Texas

Well, as many of you have already heard from Joe, we had a great time last week in Texas! In less than a week, we visited or passed through five major Texas cities: Ft. Worth, Austin (saw the capitol building from the interstate!), San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas in that order.

Before I proceed to a synopsis of our week, I need to share some observations about Texas. If you are reading my blog and you are from Texas, please don't take offense. These were just things I noticed that struck my very Okie mind as funny.

Texas is officially called the Lone Star State. Just in case you didn't know this, they very prominently display a large lone star above the fireplace in the welcome center as soon as you cross the border. (A fireplace, I was relieved to note, that was not lit in our upper nineties weather.) I took the opportunity to lecture the girls on the lone star. I needn't have bothered. There would be many more such opportunities: in Cracker Barrel in Ft. Worth, on every overpass (and there were many. large. ones.) in Austin, and on every second billboard.

It was on the Austin overpasses that it hit me: there are so many lone stars that they cannot possibly be called "lone" anymore. Perhaps it was alone at some point, but no more. So the great state of Texas, where everything is bigger, has had its name reduced simply to "The Star State." Or I suppose you could lengthen the name to "The Multiple Star State."

Then there are the crazy people in south Texas who think that a heated swimming pool is really cool. I personally would prefer it to be cool in actuality. When the temperature is 89 degrees, I'd like to cool off, not warm up, when I jump in the pool, thank you very much.

And finally, there are these other people. (They may not all be Texans, so don't blame it all on Texas.) Jesus referred to them as "foolish men" and it is widely known (even a three-year-old can tell you) that their houses are bound to fall flat. They build them on the beach. I'm serious. These huge beach homes built out of thin wood, up on thin wood stilts, on the sandy beach grass, where you can still see the sad remains of similar abandoned beach homes half knocked down by Hurricane Ike right next door. There were entire hotels built out into the ocean in Galveston that had been virtually destroyed by the hurricane. Joe has pics of one or two of these on his blog if you want to check them out. I can't figure out what these people are thinking. Either they really are terribly stupid, or else they just have so much money that they can afford to "blow it" (literally) in the next big storm to hit the gulf coast. But if they have that much money, why don't they build a nice place in Hawaii? Weird.

Anyway, despite a few Texan oddities, we had a great week as follows:

Monday: San Antonio children's museum while Joe was in conference ($7 each, and worth every penny), and river walk when he got out. The river walk is absolutely beautiful, albeit very hot this time of year.

We also saw the outside of the Alamo, which was a highlight for me. I still hope to someday visit the inside as well. I want to see the spot where Davy Crocket (or was that the Duke? I'm never really sure) fell against the wall clutching his chest at the end. I guess the Alamo really doesn't affect me in any particular way. It has very little or nothing to do with Oklahoma, or even the United States, except in the area of freeing a piece of land that would one day become our neighbor. But it still fascinates me to no end.

Wednesday: Galveston beach
The kids really weren't impressed. It was very hot and they wanted to go back to our air conditioned room. They found a few shells and dug around in the sand some. We finally made them get int the water, but they really didn't like it. We sat in water about 6-8 inches deep for about an hour, and the whole time they were all (even A2) complaining and wanting to get out. Sigh. Oh well. Joe and I enjoyed ourselves.

Thursday: Moody Gardens rain forest pyramid, swimming pool, more beach
The rain forest was kind of neat: lots of plants jungles on various continents, a few fish, some macaws. A large portion of the exhibit (the underground portion) was seriously damaged by Hurricane Ike, so it seemed small, and in the end we agreed it wasn't even as nice as the Crystal Bridge in downtown OKC. But it was fun.

The swimming pool was a big hit, especially with A2. He loved the heated water. When we left on Friday, he was still trying to drag us back to the pool. The kids all had fun playing in there, once they warmed up to it. J even swam a little bit in her floaty swim suit. The first time was an accident. She slipped off of the ledge she was walking around the outside of the pool on. That scared her, but I pulled her up a bit and got her to kick some and in the end, I think she enjoyed it. She tried it a couple more times before we left, although she didn't want to let go of my hands. A was not about to even consider such nonsense.

The beach was a little more fun because we didn't make them get in the water, and it was cooler because it was evening. Joe built them a giant sand castle and they decorated it with shells and then wrecked the whole thing. I found a dead sand crab, and thought the girls would be excited, because the Wiggles sing a song about finding sand crabs on the beach, but all they said was a very skeptically critical "It's supposed to be RED!" (It was gray.) I took a float way out, and rode waves in, and had a great time. Back in the pool again until it closed at 10.

Friday: Moody Gardens aquarium pyramid, Rain forest Cafe
The aquarium was better than the rain forest had been, although after seeing the Dallas aquarium, it didn't seem very exciting to Joe and I. The girls got to see sharks, though, which was what they had been talking about the whole trip (they expressed partial relief and partial disappointment when I told them there would be no sharks at the beach). There was this really cool room totally surrounded by a huge aquarium with all kinds of fish and underwater animals in it. They also had penguins, and TONS of school children on field trips.

The Rain forest Cafe was really neat. The inside of the restaurant is decorated like a...you guessed it...RAIN FOREST! Branches and vines with flowers and monkeys on them hanging from the ceiling. Walls totally covered in various plants. Large fish tanks with colorful fish here and there throughout the eating area. The restaurant divided from bar and gift shop by a wall with a canal of water in the top that steams. Every now and then, they dim the lights and flash lightening and crash thunder, and pound rain. There are two life-sized elephants and three lift-sized gorillas that make authentic noises and movements every five minutes or so. The sound effects and giant animals scared the girls half to death the first time. Oh, yes, and the food. De.li.cious. Absolutely. Reminded me of things I ate in Guyana that I've been missing for fourteen years. It was really an experience. If you're ever in Galveston, you should go there, even if all you get is the chocolate-brownie-over-ice-cream-dessert-dish-with-fireworks-exploding-in-the-top thingy.

All in all, it was a great week. Not relaxing. I've given up on having any kind of relaxing vacation with MSC in tow. But fun. It's so cool to watch the wonder in their eyes as they discover new things.

So now we're back in good ol' [hot] OK, with Vacation Bible School looming before us. So there won't be too much blogging for a few weeks, I'm afraid. My head will be too full of swamp critters. But thought I'd leave you with this hysterical video from Mark Lowry. Just in case you don't know what our VBS theme is. I wish we could get him to come perform this in person for our program.