, not transmission oil) so I disconnected the other one. It was red and smelled like transmission fluid (which was odd, since the dipstick had brown fluid on it). Started the van up and let it pump out what should have been six quarts of fluid, but only seemed like one or less (yes, the manual says to disconnect the hose and run the van for a minute to pump out all the old transmission fluid). Well, the fluid level didn’t change, tried to figure out what went wrong…and noticed I was out of power steering fluid. Doh!
So I reconnected that, disconnected the hose from the oil cooler, and compared how the oil looked and smelled (dark like the transmission fluid, not nice and clear like the new motor oil). With Jeannie’s help (she manned the ignition and shift lever) we got the fluid out. Put back in five quarts, and had the level perfect (it takes 8.5 quarts, but you’ll only get about six out). Then noticed the dipstick was jamming and not going all the way in (because it accidentally went in smoothly once). Went ahead and drove it about ten miles or so to get it up to temp (to accurately measure the level), then back home and siphoned out about two quarts.
Oh, and I found out the power steering fluid is nearly impossible to find, even at a Kia dealership. After some googling, saw that people were being told that the Kia SP-III transmission fluid was the same as PSF-III power steering fluid. Well both are dyed red, and both smelled like transmission fluid, so I just put in almost a quart of transmission fluid for the power steering. Made some weird sounds until the air got out of the lines, and seems fine now.
Today we went to check out Houston’s tunnel system. First stop was the Houston Shops, it’s a mall downtown that many don’t know exists. Food court is very busy during lunch, since there are skywalks that connect many of the office buildings to it. One of the restaurants is called Doozo Dumplings and Noodles. I heard it was supposed to be very good, with long lines that moved quickly, and there was a lady that was like the soup nazi of Seinfield fame (there’s even an article on their wall that references that). Well, we got to the food court, walked around until we found a long line (it meandered through a coral in front of their restaurant, and in front of another restaurant, then a bit further down), and I told Jeannie to hurry and check out the menu and decide exactly what she wanted. The line did move quickly and she got her order without any issues. She did notice one person meekly asking if they could have more sauce. Beware the Dumpling Nazi! BTW, though I don’t like dumplings, they were decent. Jeannie really liked them, she had half pork and half veggie.
Next we went to the tunnel system. Meandered around a bit, found our way to Macy’s, then headed back. I don’t think many tourists know about the tunnel system.
On the way back from Macy’s Jeannie noticed some kind of water show. We go up to investigate, and there’s jets of water that have a bit of a show on each side of two train tracks. Thomas tried to get in, was upset that we wouldn’t let him, but was somewhat content with the water spray getting in his face. Here’s a picture:
Here’s a picture of one of the tunnel signs, just to prove we were in fact in a tunnel.
Lastly here’s a picture of a random spot in the tunnel. Lots of food places but we also saw at least one convenience store, barber shop, and a shoe shine place. We didn’t even cover a small fraction of the tunnel system.
I’ve just registered TheTannerFamily.com and moved all the old posts over to the new site. If you’re reading this, you’re already at the new site, so enjoy!
As many of our long-time readers know (hello Mom and Dad and Jeannie’s sister), our Saturn station wagon has had problems since we bought it. It was still drivable, and made several long distance trips (to visit family and back, and add in all the driving around while visiting, is between 350-400 miles). We’ve been looking for a good deal for a while, and didn’t just buy the first thing we could afford. I figured if the car broke down, we’d have it towed somewhere (we have roadside assistance) and heck, the RV is a vehicle right?
Well, we found a 2005 Kia Sedona on eBay, did the Buy-It-Now on March 24th, and picked it up this past Sunday (March 29th). Yesterday my wife asked if the car should make a loud sound after the key was out, said it sounded like the fan was still running. I asked what the temperature was, she said it was fine that morning but didn’t look at it that afternoon (argh!). Coolant was a bit low so I top it off, tell her maybe she should take the van this morning, but she figures it’ll make it since it’s just 9 miles away. Well I get a call about 15 minutes later saying it started to overheat. Long story short, I pack up the kids in the van, pick up Jeannie, and drop her off at her work. Then back to the RV, hook up the tow dolly, back to the car, hook it up, bring it back, and disconnect everything.
So, we got the van just in time, and the car probably kicked the bucket about the time she was pulling into the rv lot last night. Still, she was less than 15 minutes late to work, and we have another vehicle that can be used now.
Today was our second visit to the Houston Space Center. Thomas didn’t concentrate as much on the Space Shuttle displays this time, but did seem interested in the astronaut helmets (both the ones you can try on, and the ones in the gift shop). He also got to touch a moon rock!
Here he is in a mission simulator. He’s good at using joysticks, but just didn’t seem to want to use them on this. He did have a ball getting pushed around though.
Here’s Thomas touching his first moon rock!
And here’s Thomas inside a space station.
After that we headed back to the RV, Thomas woke up, then we went back out to Pizza Inn and to Firestone to get the new van aligned.